He employed many people and even worked with machines, which
was an unheard of thing in the valley. Besides, he did extensive
farming. The shoemaker frequently crossed the mountain to win the
daughter of this wealthy dyer. Because of her beauty, but also because
of her modesty and domesticity she was praised far and near.
Nevertheless the shoemaker, it is said, attracted her attention. The
dyer did not permit him to enter his house; and whereas his beautiful
daughter had, even before that, never attended public places and
merry-makings, and was rarely to be seen outside the house of her
parents, now she became even more retiring in her habits and was to be
seen only in church, in her garden, or at home.
Some time after the death of his parents, by which the paternal house
which he inhabited all alone became his, the shoemaker became an
altogether different man. Boisterous as he had been before, he now sat
in his shop and hammered away day and night. Boastingly, he set a prize
on it that there was no one who could make better shoes and footgear. He
took none but the best workmen and kept after them when they worked in
order that they should do as he told them. And really, he accomplished
his desire, so that not only the whole village of Gschaid, which for the
most part had got its shoes from neighboring valleys, had their work
done by him, but the whole valley also.
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