COMMUTER'S THANKSGIVING 241 



the kitchen I found a room that had to be entered 

 by ladder from without. That room was full of 

 lasts and benches — all the kit necessary for shoe- 

 making on a small scale. There were other houses 

 scattered about with other such rooms — closed 

 as if by death. Far from it. Yonder in the dis- 

 tance smoked the chimney of a great factory. All 

 the cobblers of these houses had gathered there 

 to make shoes by machine. But where did they 

 live ? and how ? Here in the old houses where 

 their fathers lived, and as their fathers lived, 

 riding, however, to and from their work on the 

 electric cars. 



I am now living in an adjoining town, where, 

 on my drive to the station, I pass a small hamlet 

 of five houses grouped about a little shop, through 

 whose windows I can see benches, lasts, and old 

 stitching-machines. Shoes were once made here 

 on a larger scale, by more recent methods. Some 

 one is building a boat inside now. The shoe- 

 makers have gathered at the great factory with 

 the shoemakers of the neighbor town. But they 

 continue to live in the hamlet, as they used to, 

 under the open sky, in their small gardens. And 

 they need to. The conditions of their work have 



