"It's something a little worse than that," replied Sharp, "and he must have a comfortable pair of stockings. And here, Anna, do you run around to Stogies, and tell him to send me three or four pairs of coarse shoes, about Henry's size."
Anna, the little girl, disappeared with alacrity, and Mr. Sharp, turning to his wife, said—
"Henry must have a good, warm pair of stockings, or we shall have him sick on our hands."
"Well, I'll find him a pair," replied Mrs. Sharp, going off up stairs. In the mean time, Henry still sat with his feet in the cold water. But the pain occasioned by the snow was nearly all gone. Mrs. Sharp came down with the stockings, and Anna came in with the shoes at the same moment. On lifting the child's feet from the water, the redness and inflammation had a good deal subsided. Mrs. Sharp rubbed them with a little sweet oil, and then gave him the stockings to put on. He next tried the shoes, and one pair of them fitted him very well. But his feet were too sore and tender for such hard shoes, and when they were on, and tied up around the ankles, he found that after getting up they hurt him most dreadfully in his attempt to walk. But he hobbled, as best he could, into the shop.
"Throw them dirty things into the street!" were the only words addressed to him by Sharp, who pointed at his wet apologies for shoes and stockings, still lying upon the floor.
Henry did as directed, but every step he took was as if he were treading upon coals of fire. His feet, now enveloped in a closely fitting pair of woollen stockings, and galled by the hard and unyielding leather of the new shoes, itched and burned with maddening fervor.
"Here, carry this hat home," said his master, as he came in from the street, not seeming to notice the expression of suffering that was on his face, nor the evident pain with which he walked.
Henry took the hat, and started out. He was but a few paces from the shop, before he found that the shoes rubbed both heels, and pressed upon them at the same time so hard as to produce a sensation at each step as if the skin were torn off. Sometimes he would stop, and wait a moment or two, until the intolerable pain subsided, and then he would walk on again with all the fortitude and power of endurance he could command. In this extreme suffering, the uppermost thought in his mind, when on the street, kept his eyes wandering about, and scanning every female form that came in sight, in the ever-living hope of seeing his mother. But the sigh of disappointment told, too frequently, that he looked in vain. He had not proceeded far, when the pains in his feet became so acute that he paused, and leaned against a tree-box, unable, for a time, to move forward a single step. While resting thus, Doctor R——, who had been called to visit a patient in Lexington, came past in his carriage and noticed him. There was something about the child, although so changed that he did not recognize him, that aroused the doctor's sympathies, and he ordered his man to drive up to the pavement and stop.
"Well, my little man, what's the matter?" said he, leaning out of his carriage window.