Word: money
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...courted his wife, alias Mama, alias The Boss. (She denies the last titles). In 1921 Peter was awarded his Meisterbrief and became one of the youngest master shoemakers in Bavaria. But bringing up two children in inflation-ridden Germany was too much of a job on shoemaker's money, so Peter decided, in 1924, to emigrate to the United States where one of his sisters lived...
...worked for a short while in a Boston shoe factory. But then "we saw this empty store," Mama explains, "and a German we met said we should start for ourselves because we had no money and couldn't lose any. So we borrowed $43 to pay the rent on the house and the store and started repairing shoes...
Peter guarantees the fit of his boots, and has on occasion refunded money to customers who were not satisfied, despite his assurance of a perfect...
...happy one. Peter spends most of his evenings watching television and drinking beer, but complains "that was I don't ever get to bed." When occasionally he considers his $45 boots underpriced in comparison to New York maker's, Mama claims "We don't make a lot of money but we have a good life and lots of friends." Everything would be complete for Peter with a trip back to the Old Country. "I'd like to go. You buy the tickets, and I'll buy all the beer...
...church "watch" the boy steal from a collection basket--the story is unconvincing either as a satire of parish culture or as a psychological study of the child. An improbable ending, in which the boy showers a group of gaffers in a park with the pilfered church money and the old men have a sort of mystical experience as they grab for the coins, is contrived and hopelessly out of tune with the rest of the story. There are also two failures, only one of which seems intentional, to sell properly the "et cum spiritu tuo" response of the Mass...