The Cobbler and The Fortunate Shoes.

Once upon a time, there was an old leather shoe. It was a left shoe, thrown away, this shoe lived in a ditch. Some mice came to live in it from time to time and it had seen many creatures come and go. One day this shoe decided that it did not want to be stuck rotting in a ditch for the rest of its days and so hopped out of the ditch and onto a long road. It hopped all day, stopped when a car approached so as not to be seen and went on when it passed. It came to a stop as it grew tired. It didn’t know where it was going or what it was going to do but it knew it did not want to live in a ditch. It rested for a while before hearing someone talk. ‘What’s this then?’ an old woman said standing over the old shoe. ‘What a lovely shoe!’ she said. ‘I have a right shoe similar to this at home.’ The old woman wore tattered clothes and was not very clean. She had long ragged grey hair and wore socks only, which had large holes in them and her toes poked through. Picking up the shoe, she brought it home. She lived in a tiny cottage with a warm open fire. A poor woman, she couldn’t afford clothes. She lay the shoe down and went off to wash herself. The shoe looked around and noticed the other shoe the woman had mentioned earlier. It too was tattered and old. Shoes could hop when nobody was looking and they could see through the lace holes but they could not talk. They hopped around one another pleased to see another shoe. When the old woman returned, fresher and clean, she tried them on. They were not a pair but they were very comfortable and each fit perfectly. ‘What beautiful new shoes I have.’ Thought the old woman about these old battered pair. They weren’t sure that she could see them as they both knew they weren’t the prettiest shoes in the world but they did not know that although she had tattered clothes and no matching shoes of her own, she was an expert cobbler and had once a lovely shoe shop in the local town. Her shop closed up however when she lost customers over time as a bigger, shop opened and sold cheaper shoes. She soon became poor and jobless. She took the shoes, and placed them on a dresser. She got out some leather she’d found out and about and some needle and thread and began to stitch and sew. She had two heels she’d found somewhere from shoes long gone and hammered them onto the pair. Oh they did begin to look pretty. She polished them up and laced them, tried them on and wore them into town. Everyone admired this woman’s beautiful shoes. ‘I’ve never seen shoes as pretty as that in the shoe shop, people would whisper.’ She wore these a lot for the next few weeks. Many people had seen them and one day, someone approached her to ask where she’d bought them. ‘Could I possibly ask, where you got such lovely shoes?’ she asked. This woman was stunned by her story and soon everyone in town knew about her incredible talent. Their cheap shoes kept breaking and tearing. They came to her to mend their shoes and she soon had so many shoes to mend, that she opened up her own mending shop. She’d make the average shoe beautiful. Soon she became quite wealthy again but as her shoes that brought her this great fortune would wear away again, she’d just continue to mend and wear them. She didn’t forget how grateful to them she was. They were grateful too.