“There is no one on this side of the Schuylkill that can outdo me in puzzles this night, young man. And whatever your matter is, I’m quite sure that it can’t compare with the situation that I find myself in.”
“Why,” said Nat, and the watchful Porcupine saw an eager look come into his face, “I had not thought the making of boots so exciting a trade.”
“It has nothing to do with the making of boots,” replied the mechanic. “If it had, I could understand it readily enough. It is something else, and something most peculiar when a man comes to examine it from its different sides.”
Nat said nothing to this. He saw that the cobbler had something upon his mind and that he was most anxious to unburden himself of it, even to a stranger who appeared at his window in the night.
“It’s best to let him take his own time,” reasoned the lad. “If I begin to ask questions, he might take the notion not to speak—and somehow I fancy that I should greatly benefit by what he has to say.”
The little shoemaker rubbed his stained and calloused hands together reflectively; the thick candle that burned in a sconce over his head threw a bright light about his work-room, with its array of farmers’ thick boots awaiting repair, and its clutter of leather and tools. Finally he spoke, and with the air of a man who was asking advice.
“What would you think,” he inquired, bending forward, “if you were sitting here upon this bench, pegging away at a sole and wondering what sort of fall and winter we have coming upon us, when a very young chap rode up, much like you have done, only it was by daylight, and says to you:
“‘Is this Neighbor Parslow?’
“‘It is,’ says you.
“He tries to look careless like, but you see at once that he’s keen for something; so you go on pegging and pegging and let him take his own time about his own business. So after a while he says to you: