Chap­ter 10: The Skrup Shoe cen­ters around Earl Roberts, com­mon­ly known as Doc, a man from Pottstown who becomes caught up in rumors about a Jew­ish woman named Chona alleged­ly hid­ing a Black child from the state. Doc hears about this from his dis­tant cousin, Carl Boy­d­kins, who works for the state wel­fare office. The fam­i­lies, despite their strained rela­tion­ship, both trace their lin­eage back to the Mayflower, a claim that is more of a fab­ri­cat­ed myth than a truth, root­ed in the sto­ry of Ed Bole, an Eng­lish sailor from the late 18th cen­tu­ry. Bole’s tumul­tuous life would ulti­mate­ly lead to the Roberts and Boy­d­kins fam­i­lies pros­per­ing on neigh­bor­ing farms along the Man­atawny Creek. This shared myth, tied to the colo­nial past, serves as a back­drop to the strained social dynam­ics of Pottstown.

The chap­ter then delves into the sig­nif­i­cant social and eco­nom­ic changes before and after the Great Crash of 1929. While the Roberts fam­i­ly man­ages to sell their prop­er­ty just before the crash, the Boy­d­kins fam­i­ly is hit hard as the fac­to­ries that once fueled their pros­per­i­ty now pol­lute their land, dec­i­mat­ing their way of life. Doc reflects on his child­hood dur­ing these tur­bu­lent times, grap­pling with his inse­cu­ri­ties, espe­cial­ly about his left foot, which was affect­ed by polio. His dis­abil­i­ty makes him self-con­scious, par­tic­u­lar­ly when inter­act­ing with girls, lead­ing him to avoid social sit­u­a­tions. This sense of alien­ation from his peers shapes much of Doc’s char­ac­ter and con­tributes to his lat­er feel­ings of bit­ter­ness and resent­ment. The social changes around him only exac­er­bate these feel­ings, as his dis­com­fort with the evolv­ing world around him grows.

As Doc matures, his feel­ings toward Chona resur­face, root­ed in mem­o­ries from his high school days when he unsuc­cess­ful­ly tried to court her. The rejec­tion he faced then left a last­ing impact, fuel­ing his inse­cu­ri­ties. Lat­er, Doc vis­its Nor­man Skrupske­lis, the town’s renowned shoe­mak­er, to have a cus­tom shoe made for his cleft foot. Norman’s harsh and abrupt man­ner dur­ing the fit­ting leaves a bit­ter impres­sion on Doc, lead­ing to years of resent­ment that con­tin­ues even after Norman’s death. This bit­ter­ness is com­pound­ed by the tran­si­tion of Nor­man’s busi­ness to his sons, fur­ther fuel­ing Doc’s ongo­ing frus­tra­tion with the changes around him. These unre­solved feel­ings toward Nor­man and Chona linger, influ­enc­ing Doc’s world­view and inter­ac­tions with those in his com­mu­ni­ty.

Doc’s strug­gles with Pottstown’s demo­graph­ic shifts reflect his deep­en­ing big­otry as immi­grants from var­i­ous cul­tur­al back­grounds set­tle in the area. He begins to view these changes as a threat to the way of life he once knew and becomes increas­ing­ly alien­at­ed from his home­town. His sense of dis­con­nec­tion grows, and his resent­ment towards the “out­siders” inten­si­fies, cul­mi­nat­ing in his involve­ment with the Knights of Pottstown. This group aligns itself with the ide­olo­gies of the Ku Klux Klan, which only deep­ens Doc’s prej­u­dices and sense of exclu­sion. His affil­i­a­tion with such a group high­lights his unwill­ing­ness to adapt to the chang­ing social fab­ric of Pottstown, fur­ther iso­lat­ing him from the evolv­ing com­mu­ni­ty around him.

The chap­ter con­cludes with Doc reluc­tant­ly agree­ing to vis­it Chona, stirred by the com­plex emo­tions regard­ing their shared past and the cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences that con­tin­ue to define their inter­ac­tions. This vis­it, charged with the weight of his­to­ry and per­son­al griev­ances, sets the stage for deep­er explo­ration of themes like iden­ti­ty, social change, and the intri­ca­cies of human rela­tion­ships in the con­text of entrenched prej­u­dice. The chap­ter not only illu­mi­nates the per­son­al strug­gles of Doc but also paints a larg­er pic­ture of the soci­etal chal­lenges faced by com­mu­ni­ties as they under­go sig­nif­i­cant trans­for­ma­tions. Through Doc’s inter­nal con­flict and his jour­ney towards con­fronting these changes, the sto­ry address­es broad­er issues of race, class, and iden­ti­ty, mark­ing a cru­cial moment in the nar­ra­tive.