“But where am I to find any one who wants them?” asked Timothy.
“Why, bless your life!” said Bramble minor, “go to the first poor person’s cottage you come to, and offer them to the first person you see. Strong shoes with copper tips and heels will not be refused in a hurry, and will be taken very good care of, you’ll find.”
With which Bramble minor rolled over in his little bed and went to sleep, and Timothy turned over in his, and thought what a thing it was to have a practical genius—like Bramble minor! And the first half-holiday he borrowed a pair of shoes, and put his own in his pocket, and set forth for the nearest poor person’s cottage.
He did not go towards the village (it was too public he thought); he went over the moors, and when he had walked about half a mile, down by a sandy lane just below him, he saw a poor person’s cottage. The cottage was so tumble-down and so old and inconvenient, there could be no doubt but that it belonged to a poor person, and to a very poor person indeed!
When Timothy first rapped at the door he could hear no answer, but after knocking two or three times he accepted a faint sound from within as a welcome, and walked into the cottage. Though more comfortable within than without, it was unmistakably the abode of a “poor person,” and the poor person himself was sitting crouched over a small fire, coughing after a manner that shook the frail walls of the cottage and his own frailer body. He was an old man and rather deaf.
“Good afternoon,” said Timothy, for he did not know what else to say.
“Good day to ye,” coughed the old man.
“And how are you this afternoon?” asked Tim.
“No but badly, thank ye,” said the old man; “but I’m a long age, and it’s what I mun expect.”
“You don’t feel as if a small pair of strong leather shoes would be of any use to you?” asked Tim in his ear.