"My stars! Don't you, a Boston girl, know about Goodyear and his rubber goods?"
"I don't believe so," answered Lucy. "Unless," she added after a pause, "you mean the man that advertises in the Transcript every night. Ever since I could read, I've seen advertisements in the paper about rubber that's been heated to two hundred and eighty degrees."
"Yes, Lucy, that's an advertisement of the Charles Goodyear I mean. I've known him a good many years (he's only a little younger than I, and we were both born in New Haven), and he's had a hard, sad life so far. To be sure, he's reckoned now as one of New Haven's prosperous business men; but unless he wins this suit, his poverty will come back again. Shall I tell you a little about him so that you'll understand some of the references you'll be sure to hear at the trial?"
Birthplace of Charles Goodyear
"Oh, I wish you would, Grandfather."
Breakfast was over then; and as Grandmother went to the kitchen to give her orders for the day, Grandfather said:
"You and I, Lucy, will sit in front of the fire a little while and talk about Mr. Goodyear. But first you'd better go with Grandmother and let her give you my galoshes and my rubber cap, and her rubber shoes and your own."
A little girl of to-day, on hearing that request, might not know exactly what she had been sent for. Rubber goods were too expensive then to be common, and "rubber shoes" had not been shortened to our "rubbers." The awkward galoshes was just a name for high rubber shoes, or overshoes.
Lucy came back soon, her arms full. The cap she placed on a table, and the three pairs of rubber shoes she put carefully down to warm in front of the fire.