If they are bad, they develop corns and sores, and they go to pieces, and then what use are they?
One day I was playing in a football team, and I guess the shoemaker did not put his best into his job, for my right boot cracked and the sole fell in pieces, and if I had not borrowed one from another chap I would have been out of the game.
We all feel sorry for a poor fellow who has no good shoes. Somehow or other, even if the rest of your garments are threadbare, one does not look quite so badly off if the feet are well shod.
There is an interesting Bible story in Joshua of some of the people in Palestine who heard of the great deeds at Jericho and got afraid of Joshua and his army; and so they fixed themselves up like far-off strangers and took old sacks and old bound-up Eastern wine bottles and old garments and musty bread, and put old shoes on their feet.
The whole show worked on Joshua's heart, and he made a covenant with them, and when the surrounding people were conquered, these sly ones with the bad shoes were spared because Joshua, like the rest of us, felt sorry for people who looked so worn out.
What a splendid service is rendered by a good shoemaker, a real consecrated cobbler; and what a social wretch he is that makes boots just for pay, and passes out the kind that look all right, but are no use, and spoil the feet.
"If I were a cobbler, 'twould be my pride
The best of all cobblers to be.
If I were a tinker, no tinker beside
Should mend an old kettle like me."
Now, sometimes shoes are worn out without any good cause, like the copper toes a boy uses up, just by kicking, or the soles that go because he slides or slips along without lifting his feet square off the ground when he walks.
Parents get impatient at having to buy so many boots for children who wear them out so easily, and often can't show anything done.
But when a shoe is worn out by hard service, that old boot is quite an honourable object.