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CHAPTER XI.

THE WOODEN SHOES.

THE party remained for some days at Cherbourg, during which time they rode and rambled all about the town and the environs again and again, until they had become quite familiar with the whole place. Grimkie and John, in fact, went out to see the Digue. They employed a boatman to take them out. They were very desirous that Mrs. Morelle and Florence should go too, but as it was a two miles' sail in a sail boat -a kind of expedition which neither Mrs. Morelle nor Florence were inclined to fancy-the boys went alone.

When they came back they reported that they had had a delightful time. They landed upon the Digue and walked upon it a long way. There was a broad space, forming a sort of roadway, on the top, and a parapet wall, immensely thick, on the outside of it, made to protect the roadway both from the sea and from bombs and balls shot against the Digue from enemies' ships in the offing. There were places where the boys

could climb up and look off over the water and see the waves rolling in and dashing against the outer wall of the Digue. But the wall sloped away on the outside so that the waves could get no hold.

When at length the visit to Cherbourg was finished, the party left the hotel early one morning and proceeded by the train back on the road by which they came as far as to the junction of the St. Lo branch. Here they left the train, and passing across a broad platform they took their places in a carriage of another train marked for St. Lo. After proceeding on the branch road for about an hour, they arrived at St. Lo, which

was the end of the line.

"Now," said Grimkie, as they were riding away from the station toward the hotel, "we have done with the railroad for a long time. We must go by the rest of the way to the sea in a diligence, and then we shall have three voyages to make by sea before we shall see a railway station again."

"Ah me !" said Mrs. Morelle. "I dread the sea voyages."

'But, Auntie," said Grimkie, "they will be very short; and besides, we shall wait at each place for pleasant weather and a smooth sea."

St. Lo proved to be an exceedingly picturesque

and beautiful old French town.

There was an upper town and a lower town, one built on a rocky hill and the other in a valley below; and there were zigzag roads leading from one to the other-and a grand terrace on the brow of a cliff commanding a beautiful view of the valley, with a river, and many pretty roads, and the railway, all meandering through it in a charming manner -and a great cathedral, with hundreds of daws flying and cawing about the towers and spires of it—and a quaint and queerly arranged hotel, with stone floors and an endless maze of passages and little staircases running all over itand narrow streets steep and winding-and groups of children clattering about over the pavements in their wooden shoes. These wooden shoes are called sabots.

"I would buy a pair of those wooden shoes," said Grimkie, "and carry them home for a curiosity if I could think of anything to do with them."

"I don't see why you wish to do anything with them," said John, "if you get them for a curiosity."

"I get tired of anything that is merely a curiosity," said Grimkie; "but if I can put it to some use, then I don't get tired of it, and it is a curiosity all the same.'

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"I might smooth over a pair of the shoes with sand paper," he added, after a little pause, “and then polish them, and they would be very pretty. There is a kind that are low and shallow, such as young girls use, and one of them finished up handsomely and put upon a stand would almost make a pretty tray, to place upon a desk and put pencils in, and pens, and pieces of india-rubber." "Or you might make a match box of it," said

John.

"You might keep the matches inside, and have a piece of sandpaper glued upon the sole, underneath, to rub the matches upon." "Or a money box," said Grimkie. "One of them would be excellent to keep small change in in a drawer."

Mrs. Morelle, who heard this conversation, asked Grimkie whether he really could smooth and polish one of the shoes so as to make it pretty, and he replied that he could do so without any difficulty. "I should get a pair of the brown kind," said he, "and rub them smooth with fine sandpaper, and then polish them with French polish."

There were in fact two kinds of wooden shoes, both in respect to form and color. There was one kind which came up high over the instep, and were stained or painted black. These were very clumsy in form, and ugly in color. There

was another kind, however, intended chiefly to be worn by girls and young women, which were of a much more slender and graceful form, and they were of a brown color, very prettily shaded and varnished. The brown color was much such a shade as would be given to wood by being slightly scorched before a hot fire or in a very hot oven.

Florence was much pleased with the idea of carrying home a specimen of these shoes. She said she wished that Grimkie would buy a pair and finish them up as he had proposed, and then give her one of them.

"If you make it look really pretty,” said she, "I'll put some velvet on the sole to make it soft on the table, and line the inside with silk, and so keep my thimble and scissors and thread in it. You may have the other of the pair for a money box or a match box or anything else you please."

This plan was decided upon, and Florence and Grimkie walked along the streets looking at the piles of wooden shoes before the doors of the shoe stores, in order to choose a pretty pair. At length they found a pair which pleased Florence very much. They were of about her size. They were low at the sides and open like slippers, and of quite an elegant form and of a pretty color.

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