Shoes lasted a great length of time in those days, the leather being all tanned with oak bark only, and thoroughly seasoned before it was cut up.

There is even a story of a farmer who wore his best shoes every Sunday for seven years in Sundays--fifty years--and when he died had them buried with him, still far from worn out.
A traveller once returned from America--in those days a very far-off land--and was recounting the wonders he had seen, and among them how the folk there used sleighs, not only for driving in but for the removal of heavy goods.

But Jonathan did not think it strange, since when he was young wheeled vehicles were not so common.

He had himself seen loads of hay drawn home on 'sleds' from English meadows, and could tell where a 'sled' had last been used.

There were aged men living about the hamlet in his day--if that could be called a hamlet in which there were barely a score of people, all told--who could recollect when the first waggon came to The Idovers.