he was. And the minute people
heard that a cotton gin was really made that would take out the seeds
they came begging to see the wonderful machine and find out how it
worked; and of course Mr. Whitney had to show it off. He hadn't a
notion people would be so low-down as to snitch his idea and go to
making cotton gins of their own. But that's exactly what they did do
and as soon as Mr. Whitney and Mr. Miller who was helping him got wise
to the fact, they locked the new cotton gin up. But do you s'pose that
did any good? Not on your life! The cotton raisers were crazy to get
the machine because everybody needed it so badly. On the plantations
there wasn't enough work to keep the negro slaves busy and it cost a
lot to feed them. The planters figured that if something profitable
could be found for them to do they would earn their keep. They
certainly could not do this picking the seeds out of cotton because it
took them such an age to pick enough to make a pound. The darkies could
gather the crop all right. It had to be gathered by hand. What was
needed was something that would take the seeds out and make it possible
to raise and sell big quantities of cotton. So Whitney's gin exactly
filled the bill. It was just what the whole South had been waiting for
and if such a thing existed people were bound to have it. Naturally
when Whitney wouldn't show it to them and locked it up, they thought he
was almighty stingy and some of the meanest of the bunch broke into the
place where he kept it and carried it off."

"Oh!"

"Rotten, wasn't it? They ought to have been hung; but they weren't.
Instead, the model of the cotton gin got abroad and all the South
started to making cotton gins until they were all over the place."

"I'm afraid Mr. Whitney wasn't a very business-like man," ventured Mrs.
McGregor.

"He wasn't. Most generally inventors aren't, I guess. Still, how was he
to know they were going to swipe his idea? Of course he and Mr. Miller
went straight to work and tried to pick up the pieces. Mr. Whitney went
home to New Haven and set about making cotton gins on a larger scale
than he could make them at Mrs. Greene's; but even then he could not
make them fast enough. And on top of all his factory burned down and
for a while he couldn't make any gins at all. It seemed as if hard luck
pursued him whichever way he turned."

"It certainly did seem so!"

"He and Mr. Miller, who had now gone in as his partner, spent no end of