CHAPTER XVI
THEY were in Indiana, now. They had saved up six dollars and twenty cents, despite the fact that Father had overborne her caution and made her dine at a lunch-room, now and then, or sleep at a hotel, while he cheerfully scavenged in the neighborhood.
The shoes he had bought in West Virginia were impossible. They had been mended and resoled, but the new soles had large concentric holes. Mother discovered the fact, and decisively took the problem out of his hands. He was going to take that six dollars and twenty cents, he was, and get new shoes. It was incredible luxury.
He left Mother at a farm-house. He stood meditatively before the window of a shoe-store in Lipsittsville, Indiana. Lawyer Vanduzen, who read the papers, guessed who he was, and imparted the guess to the loafers in front of the Regal Drug Store, who watched him respectfully.
Inside the shoe-store, the proprietor was excited. “Why,” he exclaimed to his assistant, “that must be Appleby, the pedestrian—fellow you read so much about—the Indianapolis paper said just this morning that he was some place in this part of the country—you know, the fellow who’s tramped all over Europe and Asia with his wife, and is bound for San Francisco now.” His one lone clerk, a youth with adenoids, gaped and grunted. It was incredible to him that any one should walk without having to.
Father was aware of the general interest, and as he was becoming used to his rôle as public character, he marched into the store like the Lord Mayor of London when he goes shopping in his gold coach with three men and a boy in powdered wigs carrying his train.
The proprietor bowed and ventured: “Glad to see you with us, Mr. Appleby. It is Mr. Appleby, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh,” growled Father.