I've often wondered how you could manage with small
shoes like mine to get in your hand to pull the needle through; but I
see you don't use a needle, and I see that you are sewing it all on the
outside of the boot, and don't put your hand inside at all. I can't get
to understand it."
"You will in a minute. You see how, all round the edge of the upper, as
we call it, I have sewn on a strong narrow strip, so that one edge of
the strip sticks out all round, while the other is inside. To the edge
that sticks out I sew on the sole, drawing my threads so tight that when
I pare the edges off smooth, it will look like one piece, and puzzle
anybody who did not know how it was done."
"I think I understand. But how do you get your thread so sharp and stiff
as to go through the holes you make? I find it hard enough sometimes to
get a thread through the eye of a needle; for though the thread is ever
so much smaller than yours, I have to sharpen and sharpen it often
before I can get it through. But yours, though it is so thick, keeps so
sharp that it goes through the holes at once--two threads at once--one
from each side!"
"Ah! but I don't sharpen my thread; I put a point upon it."
"Doesn't that mean the same thing?"
"Well, it may generally; but _I_ don't mean the same thing by it.
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