The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1877-07-06
A Wonderful Shoe.


able shoe is not in the least degree exaggerated
| OWED
To an old Shoe that was at the last meetn' @
the Deer Crick Farmers Klub.
Tremenjus shoe so old and patched and moldy
Lookin' as tho you'd just slept out
o. some giants grave, onto this fore, where tn
| Klub
| Is met for discusshun!
| You are perhaps, the most wonderful
| Shoe i'll Ameriky! YOU'RE sixteen inches long,
And five acrost the solc-and your uppers
Is composed of seventeen patches, from the siz
or a squirPs earup to q kabbage leaf
| All sowed together with wax ends as big us
The tarred fodder strings the Klub uses. You
| soles
| Is composed of thirteen leather chunks,
| (All sizes,) sllured with wooden pins.
| You way six pounds-down waite, at that, OLE
| shool
You was Stuffed off, some twenty years ago,
| BY uncle Mia, an old darby who helped
| To raise many kart load o. corn and taters
| On these hills, and who amt quite peggcd ou
vet.
You was brot, old shoot. this very momn',
A considerable distance, by ant Peggy,
| 10 show to the Klub, as preshuS airloom
| Or the Bond family, to which she is allied
She started early with you and your mate,
Old shoe! a hangin' acrost her sholcdcrs;
But both Of you was too much for her,
And SO she flung t'othcr one in the fence corner,
In order to git you here in time for the Klub.
Old uncle Mia Stuffed you off, old shoe!
When he found old age was weakenin' of him,
SO he could no longer carry q hole oxs hide
Over the plowcd ground, on each one of his feet;
And he had to 90 barefooted as he used to do
When he was pickaninny.
Old shoe you remind me of the old friggat
The Constitushun, which our Uncle Sam
Made such patch work of her noble hull,
There was nothin left of her Original timbers.
Orlike the Constitushun of our b'loved country
Which the darncd Gankys have been tinkerin'
at
Takin out sound timbers and putin rotten
ones
In, till there's hardly enutr left for decent
white man
To stand on-specially if he stands in Shoes
AS big as you are.
Old shoe uncle Mia, of wet days,
lnsted of loafin' about his cabin and sleepin'
Like other niggers, he would set to work
And patch up all your holes hisself
So he'd have no cobbler's bill to pay.
Old shoe! this Klub is much interested in you
Because of the great corn crops witch, of need
Cessity,
Must a been raised in your big patches,
Tho no rcglar report of 'em has come down to
Your patches are hardly big enuif to be called
lields)
Old shoe! you must had many a bunyon
sutlerin' in your prison, and maxim progress
Tho it mightent a been the same kind o. pro-
Exackly as John Bunyon's pilgrim was maxim,
Old shoe!
The old woman that lived in shoe
Might lived in you,
And mad room for her taters in your forrerd
end, too,
Where uncle Mia used TO store his corn crop.
Old shoo how this Klub would a liked to see
Uncle Mia dancin' one of his hoedowns
In you, of an evening, when he had throwcd his
hoe down.
1t would been sight (and sound, too,
lit was done on barn fore, 'thout man
Was stone deet, so he couldn't hear kannon.)
But after all, old SHOOT
| don't know but you
Might been one o. uncle Mas Sundy best,
And he might worn you to sec his sweetheart
After sliclim' you up a little;
Or you might been one of his pumps
To cut the pidgion wing in, or bubble shuttle.
But II you DdS any Of them old shoe
His workin' shoes must been whoppers
Old shoe! they say when uncle Mia cast you
off
For the first time since he was pickaninny
He acted like elder peth with bullet
Stuck on to the end of 1.-THE couldent keep
From standin' on his head occasionally.
Old shoe! | can see uncle Mia now,
With my potts eye, when the tryin' time had
come
| can see him debatin' with hisself,
Whether it wouldent be cheaper to have his feet
Took off, and purchiss wooden legs, and peg
His way to the pore house; but when he re-
tlecktcd
How that insttushun was conducted, he con-
cluded
To struggle on as his Kreator made him
And not mutylate hisself.
Old SHOOT if you had NV existed in
The times that tried mems soles, that sole
o. yours would been tried, and not foun' want
in
Neither. For if you'd been at Vally Forge,
That winter when Washington's men made soop
Out O their shoe lether, and let their feet
Go gin the frozen ground and crack 'em
Open, and bleed till the British could track 'em,
What power o. soop you'd made
Billed up with inguns
Yes, you'd a lasted that army morc'n week.
Old shoe! if uncle Mia was only in Minnysotcr
With you and your mate, and could tramp round
active
Like he used to, cant help thinkin
What q power o. them cussed hoppers he could
Crush out in day; and how the Farmers
Hubs there
Would honor him, and resolve it was another
Proof that uncle Mas rasc was superior to
The bloated Kawcashian
But then, old shoe!
| can't help thinkin', too,
What power o. Hartford county grass, and
timmithy
And buckwheat you must laid low in your
time!
And the quantity o. mashed turnips you must a
made
While uncle Mia was trampin' round, with your
ATTY
Square inches o. sole land your mate atty awlso,
Maxim hunderd and sixty in the clareD
Splurgin' round at night, amid the projuice
OF the sleepin' farmers, when he was younger.
Old shoe! il you was set up for cobbler's sign
On Main street, in Bell Are, can't help thinkin'
You'd attrack bizness.
Old shoe!
Your morrill, teachin's are good too
Shown as you do,
BY them thirteen patches on your sole
That any man, whatever his race and condishun,
May immytate uncle Mia, and save his sole
| Thirteen times-tho' wonst is ginerally s'posed
to be suflishent.
Old shoe! how | would like to know all about
| Your dark insides You look like that cave
Where old Putnam killed the ragin' wolf
But as there's only one man present that's
small enough
| To creep in you, aud he amt willin'
Tho the Klub offers to flemish tortches;
| And pay all the damage done to his cloZe.
Wen have to give it up. But, old SHOOT
When peep in you,
And see them spiders webs and jack dobbers'
nests, too,
can't help thinkin' that mebby
| There's lot o. bats hangin' up asleep
In your corn house end, and pair or two
| o. BOBBY owls sittin' on the top
OF an old peg, near where the martyr Buhyon
| Used to suffer. lfso, old shoe you're kind
o. Babylon,
And as you'll no doubt be on hand Cor FOOT
At the Hartford fair, next fall, we'll try to higher
Some cnterprisin' youth to enter your
| Mysterious nsidcs. And mebby pl be there,
too,
To give the world another owed, old shooi
P. ST the Drecktors could s'cure uncle Mia
To wear both of you round the track on foot,
| think it would draw Or if he's too old
To carry you round that way, you might both
Be hailed round on a Wagon, old shoe! But
In that case, stead o. drawin', you'd be drawed
| yourselves.
And mebby that wouldent do,
| Old shoe!