Analyzing Character, page 109 by Katherine M.H. Blackford
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ches of industry suited to the capacity of children, with which New England abounds. When Elias was six years old, he was set, with his brothers and sisters, to sticking wire teeth through the leather straps used for making cotton cards. When he became old enough, he assisted his father in his saw-mill and grist-mill, and during the winter months picked up a meager education at the district school. He has said that it was the rude and imperfect mills of his father that first turned his attention to machinery. He was not fitted for hard work, however, as he was frail in constitution and incapable of bearing much fatigue. Moreover, he inherited a species of lameness which proved a great obstacle to any undertaking on his part, and gave him no little trouble all through life. At the age of eleven he went to live out on the farm of a neighbor, but the labor proving too severe for him he returned home and resumed his place in his father's mills, where he remained until he was sixteen years old.
"At the age of twenty-one he married. This was a rash step for him, as his health was very delicate, and his earnings were but nine dollars per week. Three children were born to him in quick succession, and he found it no easy task to provide food, shelter and clothing for his little family. The light heartedness for which he had formerly been noted entirely deserted him, and he became sad and melancholy. His health did not improve, and it was with difficulty that he could perform his daily task. His strength was so slight that he would frequently return from his day's work too exhausted to eat. He could only go to bed, and in his agony he wished 'to lie in bed forever and ever,' Still he worked faithfully and conscientiously, for his wife and children were very dear to him; but he did so with a hopelessness which only those who have tasted the depths of poverty can understand.
"About this time he heard it said that the great necessity of the age was a machine for doing sewing. The immense amount of fatigue incurr