You can’t fix anything.You’re useless, she says. He comes home the next day with an old bicycle tire. He sends me to Mr. Hannon next door for the loan of a last and a hammer. He takes Mam’s sharp knife and he hacks at the tire till he has pieces to fit on the soles and heels of our shoes. Mam tells him he’s going to destroy the shoes altogether but he pounds away with the hammer, driving the nails through the rubber pieces and into the shoes. Mam says, God above, if you left the shoes alone they’d last till Easter, at least, and we might get the boots from the St.Vincent de Paul. But he won’t stop till the soles and heels are covered with squares of rubber tire which stick out on each side of the shoe and flop before and behind. He makes us put on the shoes and tells us our feet will be good and warm but we don’t want to wear them anymore because the tire pieces are so lumpy we stumble when we walk around Italy. He sends me back to Mr. Hannon with the last and hammer and Mrs.Hannon says,God above,what’s up with your shoes? She laughs and Mr. Hannon shakes his head and I feel ashamed. I don’t want to go to school next day and I pretend to be sick but Dad gets us up and gives us our fried bread and tea and tells us we should be grateful we have any shoes at all, that there are boys in Leamy’s National School who go to school barefoot on bitter days. On our way to school Leamy’s boys laugh at us because the tire pieces are so thick they add a few inches to our height and the boys say, How’s the air up there? There are six or seven barefoot boys in my class and they don’t say anything and I wonder if it’s better to have shoes with rubber tires that make you trip and stumble or to go barefoot.If you have no shoes at all you’ll have all the barefoot boys on your side. If you have rubber tires on your shoes you’re all alone with your brother and you have to fight your own bat- tles. I sit on a bench in the schoolyard shed and take off my shoes and stockings but when I go into the class the master wants to know where my shoes are. He knows I’m not one of the barefoot boys and he makes me go back to the yard, bring in the shoes and put them on.Then he says to the class,There is sneering here.There is jeering at the misfor- tunes of others. Is there anyone in this class that thinks he’s perfect? Raise your hands. There are no hands. Is  there  anyone  in  this  class  that  comes  from  a  rich  family  with money galore to spend on shoes? Raise your hands. There are no hands. 105