But the natives are so high raised above that condition that they stand in need of very good and durable footgear for the mountains. The shoemaker is the only one of his trade in the valley—with one inconsiderable exception. His house stands on the public square of Gschaid where most of the larger dwellings are situated and its gray walls, white window-frames, and green shutters face the four linden-trees. On the ground-floor are the workshop, the workmen's room, a larger and a smaller sitting-room, the shop, and then the kitchen and pantry; the first story or, more properly, the attic-space, contains the "upper-room" which is also the "best room." In it there stand two beds of state, beautifully polished clothes-presses; there is a china-closet with dishes, a table with inlaid work, upholstered easy-chairs, a strong-box for the savings. Furthermore there hang on the walls pictures of saints, two handsome watches, being prizes won in shooting-matches, and finally there are some rifles both for target-firing and hunting, with all the necessary paraphernalia, carefully hung up in a special case with a glass-door.
Added to the shoemaker's house there is a smaller house, built exactly like it and, though separated from it by an arched gateway, belonging to it like part of a whole. It has only one large room with some closets. Its purpose is to serve the owner of the larger house as habitation for the remainder of his days, after having left the property to his son or successor; there to dwell with his wife until both are dead and the little house stands empty again and is ready for another occupant. To the rear of the shoemaker's house are stable and barn; for every dweller in the valley carries on farming along with his regular occupation and makes a good living from it. Behind these buildings, finally, is the garden which is lacking to none of the better houses of Gschaid, and from which the villagers obtain their vegetables, their fruit, and the flowers necessary for festive occasions. And, as quite commonly in the mountains, apiculture is pursued also in the gardens of Gschaid.
The small exception alluded to, and the only competitor of the shoemaker is a man of the same trade, old Tobias, who is not a real rival, though, because he only cobbles and is kept quite busy with that. Nor would he ever think of competing with the gentleman shoemaker of the township, especially as the latter frequently provides him gratuitously with leather-cuttings, sole strips, and the like. In summertime, old Tobias sits under a clump of elder-bushes at the end of the village and works away. All about him are shoes and lace-boots, all of them, however, gray, muddy, and torn. There are no high boots because these are not worn in the village and its surroundings; only two personages own such boots, the priest and the schoolteacher, both of whom have their new work and repairing done by the shoemaker. In winter, old Tobias sits in his cot behind the elder-bushes and has it comfortably warm, because wood is not dear in Gschaid.
Before entering into possession of his house, the shoemaker had been a chamois-poacher—in fact, had not exactly been a model in youth, so the people of Gschaid said. In school, he had always been one of the brightest scholars. Afterwards, he had learned his father's trade and had gone on his journeyman wanderings, finally returning to the village. Instead of wearing a black hat, as befits a tradesman, and as his father had done all his life, he put on a green one, decorated it with all the feathers obtainable and strutted around in the very shortest homespun coat to be found in all the valley; whereas his father always had worn a coat of dark, even black cloth with very long tails to indicate his station as tradesman. The young shoemaker was to be seen on all dancing floors and bowling alleys. Whenever any one gave him a piece of good advice he merely whistled. He attended all shooting-matches in the neighborhood with his target-rifle and often brought back a prize, which he considered a great victory. The prize generally consisted of coins artistically set. To win them, he frequently had to spend more coins of the same value than the prize was worth—especially as he was very generous with his money. He also participated in all the chases of the surrounding country and won a name as a marksman. Sometimes, however, he issued alone with his double-barreled gun and climbing irons, and once, it is said, returned with an ugly wound in his head.
In Millsdorf there lived a dyer who carried on a very notable industry. His works lay right at the entrance of the town at the side toward Gschaid. He employed many people and even worked with machines, which was an unheard of thing in the valley. Besides, he did extensive farming. The shoemaker frequently crossed the mountain to win the daughter of this wealthy dyer. Because of her beauty, but also because of her modesty and domesticity she was praised far and near. Nevertheless the shoemaker, it is said, attracted her attention. The dyer did not permit him to enter his house; and whereas his beautiful daughter had, even before that, never attended public places and merry-makings, and was rarely to be seen outside the house of her parents, now she became even more retiring in her habits and was to be seen only in church, in her garden, or at home.
Some time after the death of his parents, by which the paternal house which he inhabited all alone became his, the shoemaker became an altogether different man. Boisterous as he had been before, he now sat in his shop and hammered away day and night. Boastingly, he set a prize on it that there was no one who could make better shoes and footgear. He took none but the best workmen and kept after them when they worked in order that they should do as he told them. And really, he accomplished his desire, so that not only the whole village of Gschaid, which for the most part had got its shoes from neighboring valleys, had their work done by him, but the whole valley also. And finally he had some customers even from Millsdorf and other valleys. Even down into the plains his fame spread so that a good many who intended to climb in the mountains had their shoes made by him for that purpose.
He ordered his house very neatly and in his shop the shoes, lace-boots, and high boots shone upon their several shelves; and when, on Sundays, the whole population of the valley came into the village, gathering under the four linden trees of the square, people liked to go over to the shoemaker's shop and look through the panes to watch the customers.
On account of the love he bore to the mountains, even now he devoted his best endeavor to the making of mountain lace-shoes. In the inn he used to say that there was no one who could show him any one else's mountain boots that could compare with his own. "They don't know," he was accustomed to add, "and they have never learned it in all their life, how such a shoe is to be made so that the firmament of the nails shall fit well on the soles and contain the proper amount of iron, so as to render the shoe hard on the outside, so that no flint, however sharp, can be felt through, and so that it on its inside fits the foot as snug and soft as a glove."
The shoemaker had a large ledger made for himself in which he entered all goods he had manufactured, adding the names of those who had furnished the materials and of those who had bought the finished goods, together with a brief remark about the quality of the product. Footgear of the same kind bore their continuous numbers, and the book lay in the large drawer of his shop.
Even if the beautiful daughter of the Millsdorf dyer did not take a step outside her parents' home, and even though she visited neither friends nor relatives, yet the shoemaker of Gschaid knew how to arrange it so that she saw him from afar when she walked to church, when she was in her garden, and when she looked out upon the meadows from the windows of her room. On account of this unceasing spying the dyer's wife by dint of her long and persevering prayers had brought it about that her obstinate husband yielded and that the shoemaker—as he had, in fact, become a better man—led the beautiful and wealthy Millsdorf girl home to Gschaid as his wife. However, the dyer was a man who meant to have his own way. The right sort of man, he said, ought to ply his trade in a manner to prosper and ought, therefore, to be able to maintain his wife, children, himself, and his servants, to keep house and home in good condition, and yet save a goodly amount—which savings were, after all, the main aids to honor and dignity in the world. Therefore, he said, his daughter would receive nothing from home but an excellent outfit; all else it was and remained the duty of the husband to provide. The dyeing works in Millsdorf and the farming he carried on were a dignified and honorable business by themselves which had to exist for their own sake. All property belonging to them had to serve as capital, for which reason he would not give away any part of them. But when he, the dyer, and his wife, were deceased, then both the dye-works and the farm in Millsdorf would fall to their only daughter, the shoemaker's wife in Gschaid, and she and her husband could do with the property what they pleased: they would inherit it, however, only if worthy of inheriting it; if unworthy, it would go to their children, and if there were none, to other relatives, with the exception of the lawful portion. Neither did the shoemaker demand anything, but proudly gave the dyer to understand that he had cared but for his beautiful daughter and that he was able to maintain her as she had been maintained at home. And when she was his wife, he gave her clothes not only finer than those the women of Gschaid and the Gschaid valley owned, but also than she had ever worn at home. And as to food and drink, he insisted on having it better, and her treatment more considerate than she had enjoyed in her own father's house. Moreover, in order to show his independence of his father-in-law, he bought more and more ground with his savings so that he came to own a goodly property.