“Mother,” she whispered, “may I wear my ‘brown bettys’? I’ll be so careful of them.”
“Brown bettys” was Lydia’s affectionate name for her new bronze slippers, slippers worn only on Sunday or upon special occasions, and Mrs. Blake raised her eyebrows at this request.
“Your best slippers?” said she. “Why should you wear them to the shoemaker’s? No, Lydia, I couldn’t consider it. It wouldn’t be suitable.”
“It would suit me very much,” pouted Lydia. “The shoemaker would like to see them, and maybe I’ll meet the minister. I want to wear them. I do.” And Lydia, with a frown on her face, stood kicking the piazza railing and scowling at her mother.
Mrs. Blake sewed for a moment without speaking. Then she looked down the path to the river.
“Here comes your father,” she said quietly. “Don’t let him see you with such a look on your face. Go in at once, and put on your black ‘criss-cross’ shoes, and when you come out I will tell you how to go to the shoemaker’s.”
As Lydia disappeared, Mr. Blake came slowly up the path, and threw himself into a porch hammock.
“Hot work, painting a masterpiece,” said he, with a yawn, and before Lydia came out in her black “criss-cross” shoes, as she called her strapped slippers, her father had fallen asleep.
Every morning, before the clock struck three, Mr. Blake was on his way up the river, and by the time the sun rose he was already hard at work upon his picture, for the subject of “the masterpiece” was Dawn on the River, and must be painted at dawn and at no other time. Naps followed such early rising as a matter of course, and Lydia, after a peep, came tiptoeing out on the porch as softly as could be for fear of wakening him. Her ill-humor had vanished, and she listened to her mother’s directions with not a cloud on her face.
“Go up the village road and take the first turn,” said Mother in a whisper. “Walk along until you come to something that doesn’t look one bit like a shoemaker’s shop. You will know it by the flowers, and by the trademark over the door. The shoemaker’s name is Mr. Jolly.”