THE OLD SHOEMAKER’S SHOP by Virginia Avery Meeth He had learned his art in the old country. He never mastered the English language. The busy little old man always seemed to be at his bench tapping away the hours. No finer artist lived. Shoes and harnesses were his sole existence. Their aromas mingled delightfully. Many hours of our childhood were spent on the wooden bench in his shop. They were never unpleasant, for to watch him work was enjoying a wonderful craftsman plying his art. Each nail was evenly space. It looked so easy the way he did it. A mouth full of tacks, he often waited for precious minutes until he could shift them around so he could speak but only in mono syllables for to compose a sentence of pure English was perplexing to him. We loved his kindly, seamed face. No cross word was ever allowed to pass his lips. Our trips were mostly on Saturday, for we had but one pair of shoes. Some time the urchins passing his door seemed to yell just a little louder because you sat a prisoner with a friendly jailor making a sick shoe well again. The leather in shoes seemed to disgust him. "Paper, nothing but paper", he’d say as he surveyed the damage graveled roads and the ravages of hop scotch wrought on the pitiable trophy we held out to him. He was not to be dismayed by any job, however hopeless. He managed somehow to mend the tattered sole and gather the frayed edges of a gaping hole where a hungry toe was wont to strain for freedom. We waited, we watched. Every detail of the worn little shop graven in our memories. The horse, whose gigantic size dwarfed the tall man, holding his halter. Twenty-one hands high, it stood while the worth of Dr. Hess’s products it lovingly proclaimed. The glassed area; all the wonderful harnesses hung with buckles glittering and brasses gleaming, they seemed waiting for the right horse, to do him justice. At length the sole in place where a neat pattern was left in the sheet of leather he beautifully wrought it from with little wasted! And as true as though he had measured it, it was now ready for the sewing machine. Hand-turned, it sang as he deftly turned the shoe. His yellow canary knew that now he could explode in song. His throat would add to the joyous notes of the sewing machine. Our hearts would lighten for now it wouldn’t be long before he’d ask for the mate to that decrepit, miserable, paper shoe. The door from his living quarters would open and his good wife appeared with a delicious home-made cookie for the prisoner. She, too, knew no English, but her sweet smile more than spoke the words she couldn’t utter. At length, the other shoe was extended to an impatient and after a dab of blacking and a quick rub, we escaped with the good bit of leather tacked to a "paper" shoe. Note: Mr. & Mrs. Meiboom (Sp?) lived and had a repair shop in the building between the ‘Stores’ in Forest Grove. A son was killed while serving as a motorcycle police in Grand Rapids and a daughter taught school for District 7 about two miles west of Forest Grove. She later married a Brenner.