Text‖ Zhang Yanwei ‖ the Internet
In the past, whether people wore cloth shoes or leather shoes, most of them would nail an extra "palm" to the soles of their shoes; Speaking of leather, there are "raw" and "cooked". You know what's going on, don't you?
Cobbler
Nowadays, people wear shoes that are sturdy and good-looking, and even babies in swaddling clothes can buy them small and delicate shoes in the market. Thirty or forty years ago, the shoes worn by rural people were all handmade. (Want to see other beautiful essays written by the author of this article, Mr. Zhang Yanwei?) Welcome to click on the following links: 1. Salivation! Xuchang's you say: baked persimmon or persimmon, which is more delicious; 2. How did the "flat mouths" raised by farmers in the past become the pets of people in the city? ）
As the saying goes: "Neem blossoms bloom; Millet (corn) came down and put on new shoes. This means that in the spring, when the neem trees bloom, the wheat is still ripe, and the women have a little leisure time, and they have to start to gather the raw materials for making shoes; When the wheat is harvested and the autumn is planted, during the period before the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15, when there is a little less farm work in the field, you have to get up again at dusk, put the soles of the shoes well, do a good job of the uppers, and then tie the uppers and soles together to make shoes, just in time for the busy season of harvesting corn and sweet potatoes in the autumn, so that you can put on new shoes and work hard.
It is the most basic part of making shoes, and it is used to contain the sole or make the upper, and the materials used are different according to the use. At that time, collectives or individuals planted hemp, and the hemp batches were beaten softly, and the whole was used as a fine hemp rope for rubbing the soles, and the broken and poorly combed fine hemp silk was used to make the soles; Because of the tight supply of fabric, even the clothes made of old coarse cloth were "worn by the big ones and the small ones, and the sewing and mending were made for another three years", and occasionally the rags collected were beaten into the upper of the shoes.
When the jacket is made, first use a large iron pot to boil a pot of cornmeal paste, and then smear a layer of paste on the door panel, spread a layer of hemp silk or rags, about two pieces of stacked coins as thick, put it in the sun to dry, remove it and cut it into different sizes of soles or uppers, and paste a circle of white cloth "along the strip" on the sole of the shoe with a good paste made of noodles, and put a new surface on the upper of the shoe. Next, it is necessary to take advantage of the time to stack five or six layers or even eight or nine layers of hemp silk together, cover the outermost layer with a layer of white cloth, use hemp rope to connect with fine and regular stitches to make the sole, and finally use the thread to tie the sole and the upper together, so that a pair of cloth shoes is made.
It's just that the sole of this hemp silk material is not strong enough, and you generally have to ask a shoemaker to nail a more wear-resistant "outer palm". In the beginning, cobblers did their work by hand. They carried a wooden chair with a backrest, a sole-shaped iron pegboard (also called a shoe anvil) with a log base, and a tool kit containing hammers, awls, cutters, spikes, chÒng, pieces of soft leather, and needles and threads, as well as luggage and some old rickshaw tires.
When working, the cobbler sits on a chair, clamps the base of the pegboard with his feet, then buckles the shoe upside down on the top plate, takes the thinly cut rickshaw nylon tire, compares the size on the sole, and then cuts it into a full palm or a front and back half palm with a knife according to the needs of the shoe owner, and then nails the sole of the shoe close to the bottom. When nailing the soles of the shoes, the cobbler pinches a handful of spikes and pouts them with his lips, and each time he takes away a spike, he first presses it on the sole of the shoe and then uses a small mace to knock it into the sole. Whenever this happens, I am vaguely worried about them, for fear that they will accidentally swallow a nail in their stomach.
When the sole of the shoe is completely combined with the sole, the shoemaker picks up the punch, rushes the nail cover all in, then takes the shoe off the pegboard, reaches out and gropes carefully in the upper, if there are occasional spikes, also use the punch to punch it backwards, to ensure that the nail tip is completely flat or inverted into the sole of the shoe, to prevent the foot from grinding.
If the upper is worn from the big toe or heel, the shoemaker will nail a piece of soft leather from the inside with small spikes, then turn it over and wrap the upper and sew the leather together with a needle and thread. This will allow you to wear it for some time.
In the nineties of the last century, the market began to sell a kind of light and strong finished plastic sole, people only prepare the upper to make shoes, saving a lot of effort, and the use of rickshaw tires to nail the palm was gradually abandoned. At the same time, with leather shoes, travel shoes, sports shoes, etc. in the countryside popular, a kind of semi-automatic shoe repair machine came into being, the shoemaker of the countryside is also gradually advancing with the times equipped with this kind of shoe repair machine, to do the work to be more flexible, high efficiency and fine workmanship. People cherish leather shoes, there are also nails in the front and back of the sole, but this is the finished shoe produced by the manufacturer is small and exquisite, there are plastic materials, there are also iron, wearing this kind of nailed sole people walk on the hard ground, you can hear the rhythmic "snort" and "snort" sound formed by the sole rubbing the ground, interesting and funny.
Later, with the continuous improvement of living conditions, people are more and more particular about wearing, usually have a number of different varieties and types of shoes to wear alternately, especially some young people are chasing fashion, brand new leather shoes can not be worn a few times to throw into the trash, not to mention holding the worn shoes to sew and mend. As a result, the shoemakers in the countryside are gone, and the shoe repair shops with fixed facades are occasionally seen in the market towns, and most of them are mainly engaged in internal and external cleaning, waxing, polishing and oiling.
Leather Traders
When I was a child, there were a few sheep at home, and when summer came, my uncle had to shear the wool from all over their bodies, so as to cool down the sheep and collect the wool together to sell it for money, which was a lot of income at that time.
Every year when the wool is sheared, it is a "leather trader" surnamed Zhao in the mountain freight yard who comes to collect it, and he becomes a good friend with his uncle. Because the price given by Lao Zhao was fairer than others, other people in the village were also willing to deal with him. The reason why Lao Zhao is called a fur trader is because he not only collects "raw goods" such as furs, but also sells "cooked goods" such as leather jackets, leather mattresses, donkey necks, leather whips, and leather reins made of tanned furs.
At that time, the epidemic prevention conditions in rural areas were poor, and large animals such as cattle and horses raised by collectives, as well as sheep and dogs fed by farmers, were prone to illness and even death. Especially because of the rampant rats, people buy highly toxic rat poison such as "poisonous rats" and "three-step down" to prevent and control rat infestation, and the dead rats have no time to clean up, and dogs or cats will also die if they eat them. People often strip off the fur of these animals before burying them deeply. In addition, the hares, badgers or weasels that are usually caught, will also be skinned and left. The skins of these animals are stretched out and nailed to the wall to dry, while the smaller ones are dried in the form of "tube skins", which are called "raw" skins.
When Lao Zhao comes, he will talk about business according to the situation of raw skins, and let the owner consider what is cost-effective: for example, for a larger area of dog skin or sheepskin, he will suggest that you "familiarize yourself (commonly known as, fur processing)" to make a warm leather mattress or leather shoulder, and he earns a processing fee; Of course, if you have to sell, he will not object, because then he will get more profit.
The untreated rawhide will be moth-eaten and hairy after summer, and must be "cooked" in order to be preserved and used for a long time, and the process of "cooked" must go through a series of complicated process steps such as soaking, degreasing, re-soaking, pickling, softening, tanning, drying, fat, and rolling wood chaff, which are not easy for ordinary people to master, so the more complete the preservation of the hide, the more valuable it is.
The most valuable of the small hides is the weasel fur. After the weasel's fur is "cooked", it is a good wool collar and wool scarf material, and multiple furs are sewn together as the inner lining of the wool shoulder and wool coat; The hairs on its tail are a good material for making brushes, especially the hairs on the tip of the tail. The weasels caught after the beginning of winter, whether they are dead or alive, are bought by someone, and one can only be sold for more than 100 yuan, which is enough for a family to eat salt and coal for a month or two.
Some of the furs that Lao Zhao took back were sewn into coat linings through a complex "cooked" process, and some were resold to leather manufacturers after simple processing, and finally made into leather clothes, leather bags, leather shoes, etc., and the scraps were made into small items such as leather whips, bridles, and donkey necks. At that time, there were many people who fed large animals, and these things were very popular.
With the development of the times and the continuous improvement of rural production and living conditions, it is becoming increasingly difficult for a small leather trader like Lao Zhao to buy, process and sell. Nowadays, you can occasionally hear the shouts of "collect dog skins, sheepskins, rabbit skins, weasel skins...", but this is only a single acquisition business.
Zhang Yanwei, a member of the Communist Party of China, a member of the China Natural Resources Writers Association, a member of the Henan Writers Association, and a researcher of culture and history of the Culture and History Committee of the Xuchang CPPCC.
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