fiction

Voltairine de Cleyre, “The Old Shoemaker” (1896), with note and response

The Old Shoemaker He had lived a long time there, in the house at the end of the alley, and no one had ever known that he was a great man. He was lean and palsied, and had a crooked back; his beard was grey and ragged, and his eyebrows came too far forward; there were seams and flaps in the empty, yellow old skin, and he gasped horribly when he breathed, taking hold of the lintel of the door to steady himself when he stepped out on the broken bricks of the alley. He lived with a frightful old […]