22 With Feet to the Earth 



may, amusement, and surprise that ap- 

 peared in the faces of a carriage party 

 when I was plodding along a White Moun- 

 tain road, swinging my brogans in my hand, 

 enjoying the warm velvet of the dust and 

 wincing at the shards that lay hid in it. A 

 grown-up who would walk in his naked 

 feet was, to their minds, a forbidden and 

 abhorrent person. Barbarians observe, with 

 grief, that even children go shod in the 

 country nowadays, whereas it is but thirty 

 years since shoes were worn by them only in 

 church and when the minister called. There 

 were scenes of suffering at those times, and 

 directly that the family had returned from 

 meeting, or the clergyman had eaten the 

 formal dinner and departed, the juvenile 

 contingent pulled off its shoes, which were 

 usually boots, and surged whooping into 

 the road to wriggle its toes in the sand. 

 Go barefoot now and then ; let your feet 

 breathe and know the taste of the earth. 



Walking is not in the fashion that it 

 might be. We sit in a saddle and walk on 

 pedals. Excellent custom, too, but it is 

 not walking, and we must have good roads 



