Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Querying the History of Feet

Yesterday I was busy writing and going to the library; today I was busy going back to Castroville. I am much too tired to write about that now. But my feet hurt just from walking around town in SAS shoes, and I find myself pondering this question:

So, after she wangles the corpse over the back of her pony Bean, Len will pretty much have to walk to Castroville. Even if she picks up a cart from one of the families living between the crime scene and the San Antonio Road (which is far from a given), it'll probably be a small one she has to lead, not a big one she can ride. So what is she wearing on her feet, and in what ways will they be excruciatingly painful when she rides up to the door of the gristmill with her grisly load?

At the moment I think her choices are mocassins and wooden-soled shoes like the ones I saw at the Frontier Times Museum. Mocassins would be marginally better as long as she didn't put her foot wrong on a rock and bruise it, because wooden soles don't flex; but she was expecting to ride all her long distances and I'm not sure a mocassin is suitable for long rides with stirrups. Cowboy boots have highish heels for a reason, after all.

I have a horse-knowledgeable friend about whom I will consult on this and all other questions related to Bean, but I'm not at all sure she'd know the answer to this one.

And yes, this will keep me awake tonight. That and the caffeine I drank to get me through today. And the buzzing of unprocessed data overload. A researcher's life is a hard one, but I knew the job was dangerous when I took it, Fred.

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