Page:New Peterson magazine 1859 Vol. XXXVI.pdf/97

PETERSON’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXXVI. THE LAME COBBLER.

BY MRS. N, A. DENTAON.

His name is Jake, and a jolly old soul is he as one may meet in this world of care. He winks at all the passers by; it is a habit of his, and everybody pardons him because-well, be- cause he is Jake, the lame cobbler. Deformed, uncouth, solitary old body though he is, he is universal favorite. The children from the great houses, yonder, attired in dainty apparel, shout and run after old Jake. The man of business greets old Juke with a bow; and many a lady smiles toward him with a grace and freedom that the young beaux might covet.

Old Jake is a character.

He lives in a little shingled house, whose one room holds his bed, his tools and himself, and there he cobbles from morning till night. The little child-that child with the wide brow and unshadowed eyes-he is gone now-but stop; I'll tell you the story.

One day-it was in the long ago, the old man waked up from an extempore nap over his lap- stone, and found himself nodding in the face of a queer-looking woman, who sat heated and dusty before him, holding a little child. She told him, {a strange smile by no means making her more attractive.) that she had taken the liberty of coming in, seeing his door open, for she had walked a long way, and was very tired.

“Sartingly, ma'am, sartingly!” said old Jake, giving the baby one of his queer winks, and favoring her with another, ‘‘jest set as long as you like;” and he commenced sundry contor- tions, intended to amuse the little one, with whose beauty he seemed mightily taken, and whose large, blue eyes, through some sort of  magnetic influence, were fastened on his face, while its rosy mouth dimpled with a good-natured smile. Presently the woman asked if she might lay the baby down for a few minutes, while she went into a shop a little ways down on the street.

jake, winking with redoubled energy. So, after the woman had gone, he took the child in his lap, trotted it and sang to it till it went to over the lapstone as Jake had done; and then he laid it on the floor, and fell to wondering why the mother didn’t come after it.
 * Sartingly, ma’am, sartingly!” responded

An hour passed. The cobbler had been stand- ing in his shop door, winking at every woman that passed in his perplexity-looking in vain for the red face and green veil that had intro- duced the little innocent who slept so soundly on his floor.

Night came, and nobody claimed the child. What was Jake todo? It had lain awake kick- ing and crowing for another full hour, while Jake, forgetting his supper, sat meditating with his hands thrust in his pockets. But the child never asked to be cared for, or even to be looked at. It was a strange baby, and his good heart would not let him turn it off; so hoping that the woman had lost her way and would return on the morrow, he resolved to keep the child all night Many a night after did it sleep on his broad chest-many a day did it eat of his coarse bread and fresh milk, thriving, handsome, and so sweet-tempered that he declared it would learn everything but one—-and that was—how to cry.

So pretty it looked! in its coarse, unshapely garments—which I shrewdly suspect the old cob- bler made himself—laughing and crowing, by-   and- by talking its pretty baby talk over the bars   the old man put up for it.

It never seemed to interfere with his business: never teased him nor his customers, but was so   gentle and tractable that more than one rich man   made an offer to take it off his hands. But no— it made old Jake too proud and happy—he  couldn’t hear of it; wait till he was dead and  gone, he said, then they might have his pet.

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