as not often he had
anybody to talk to while he went on with his work. Therefore he said--

"But don't you think, Willie, before you set about it, you had better
see how I do? It would be a pity to spend your labour in finding out for
yourself what shoemakers have known for hundreds of years, and which you
could learn so easily by letting me show you."

"Thank you," said Willie, sitting down again.

"I should like that very much. I will sit and look at you. I know what
you are doing. You are fastening on the sole of a boot."

"Yes. Do you see how it's done?"

"I'm not sure. I don't see yet quite. Of course I see you are sewing the
one to the other. I've often wondered how you could manage with small
shoes like mine to get in your hand to pull the needle through; but I
see you don't use a needle, and I see that you are sewing it all on the
outside of the boot, and don't put your hand inside at all. I can't get
to understand it."

"You will in a minute. You see how, all round the edge of the upper, as
we call it, I have sewn on a strong narrow strip, so that one edge of
the strip sticks out all round, while the other is inside. To the edge
that sticks out I sew on the sole, drawing my threads so tight that when
I pare the edges off smooth, it will look like one piece, and puzzle
anybody who did not know how it was done."

"I think I understand. But how do you get your thread so sharp and stiff
as to go through the holes you make? I find it hard enough sometimes to
get a thread through the eye of a needle; for though the thread is ever
so much smaller than yours, I have to sharpen and sharpen it often
before I can get it through. But yours, though it is so thick, keeps so
sharp that it goes through the holes at once--two threads at once--one
from each side!"

"Ah! but I don't sharpen my thread; I put a point upon it."

"Doesn't that mean the same thing?"

"Well, it may generally; but _I_ don't mean the same thing by it. Look
here."

"I see!" cried Willie; "there is a long bit of something else, not
thread, upon it. What is it? It looks like a hair, only thicker, and it
is so sharp at the point!"

"Can't you guess?"

"No; I can't."

"Then I will tell you. It is a bristle out of a hog's back. I don't know
what a shoemaker would do without them. Look, here's a little bunch of
them."

"That's a very clever use to put them to," said Willie.

"Do you go and pluck them out of the pigs?"

"No; we buy them at