The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1895-02-22
OUR BOYS AND GIRLS.
THE ADVENTURES OF A LITTLE
PURITAN.
saIiie Coleman's Two Red Shoes That
Were New Two Hundred Years Ago
What Aunt Laura Knows About Com
posItions--Pick ToothS.
Two Red Shoes.

when Milton was writing those state
ly cantos of the PARADISE Lost" and
King Philip and his Indians were
making so much trouble for our great
grandfathers on the New England
frontiers.
How curious she would look to us
in her quaint, old-fashioned dress,
made just like her mothers, so that
she resembled little old woman in
miniature! Her jacket of white linen
was drawn about her waist with
black cord, and met the blue wooden
petticoat that had not n floInce or n
rutlle on it.
She wore on her head, over her
short silky curls, a small, stiff linen
cap, for bangs had not been invented
then. A pair Of red shoes completed
the toilet of this little Puritan maiden
except when she went to church, and
then she put Oh high crowned, steeple
shaped hat and threw long red cloak
over her shoulders.
Very much like this, excepting the
hat and cloak, looked little Sally
Coleman one September morning in
1877.
She was only a 5-year- old girl, and
those little red shoes were fresh and
new from the counter of Il small store
in Hatfield, on the Connecticut river,
then a small border town Very
proud was Sally of those little red
shoes, and she was busy trying them
on and thinking how nice they would
look on Sunday as she went with her
father into the square, barn-like
wooien church to listen to one of
Parson Tenney's long sermons. She
had Just put them on and was walk
ing up and down the kitchen floor
when she was startled by loud war
whoop; and Immediately several
painted Indians, looking very fright
full with their war dress and weapons,
rushed in and seized the little lady,
red shoes and all, and carried her
screaming away.
All in a moment the happy child
was made very sad one. She saw
her mother and her little sisters
killed by the red men, and her home
all in flames; and in company with
many another captive she was
marched into the wilderness.
To Canada, all the way over the
frozen lakes and rivers, and the hard,
rough ground, a desolate, tedious
journey in the cold autumn months,
tramped the red shoes Often
the little feet ware weary, and
often little Sally's heart must
have been despairing AMI ready to
faint by the wGyside.
One Of her savage captors took pity
on her forlorn cond ton, and did what
h could 10 help her, carrying her on
his brawny shoulders when she could
not walk farther, making n soft couch
of hemlock boughs for her comfort
when they cauIped at night, and Sc
lecting for the homesick little girl
the juiclest steaks from the sides of
bear and deer that he killed in hunt
ing.
So the red shoes did not wear out,
though they had to be mended more
than once with stout de- news.
And glad, you may be .., q, was the
pioneer John Coleman when the
faded, worn shoes crossed his thresh-
old, one bright May morning, having
been to Canada and back again. Some
good friends of the Colemans had in
fluence enough with the French and
the Indians to effect Sally's release,
and Count Frontenac the Frnch
governor. ordered gulrl of soldiers
to attend the child and her compan-
ions back to Hatfield.
And the cunning little shoes, soled
with leather from England, bound
with silk from Paris, sewed with
deer's siuews from the Canadian for
ests, whose red serge uppers were
brought from Holland by way of New
Amsterdam, may still be seen, soiled
and ragged, one of them in the collec-
ton of old South church, Boston, the
other in the museum of the Memorial
association of Deerfeld, Mass.
Just think of it--a pair of shoes
more than two hundred years old
and with such a historyl Would you
not like to see them? They are much
the oldest pair of shoes in America,
and think they ought to be kept
together.
Little Sally grew to be woman
and had children of her own, and |
dare say she often told them of the
journey those shoes had taken, and
of the bitter trials she experienced
as captive among the Indians. Very
likely, too, the children thought the
shoes quite rs wonderful as their
mother did, and never tired of hear
ing their story. l can imagine them
on Sunday night, when all was still
and the snow lay white and silent
around the pioneers house, Chamber
ing upon their mothers knee and
Whispering:
please tell us about the little red
shoes that went to Canada and back. !"
The little girl thai wore them has
been dead these long, long years;
and. but for those two little red shoes,
it is doubtful IL Sally Coleman would
be remem bered to-day. Certain it is.
l should not have had this story TO
tell for should not have thought of
IL but for seeing the interesting relics
during recent vacation. --Philadel-
phia Times.