BOOKS

BY GERTRUDE L. STONE AND
M. GRACE FICKETT


EVERY DAY LIFE IN THE COLONIES

DAYS AND DEEDS A HUNDRED YEARS AGO

FAMOUS DAYS IN THE CENTURY OF INVENTION


D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS

FAMOUS DAYS IN THE
CENTURY OF INVENTION


BY
GERTRUDE L. STONE
INSTRUCTOR IN THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL
GORHAM, MAINE

AND

M. GRACE FICKETT
INSTRUCTOR IN STATE NORMAL SCHOOL
WESTFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS



D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO

Copyright, 1920,
By D. C. Heath & Co.

CONTENTS

FAMOUS DAYS IN THE CENTURY OF INVENTION

HOW THE SEWING MACHINE WON FAVOR

PART I

"It is! It is!" chattered the robins at half past three on an early June morning in 1845. Jonathan Wheeler sat up in bed with a start. This was the morning he had been waiting for all the spring, the morning he was to start for Boston with his father, mother, and Uncle William, and ride for the first time on a railway train.

"Is it really pleasant?" was his first thought. "It is! It is!" chirped the robins again. And Jonathan's eyes by this time were open enough to see the red glow through the eastern window. In a second he was out of bed, hurrying into his best clothes that his mother had laid out for him the night before.

Jonathan lived in a little town only thirty miles from Boston; but traveling was not then the easy and familiar experience of to-day. The nearest railway station was at South Acton, fifteen miles away. The Wheelers had planned to start from home in the early morning, and after dining with some friends in the railroad town, leave there for Boston on the afternoon train.

But in those days the Fitchburg railroad had not crossed the river, and had its terminal at Charlestown. From there passengers were carried by stage to the City Tavern in Brattle Street. It would be six o'clock that night before Jonathan could possibly see Boston.

But he lost no moment of his longed-for day. The bothersome dressing and eating were soon over; and Jonathan felt that his new experiences were really beginning when, at seven o'clock, from the front seat beside his father in the blue wagon, he looked down on his eight less fortunate brothers and sisters and several neighbors' children, who, with the hired man, were waiting to see the travelers depart.

"Good-bye! Good-bye, everybody!" called Jonathan, proudly. "I shan't see you for three days, and then I shall be wearing some store clothes!"

For the first few miles the conversation of his elders did not interest him much. He was so busy watching for the first signs of a railway train that the smoke from every far-away chimney attracted his attention; but after a while, when there was nothing to see but the thick growths of birch and maple each side the road, he heard his father saying:

"Well, Betsey, I think thee has earned this holiday. Thee has had a busy spring."

An Old-fashioned Train of Cars

"It has been a busy time," agreed Mrs. Wheeler. "But all the house-cleaning is done and every stitch of the spring sewing. Since April I've cut and made sixteen dresses and six suits of clothes."

"Did thee read in the Worcester Spy last week, Betsey," inquired Uncle William, "of a sewing machine that bids fair to be a success?"

"A sewing machine!" echoed Mrs. Wheeler. "Does thee mean a machine that actually sews as a woman sews? That's too good to be true!"

"But it's bound to come, Betsey," said her husband reassuringly. "We're keeping house to-day much as the early settlers did. We've found better ways of travel, and labor-saving inventions are the next thing." Then, turning to his brother, he added, "Tell us, William, what the Spy said."

"Well, it seems there's a young man in Boston who has a good deal of ingenuity, and he actually has a sewing machine on exhibition at a tailor's there. For some days he's been sewing seams with it, the paper said, at the rate of three hundred stitches to the minute. Perhaps we shall find that tailor's shop to-morrow."

"I should like nothing better,"