"But couldn't you, somehow, glue on a pair of soles? any way to make them stick. I'll pay you anything, if you'll only make them last till I go home, or even till I get down the mountain. Now, I am sure you can do it, if you will only think so. Don't you know Kossuth says, 'Nothing is difficult to him who wills'?"
He was evidently moved by the earnestness of the appeal. "I suppose they'd be worth more to you now than half a dozen pair when you get home."
"Worth! why, they would be of inestimable value. Think of the snakes! I don't care how you do them, nor how you make them look. If you will only glue on, or sew on, or nail on, or rivet on, something that is thick and will stick, I will pay you, and be grateful to you through the remainder of my natural life."
"Well,—you leave 'em, and come over again this afternoon, and if I can do anything, I'll do it by that time."
"Oh! I am so much obliged to you"; and I went away in high spirits, just putting my head back through the door to say, "Now you persevere, and I am sure you will succeed."
I was as happy as a queen. To be sure, I had to walk home without any shoes; but the grass was as soft as velvet, and the dust as clean as sand, and it did not hurt me in the least. To be sure, he had not promised to mend them; but I had faith in him, and how did it turn out? Verily, I should not have known the boots, if I seen only the soles. They were clipped, and shaved, and underpinned, and smoothed, and looked as if they had taken out "a new lease of life."
"I don't suppose they will last you as long as I have been doing them," he remarked, with unprofessional frankness. I did not believe him, and indeed his prophecy was not true, for they are in existence yet, and I never disposed of "a quarter" in my life with more satisfaction than I dropped it that day into his benevolent hand.
A thousand years hence, when New Hampshire shall have become as populous as Babylon, this sketch may become the foundation of some "Tale of Beowulf" or other. At any rate here it is ready.
Of all the White Mountains, the one of which you hear least said is Agamenticus, and perhaps justly, for it is not one of the White Mountains, but an isolated peak by itself. My information concerning it is founded partly on observation, partly on testimony, and partly on memory, supported where she is weak by conjecture. These sources, however, mingle their waters together somewhat too intricately for accurate analysis, and I shall, therefore, waive distinctions, and plant myself on the broad basis of assertion, warning the future historian and antiquary not take this paper as conclusive without extraneous props.
Agamenticus is a huge rock rising abruptly from a level country along New Hampshire's half-yard of sea-shore. As it is the only large rock on the eastern coast of the United States, it is in invaluable beacon to mariners. The first city ever built on American continent was laid out at its base, the remains are now visible from its summit; but, as funds failed, and the founders were killed by the Indians, it was never completed, in fact was never begun, only laid out. To the east I was certain I saw Boar's Head and a steamer steaming towards it, till I was assured that in such case the steamer must have been steaming over the corn-fields, because, unlike Aenon near to Salim, there was no water there. So I suppose it must have been