PART II
"When Goodyear dropped that piece of rubber on the hot stove, he lost no time in putting the new process to the test. He nailed the rubber outside the kitchen door in the intense cold. In the morning he brought it in, holding it up exultantly. It was as flexible as when he had put it out the night before. Then he cut a square yard of thick rubber, treated this new piece with sulphur, and with the help of his wife and children cured it in front of his bedroom fire.
"The experiment was a thorough success; and from this piece of rubber he made a cap for himself that has never been injured by any heat or cold or rain or acid. But the process was far from perfect; and Goodyear saw that the changeful heat of an open fire must be replaced by something hotter and steadier and something that he could control. But how hot must the fire be and how long must the heat be applied? Hopefully he set about answering these questions.
"He would toast a lump of rubber over the kitchen fire sometimes an hour, sometimes a whole day; he would hold rubber against the steaming nose of the tea-kettle; he would put a batch of it into the oven of the cook stove and bake it, sometimes two hours, sometimes six. Indeed he would often sit up till long past midnight to watch his baking pans.
Kitchen in which Goodyear made his Experiments
"Often he begged his friends in a Woburn factory to lend their oven for his rubber; and they, considering his experiments useless but harmless, would grant his request. Day after day, however, the truth eluded him; and day after day food for his family grew scarcer and scarcer. He pawned everything he could spare, even his children's school books.
"At last one morning after a heavy snow storm, with the secret almost within his grasp, he awoke to find that there was not one particle of food in his house nor one penny in his purse. Besides, he was sicker than most people are when they decide to stay in bed till they feel better. But he had a wife and four children that must be fed. He got up and stumbled through the drifts for nearly five miles, so tired and hungry that many times he almost fainted.
"Luckily, the friend he went to see proved a real friend, and lent him money enough to support his family and keep on with his experiments during those winter days. But though with this assistance he found out just the details he needed to know for vulcanizing the rubber, ill-health and poverty, instead of growing less, increased with the certainty of his discovery. He was constantly troubled with dyspepsia. He was so deeply in debt that people had no faith in him. They remembered the rubber shoes and the mail bags; but they forgot the splendid courage that had never accepted defeat. As so often happens, Goodyear was a genius without the power of persuasion. He had to wait for his discoveries to be his mouth-piece.
"But his waiting time was his testing time and proved his honesty and his single-heartedness. A French concern offered to pay for the privilege of using his first important discovery—that rubber could be cured by nitric acid—his acid-gas treatment, he called it. What a temptation that offer was, Lucy, it is impossible to realize; but Goodyear was too honest to sell a half truth for a truth, and he wrote to France that he was almost in the possession of a greater secret which he would gladly sell when he had learned it all.
"Just a little money now stood between Goodyear and assured success; and the quest for a paltry fifty dollars, which would pay his fare to New York and provide for his family during his absence, took him through the darkest days of his life.
"He thought of a friend in Boston who might be willing to lend the money. So, having prevailed upon a Woburn shop keeper to give his family credit for a while, he set out to walk the ten miles to Boston on his pitiful errand. But the friend (perhaps I ought to call him by another name) refused the loan; and, worse luck, while Goodyear was still in Boston, he was sent once more to prison for those debts so long ago forced upon him. His father somehow brought influence to bear for a release; and then Goodyear spent a week tramping about Boston streets, inviting this man and that to lend him a little money, sleeping and eating the while at a small hotel. But every one turned him only a deaf ear; and when the hotel bill came, he had to leave in disgrace.
"That night he walked to Cambridge, where, to his great relief, he found shelter with a friend; and the next morning, more discouraged than ever before, he walked wearily back to Woburn. But a greater trouble awaited him at his threshold. His little boy, two years old, who had been perfectly well when he went away, was dying. His wife was sick in bed; the faithless store keeper had refused further credit, and the family were literally starving. Was there ever a more pitiable case? There was just one friend left, and to him Goodyear turned. That friend sent seven dollars and a reprimand. Moreover, a sympathetic man, happening to hear the story in the friend's office, sent the Goodyears a barrel of flour.
"The money and the flour helped, of course, but they could not save the little son's life. Still, those precious dollars must be spent on the living, not the dead; so they carried the little body on a wagon to the grave, and the sorrowing father walked behind.
"I'm glad to say that this is the darkest part of the story. Somebody finally lent Goodyear the fifty dollars he wanted; and the inventor went to New York, interested the right people, proved to a rich brother-in-law that success was in sight, and perfected his rubber.
"When people found that Goodyear had really succeeded with his problem, rubber became even more popular than it had been fifteen years before. Rubber goods began to be manufactured in large quantities; and Goodyear, having patented his process, made the profits he deserved. Do I need to tell you, Lucy, what the honest man did first with his money?"
"I don't believe so, Grandfather. Of course he paid his debts."
"Indeed he did. And besides, he's been able to maintain his family comfortably ever since. But Goodyear will never be an enormously rich man. He's been wickedly cheated and his patents have been infringed again and again. Of course he's been fighting for his rights, but the case has been dragging on these seven years. His opponent is a man named Day, who is trying to prove that, although he once promised Goodyear not to manufacture any such articles of rubber as must be completed by the use of artificial heat and sulphur, that agreement is invalid because Goodyear is not the inventor of the process."
"He couldn't say so, Grandfather, if he knew all you have just told me, could he?"
"It seems perfectly plain to you, Lucy, as it seems to me, that only Goodyear is entitled to credit for the invention. But I think I have shown you that Goodyear hasn't been much of a business man. He's always been so unfortunate in protecting his own rights that perhaps there will be found some legal flaw in his patents. I sincerely hope not, but the distinguished Rufus Choate has been taking charge of Day's claims; and if those claims have any force, Choate will find it. We shall hear this morning only Webster. Mr. Choate and his partner Mr. Cutting, have already presented their arguments for Day."
Charles Goodyear