But Andy, when he made up his mind to a thing, was what people call hard-headed.  His “I won’t stand it any longer,” meant more than this common form of speech on the lips of ordinary men.  So he gave it out that he should quit business; and it was soon all over the village.  Of course Tompkins and Lyon were well enough pleased, but there were a great many who heard of the shoemaker’s determination with regret.  In the face of all difficulties and annoyances, they had continued to depend on him for foot garniture, and were now haunted by unpleasant images of cramped toes, corns, bunyons, and all the varied ill attendant on badly made and badly fitting shoes, boots, and gaiters.  The retirement of Andy, cross and unaccommodating as he had become, was felt, in many homes, to be a public calamity.

“Don’t think of such a thing, Mr. Lovell,” said one.

“We can’t do without you,” asserted another.

“You’ll not give up altogether,” pleaded a third, almost coaxingly.

But Andy Lovell was tired of working without any heart in his work; and more tired of the constant fret and worry attendant upon a business in which his mind had ceased to feel interest.  So he kept to his resolution, and went on with his arrangements for closing the shop.

“What are you going to do?” asked a neighbor.

“Do?” Andy looked, in some surprise, at his interrogator.

“Yes.  What are you going to do?  A man in good health, at your time of life, can’t be idle.  Rust will eat him up.”

“Rust?” Andy looked slightly bewildered.

“What’s this?” asked the neighbor, taking something from Andy’s counter.

“An old knife,” was the reply.  “It dropped out of the window two or three months ago and was lost.  I picked it up this morning.”

“It’s in a sorry condition,” said the neighbor.  “Half eaten up with rust, and good for nothing.”

“And yet,” replied the shoemaker, “there was better stuff in that knife, before it was lost, than in any other knife in the shop.”

“Better than in this?” And the neighbor lifted a clean, sharp-edged knife from Andy’s cutting-board.

“Worth two of it.”

“Which knife is oldest?” asked the neighbor.

“I bought them at the same time.”

“And this has been in constant use?”

“Yes.”

“While the other lay idle, and exposed to the rains and dews?”

“And so has become rusted and good for nothing.  Andy, my friend, just so rusted, and good for nothing as a man, are you in danger of becoming.  Don’t quit business; don’t fall out of your place; don’t pass from useful work into self-corroding idleness, You’ll be miserable—­miserable.”

The pertinence of this illustration struck the mind of Andy Lovell, and set him to thinking; and the more he thought, the more disturbed became his mental state.  He had, as we have see, no longer any heart in his business.  All that he desired was obtained—­enough to live on comfortably; why, then, should he trouble himself with hard-to-please and ill-natured customers?  This was one side of the question.