The next day the poor woman got a present It was a nice load of wood.
Can you guess who sent it to her?
THE INDIA-RUBBER MAN.
Many years ago a strange-looking man was sometimes seen in the streets of New York. His cap was made of In-di-a rubber. So was his coat. He wore a rubber waist-coat. Even his cravat was of In-di-a rubber. He wore rubber shoes in dry weather. People called this man “The In-di-a-rubber man.”
His name was Charles Good-year. He was very poor. He was trying to find out how to make India rubber useful.
India-rubber trees grow in South America. The juice of these trees is something like milk or cream. By drying this juice, India rubber is made.
The Indians in Bra-zil have no glass to make bottles with. A long time ago they learned to make bottles out of rubber. More than a hundred years ago some of these rubber bottles were brought to this country. The people in this country had never seen India rubber before. They thought the bottles made out of it by the Indians very cu-ri-ous.
In this country, rubber was used only to rub out pencil marks. That is why we call it rubber. People in South America learned to make a kind of heavy shoe out of it. But these shoes were hard to make. They cost a great deal when they were sold in this country.
Men tried to make rubber shoes in this country. They got the rubber from Bra-zil. Rubber shoes made in this country were cheaper than those brought from South America. But they were not good. They would freeze till they were as hard as stones in winter. That was not the worst of it. In summer they would melt. Goodyear was trying to find out a way to make rubber better. He wanted to get it so that it would not melt in summer. He wanted to get a rubber that would not get hard in cold weather. The first rubber coats that were made were so hard in cold weather, that they would stand alone, and look like a man.
Goodyear wanted to try his rubber. That is why he wore a rubber coat and a rubber waist-coat and a rubber cravat. That is why he wore a rubber cap and rubber shoes when it was not raining. He made paper out of rubber, and wrote a book on it. He had a door-plate made of it. He even carried a cane made of India rubber. It is no wonder people called him the India-rubber man.