His wife was waiting for him when he slipped back through the crack that led to their side of the wall.

“Well?” she said. “Did you find anything we could use?”

“There was some leather,” he said. “All cut out and laid out for tomorrow’s work.”

“Have you made anything for our shop this day? Any clothing we can sell?”

“No clothes,” he admitted.

“Then what were you doing all hours of the night while the giants slumbered?”

“I… I was making shoes,” he said.

“Oh, well,” his wife said, brightening. “Good shoes?”

“Very fine shoes,” he said. “Of the best leather, and not a stitch out of place.”

“That’s something,” she said. “They should fetch a decent price.”

“I hope so,” he said. “The shoemaker’s family could certainly use it.”

“The shoe… wait, do I understand you to mean that you made shoes for that cobbler and his wife, and nothing for us?”

“It wouldn’t feel right, taking from them when they have so little,” he said.

“And we have less!” she said. “You didn’t even make a hat or a jacket from the scraps?”

“There… there wasn’t time,” he said.

His wife threw up her hands.

“When my older sister’s husband traded their beans away for a lumbering beast full of milk and meat, I told her ‘You won’t catch my Alfred doing that.’ When my younger sister’s husband gave away his two best axes to a man because he ‘had an honest face’, I said ‘My Alfred’s got a better head than that!’ Now what will I tell them?”

“Now, dear… it isn’t as bad as all that,” he said. “The cobbler and his wife are very kind people… I’m sure they’ll do us a good turn if we give them a chance.”

“You can wait for a good turn when our shop is prosperous and our pocketbooks bulging,” she said. “Until that day, you’re going back through the wall every night until you have something to sell!”

(Source: fantasyinminiature.com)