I pushed hard against the peeling, painted door. As it opened, my senses were filled with wonderful odours …leather, shoe polish, oiled wood floors. Such a heady perfume could take my breath away.
The glass case before me contained round tins of shoe polish and various lengths of laces arranged in precise rows.
In one section were sets of rubber soles that you could buy and tack onto the bottom of your shoes. They were the second-best solution as everyone knew the expertise of the shoemaker was necessary if you wanted a decent repair job.
I could see him sitting, round-shouldered in the far corner. The rat-tat-tat of his sewing machine made such a noise that he hadn’t heard me enter. Nor had he heard the bell that chimed when the door was opened.
He peered across the room. My blond head barely cleared the countertop and only when I placed my shoes on it did he finally realize I was there.
“Yes miss?” he inquired with a somewhat foggy English accent.
Almost embarrassed, I turned my shoes over, revealing the worn bottoms. It seemed indecent to reveal them to a stranger.
Carefully he raised one, then the other, studying the damage. “Oh my, they have taken a bit of a beating,” he acknowledged. “Tell your mother I’ll have them ready for Saturday.”
He turned and set them on a nearby shelf, then watched as I stood unblinking before him. A smile twitched the corners of his mouth, then, reaching down he wiped his brown-stained fingers across his wrinkled bib. His hands, now pretentiously cleaned, dipped deeply into a tall glass jar and pulled out a licorice candy and handed it to me.
“Way you go now, tell your Mom they will be 75 cents,” he directed. And with that he settled himself slowly back on his stool and placed his feet on the treadles of the sewing machine. I took a few deep breaths of the intoxicating aroma of the shop and let myself out.
Saturday morning found me standing in the rain outside the shoemaker’s shop. The backs of my legs were red where the tops of my rubbers boots had hit them at every step. Rain streaked across the shop window but I could see the single light bulb hanging in the back of the store. I entered tentatively. The shoemaker was sitting close to a potbellied stove, gently polishing a large boot.
“Crisp today,” he remarked, then reached up to a shelf and set my restored shoes before me. I couldn’t believe it …they looked brand new.
“Here miss, I’d best wrap them.” They were soon encased in brown paper wrapped with string.
“Oh thank you, sir,” I said. “They are just beautiful!”
As I turned to leave, I almost missed the smile of delight that flushed his face. Even a “thank you” from a small child can bring sunshine on a rainy day.
