right about the job. Unluckily he had never seen any cotton growing because he had always lived in the North, you know. In fact, he had never laid eyes on cotton at all until it was made into cloth, so of course he hadn't much of an idea what he was up against, and the first thing he had to do was to scurry round and get specimens of cotton with the seeds in it. It wasn't so easy to do just then, either, because it was not the season for cotton-gathering and he had to hunt and hunt to get some of the last season's crop. I believe he finally got what he needed from a warehouse in New Orleans. Anyhow, he got the cotton pods somewhere and found out better where he stood. And that reminds me, Ma, that the teacher told us there were ever so many different kinds of cotton; and that the Upland cotton, growing in the South, had green seeds that stuck like—like anything to the white part. You could hardly separate the two without ruining the cotton fibers and you can see that as they were to be spun they must not be broken."

"Mr. Whitney did have a puzzle to work out."

"You've said it, Ma! He sure had," beamed Carl. "Well, he kept fussing round, and fussing round, and by and by he managed to get together a simple sort of contrivance that would do what he wanted it to. It was no great shakes of a machine. Any blacksmith or wheelwright could have made it if he had happened to think of it first. In fact, lots of other people did make gins like it. That is why Whitney never got rich, the teacher said."

"But didn't he get his invention patented?" inquired Mrs. McGregor, laying aside the tulle she was beading.

"Not until it was too late. You see, Mrs. Greene was so set up to think Mr. Whitney had done the deed she had predicted he would that she had to go blabbing all over town how clever he was. And the minute people heard that a cotton gin was really made that would take out the seeds they came begging to see the wonderful machine and find out how it worked; and of course Mr. Whitney had to show it off. He hadn't a notion people would be so low-down as to snitch his idea and go to making cotton gins of their own. But that's exactly what they did do and as soon as Mr. Whitney and Mr. Miller who was helping him got wise to the fact, they locked the new cotton gin up. But do you s'pose that did any good? Not on your life! The cotton raisers were crazy to get the machine because everybody needed it so badly. On the plantations there wasn't enough work to keep the negro slaves busy and it cost a lot to feed them. The planters figured that if something profitable could be found for them to do they would earn their keep. They certainly could not do this picking the seeds out of cotton because it took them such an age to pick enough to make a pound. The darkies could gather the crop all right. It had to be gathered by hand. What was needed was something that would take the seeds out and make it possible to raise and sell big quantities of cotton. So Whitney's gin exactly filled the bill. It was just what the whole South had been waiting for and if such a thing existed people were bound to have it. Naturally when Whitney wouldn't show it to them and locked it up, they thought he was almighty stingy and some of the meanest of the bunch broke into the place where he kept it and carried it off."

"Oh!"

"Rotten, wasn't it? They ought to have been hung; but they weren't. Instead, the model of the cotton gin got abroad and all the South started to making cotton gins until they were all over the place."

"I'm afraid Mr. Whitney wasn't a very business-like man," ventured Mrs. McGregor.

"He wasn't. Most generally inventors aren't, I guess. Still, how was he to know they were going to swipe his idea? Of course he and Mr. Miller went straight to work and tried to pick up the pieces. Mr. Whitney went home to New Haven and set about making cotton gins on a larger scale than he could make them at Mrs. Greene's; but even then he could not make them fast enough. And on top of all his factory burned down and for a while he couldn't make any gins at all. It seemed as if hard luck pursued him whichever way he turned."

"It certainly did seem so!"

"He and Mr. Miller, who had now gone in as his partner, spent no end of money in lawsuits, and Mr. Miller got so worn out and discouraged fighting the infringers that finally he died, leaving Eli Whitney to carry on the battle alone. And it was a battle, too, to get any satisfaction out of the people who were making use of his idea. I believe that North Carolina and Tennessee did pay him something, and after a while South Carolina and Georgia did. In all he received about ninety thousand dollars; but the lawsuits he had been compelled to go through to get it ate up a good slice of the receipts. Besides, some more had to go for the factory that got burned and other expenses. So he didn't get much out of the deal, I guess. But the South did. The Whitney gin whooped up their cotton trade in great style. Every year the planters grew more and more cotton because now that they could get the seeds out it paid to raise it, and by and by they were exporting millions of bales. Cotton is now one of our biggest exports, the teacher said. We grow billions of pounds of it and for the most part it is the green seed, Upland cotton, cleaned by a gin founded on Whitney's idea. That's why I say it does you no good to go to school," concluded Carl. "Whitney went through Yale college and invented his cotton gin before he had been out of the university a year, and what good did it do him, I'd like to know?"

"He did a lot to help the world along, sonny."

"Oh, I suppose he did," admitted the boy. "But for all that he didn't get the spondulics. That is why I want to go into the factory. So I can get some cash to help out here at home. S'pos'n we didn't have Uncle Frederick Dillingham or your sewing money? And anyhow, I don't want you to be always sewing. I want you to have pretty clothes, ride round in an automobile, and be a lady!"

"Oh, Carlie! Can't one work for a living and still be a lady, my dear?"

Carl flushed.

"Of course she can, Ma. You're a lady right now. Still, I do wish you didn't have to make those silly dresses all the time. Well, no matter. You just wait until I get through school. You shall be wearing dresses like those and somebody else shall be sewing the beads on."

A suspicious moisture gathered in Mrs. McGregor's eyes.

"You're a good boy, Carl," answered she gently, "even if you do slaughter your mother tongue. Now be off with you. All this palaver about Mr. Whitney has almost made you late for school, and left me hardly knowing whether I am sewing frontwards or backwards. Still, it isn't a bad thing to have a son that knows something."

It was evident from Mrs. McGregor's tone that she might have said more but for the stern belief that she must not flatter her children. Therefore to cut short the danger of such a crime she brusquely hurried Carl out of the kitchen, merely calling after him:

"Don't forget to bring home a yeast cake to-night or you'll get no bread to-morrow. Put your mind on it, now. If you remembered the errands I ask you to do half as well as you remember about cotton gins and the like you'd save layers of shoe leather."

It was a characteristic farewell. Mrs. McGregor would not have been Mrs. McGregor had she not uttered it. All this Carl understood and, undaunted by the words, he bent to kiss his mother on the cheek.

"I suppose you wouldn't have time to stop into the Harlings on your way," suggested she, with a twinkle in her eye.

"I was planning to stop there a minute as I went along."

"I'll be bound you were. One might as well try to keep a fly out of the molasses as to keep you away from the Harlings. Well, since you are going that way anyhow, you can carry over a bowl of broth. I made it yesterday a-purpose. Tell Mrs. Harling it will only need to be heated up for herself and Grandfather Harling."

CHAPTER