The snow and water went through them as through a sieve.
Before the first of February, the poor boy was almost crippled with the chilblains.

Through the day, he hobbled about as best he could, often in great pain; and at night the tender skin of his feet, irritated by the warmth of the bed, would keep him awake for hours with a most intolerable burning and itching.
"Why don't you walk straight?
What do you go shuffling along in that kind of style for ?" said Sharp to him one day, toward the last of January.
"My feet are so sore," replied Henry, with a look of suffering, blended with patient endurance.
"What's the matter with them, ha ?" asked his master glancing down at the miserable apologies for shoes and stockings that but partially protected the child's feet front the snow whenever he stepped beyond the threshold.
"They're frosted, sir," said Henry.
"Frosted, ha?
Pull off your shoes and stockings, and let me see." Henry drew off an old shoe, tied on with various appliances of twine and leather strings; and then removed a stocking that, through many gaping holes, revealed the red and shining skin beneath.

That little foot was a sight to pain the heart of any one but a cruel tyrant.
The heel, in many places, was of a dark purple, and seemed as if mortification were already begun.

And in some places it was cracked open, and exhibited running sores.
"Take off your other shoe and stocking," said Sharp, in authoritative tone.
Henry obeyed, trembling all the while.

This foot exhibited nearly the same marks of the progress of the painful disease.
"What have you done for it ?" asked Sharp, looking Henry in the face with a scowl.
"Nothing but to put a little candle-grease on it at night before I went to bed," replied the child.
"Come out here with me.