"I'd like to have a pair, but I haven't got the money to buy them."
Uncle Boley put them back without a word, an expression of loftiness coming over his hairy face.
"Well, I don't reckon I can fix your shoe. I ain't got time to fool with shoes."
Uncle Boley took his dangling threads and gave them the three little jerks which he always employed in tightening a stitch. "Where you from?"
"Topeka, and—Topeka, sir."
"Topeky?" Uncle Boley looked up with the word, a gleam of eagerness in his sharp, blue eyes. "Topeky, heh? Let me see that there shoe."
It had cast a heel, as a horse throws a shoe, and the stranger had it in his pocket. Uncle Boley said it was useless, for it was worn down to nothing but the shadow of a heel. He demanded to see the other one, and found it just as bad. He bent over his work again a little while, as if the case of the heels was beyond salvation and he had put it out of his mind.
"Take 'em off," said he, sewing away, not lifting an eye. "I'll fix 'em for you."
But the young man hesitated. He was concerned about the cost.
"Well, it won't make me and it won't break you," said Uncle Boley, with the largeness of a man to whom trifles are annoying.
