pay in that region—­to the hour when he took a cobbler’s kit upon his back and began to eke out a bare livelihood for his old age by traveling about the countryside mending shoes.  At the time under consideration, this ex-tobacco picker had degenerated into so humble a thing as Uncle Bobby Moore, a poor, half-remembered cobbler, whose earlier state but few knew, and who at this time had only a few charitably inclined friends, with some of whom he spent the more pleasant portion of the year from spring to fall.  Thus, it was his custom to begin his annual pilgrimage with a visit of ten days to Mr. White, where he would sit and cobble shoes for all the members of the household.  From here he would go to another acquaintance some ten miles farther on, where he could enjoy the early fruit which was then ripening in delicious quantity.  Then he would visit a friendly farmer whose home was upon the Missouri River still farther away, where he did his annual fishing, and so on by slow degrees, until at last he would reach a neighborhood rich in cider presses, where he would wind up the fall, and so end his travel for the winter, beginning his peculiar round once more the following spring at the home of Mr. White.  Naturally the old patriarch knew him and liked him passing well.

As he grew older, however, Uncle Bobby reached the place where even by this method and his best efforts he could scarcely make enough to sustain him in comfort during the winter season, which was one of nearly six months, free as his food and lodging occasionally were.  He was too feeble.  Not desiring to put himself upon any friend for more than a short visit, he finally applied to the patriarch.

“I come to you, Mr. White,” he said, “because I don’t think I can do for myself any longer in the winter season.  My hand hurts a good deal and I get tired so easily.  I want to know if you’d won’t help me to get into the county farm during the winter months, anyhow.  In summer I can still look out for myself, I think.”

In short, he made it clear that in summer he preferred to be out so that he might visit his friends and still enjoy his declining years.

The old patriarch was visibly moved by this appeal, and seizing him by the arm and leading off toward the courthouse where the judge governing such cases was then sitting he exclaimed, “Come right down here, Uncle Bobby.  I’ll see what can be done about this.  Your old age shouldn’t be troubled in this fashion—­not after all the efforts you have made to maintain yourself,” and bursting in on the court a few moments later, where a trial was holding at the time, he deliberately led his charge down the aisle, disturbing the court proceedings by so doing, and calling as he came: 

“Your Honor, I want you to hear this case especially.  It’s a very important and a very sad case, indeed.”

Agape, the spectators paused to listen.  The judge, an old and appreciative friend of his, turned a solemn eye upon this latest evidence of eccentricity.