im. After two or
three huge yawns, he spread out his arms, but, unable to stretch
himself, yawned again, rolled himself off the bed, and crept feebly
across the room to an empty chest that stood under the skylight.
There he seated himself, and for half an hour sat motionless, a
perfect type of dilapidation, moral and physical, while a little way
off stood Gibbie, looking on, like one awaiting a resurrection. At
length he seemed to come to himself--the expected sign of which was
that he reached down his hand towards the meeting of roof and floor,
and took up a tiny last with a half-made boot upon it. At sight of
it in his father's hands, Gibbie clapped his with delight--an old
delight, renewed every Sunday since he could remember. That boot
was for him! and this being the second, the pair would be finished
before night! By slow degrees of revival, with many pauses between,
George got to work. He wanted no breakfast, and made no inquiry of
Gibbie whether he had had any. But what cared Gibbie about
breakfast! With his father all to himself, and that father working
away at a new boot for him--for him who had never had a pair of any
sort upon his feet since the woollen ones he wore in his mother's
lap, breakfast or no breakfast was much the same to him. It could
never have occurred to him that it was his father's part to provide
him with breakfast. If he was to have none, it was Sunday that was
to blame: there was no use in going to look for any when the shops
were all shut, and everybody either at church, or closed in domestic
penetralia, or out for a walk. More than contented, therefore,
while busily his father wedded welt and sole with stitches
infrangible, Gibbie sat on the floor, preparing waxed ends,
carefully sticking in the hog's bristle, and rolling the
combination, with quite professional aptitude, between the flat of
his hand and what of trouser-leg he had left, gazing eagerly between
at the advancing masterpiece. Occasionally the triumph of
expectation would exceed his control, when he would spring from the
floor, and caper and strut about like a pigeon--soft as a shadow,
for he knew his father could not bear noise in the morning--or
behind his back execute a pantomimic dumb show of delight, in which
he seemed with difficulty to restrain himself from jumping upon him,
and hugging him in his ecstasy. Oh, best of parents! working thus
even on a Sunday for his Gibbie, when everybody else was at churc