money in lawsuits, and Mr. Miller got so worn out and discouraged
fighting the infringers that finally he died, leaving Eli Whitney to
carry on the battle alone. And it was a battle, too, to get any
satisfaction out of the people who were making use of his idea. I
believe that North Carolina and Tennessee did pay him something, and
after a while South Carolina and Georgia did. In all he received about
ninety thousand dollars; but the lawsuits he had been compelled to go
through to get it ate up a good slice of the receipts. Besides, some
more had to go for the factory that got burned and other expenses. So
he didn't get much out of the deal, I guess. But the South did. The
Whitney gin whooped up their cotton trade in great style. Every year
the planters grew more and more cotton because now that they could get
the seeds out it paid to raise it, and by and by they were exporting
millions of bales. Cotton is now one of our biggest exports, the
teacher said. We grow billions of pounds of it and for the most part it
is the green seed, Upland cotton, cleaned by a gin founded on Whitney's
idea. That's why I say it does you no good to go to school," concluded
Carl. "Whitney went through Yale college and invented his cotton gin
before he had been out of the university a year, and what good did it
do him, I'd like to know?"

"He did a lot to help the world along, sonny."

"Oh, I suppose he did," admitted the boy. "But for all that he didn't
get the spondulics. That is why I want to go into the factory. So I can
get some cash to help out here at home. S'pos'n we didn't have Uncle
Frederick Dillingham or your sewing money? And anyhow, I don't want you
to be always sewing. I want you to have pretty clothes, ride round in
an automobile, and be a lady!"

"Oh, Carlie! Can't one work for a living and still be a lady, my dear?"

Carl flushed.

"Of course she can, Ma. You're a lady right now. Still, I do wish you
didn't have to make those silly dresses all the time. Well, no matter.
You just wait until I get through school. You shall be wearing dresses
like those and somebody else shall be sewing the beads on."

A suspicious moisture gathered in Mrs. McGregor's eyes.

"You're a good boy, Carl," answered she gently, "even if you do
slaughter your mother tongue. Now be off with you. All this palaver
about Mr. Whitney has almost made you late for school, and left me
hardly knowing whether I am sewing frontwards or backwards. Still, i