He started eagerly to draw designs and to try shapes and colors. While he was making the little shoes, he sang songs and spoke blessings for his unborn little child.
The days passed quickly and even though times were hard and they were poor, Mr. Mike was able to make ends meet.
He mended soldier boots, farmer shoes and sometimes sandals and high heels for the ladies. But every night before going to bed, he tried a new design for the small shoes of his first born son. He wanted him to have the most exceptional and comfortable shoes, who knows why? Maybe because he got to eighteen before he could wear any shoes and probably would still be barefoot if Mr. George had not given him a pair as a gift. Mr. George was the man who taught him the craft of making shoes.
The months passed very quickly and it was time for Rose to give birth. Mr. Mike closed down his shoe making workshop and ran to see both his wife and his first born son, bringing along the little shoes.
“Congratulations for your daughter” said the midwife.
“Daughter? Did you check closely, madam? We were expecting a boy!”
“What boy? Her belly was round which means she was caring a girl. If it was pointy, then you would expect a boy.”
“May it be strong and I don’t mind about the gender” said Mr. Mike and waved the midwife off. At night in his bedroom, he looked proudly at both his wife sleeping peacefully and his daughter in the crib.
“Never mind about the small shoes” he thought. “I will keep them for the next one”.
And the years went by with poverty, war, sorrow but also laughter.
And Mr. Mike was always sitting behind his workbench. He mainly mended old shoes, since his fellow countrymen did not have money to get new ones. He used carton and sacks and anything you can think of, to fix and mend the worn out but many-times-mended shoes people brought him.
On his bench in a small box he kept safe the small shoes he made, when he thought his wife was having a boy. Every time that Rose announced she was pregnant, he dusted off and polished the small shoes. But when she would come with her head lowered to tell him she had lost another child, he would put them back again into their box.
After some time the daughter became older and got married to a fine young man, and they moved to the capital. Mr. Mike continued working and bending over his bench and his wife sometimes went to keep him company because she felt lonely in the empty house, ever since their daughter moved out.
One day Rose entered the workshop crying with joy. She held a letter saying that their daughter gave birth to a healthy little boy in the capital. As soon as Mr. Mike saw the picture of his new born grandson, and once again the small shoes, that he made when his wife was pregnant, sprang to his mind. He turned everything upside down, looked everywhere for them, and he finally discovered them full of dust under a pair of huge hunting boots. He polished them with great care and affection and then, he put them on the shelf to dry, along with the rest of the other shoes that were fixed and ready to deliver.
Some years later their daughter came to visit them with the little boy. Mr. Mike was very proud of his grandson. He could not wait to see him wear the shoes, and share with everybody the story of the small shoes that had been waiting patiently for so many years to warm up the feet of a child.
He went in a hurry to get the small shoes from the workshop. He unlocked the door and saw them through the glass shining on the shelf. They were glowing and they were special and different from the rest, just like him. He was different from the rest of his fellow countrymen, full of compassion and patience. It seemed as if these shoes had taken some of his personality traits.
As soon as he opened the door he felt a tingling sensation in his heart.
“It’s probably nothing”, he thought and took one step to enter the shop. But that was his last step because Mr. Mike left his last breath on the entrance of the workshop.
Years passed by and one day his old lady, Rose, made the same long journey. The workshop was deserted but every time somebody would pass outside, it was like his shoes came to life and stood firmly on the ground.
Some summer day, Mr. Mike’s daughter went to the island with her son, Mike junior, and her husband to spend the summer. It has been many years since they last went to the village, because the sight of the house without her parents made her sad. As the years went by, the pain became less and she took the decision to bond again with her birthplace.
It took many hours for Mr. Mike’s daughter and her husband to clean the house and get rid of all the old things, two moth-eaten pieces of furniture full of dust, pieces of the ceiling plaster and sheets torn by rodents. By night fall, they went downstairs to clean the workshop. They threw away big black bin bags with varnish and leather, soles and old shoes. The little boy, Mike junior, was playing around trying to imitate his parents, pretending to throw away garbage. With the little strength he could carry a string or a small nail.
“Why are we throwing away all these?” he asked with child innocence and Mr. Mike’s daughter could only bite her lips bitterly. She did not know what to answer.
The little boy’s eyes were shining with joy as he ran up and down to look around this strange place. And as he snooped around, he was trying to say the strange words he had just learnt.
There, between the old army boots and the pieces of plasters fallen from the ceiling, the little boy discovered the forgotten little shoes his grandfather, Mr. Mike, made with lots of love years ago. He wore them without tying the shoe laces, because he did not know how to do so yet. But there was something wrong with the shoe on the left small foot. He took the shoe off and put his little hand inside the shoe to look for the thing that made it hard for him to walk. He found a piece of paper and he unfolded it with care. He was young and did not know how to read. He called his mother to help him.
“Where did you find this?”
“Here, inside the little shoe. Only one of them had a paper.”
She started reading the hidden note.
