ng a
man of tender feelings and ardently devoted to his family, might have
yielded to them had he not felt that lie was nearer than ever to the
discovery of the secret that had eluded him so long.

Just before the failure of his mail-bags had brought ruin upon him, he
had taken into his employ a man named Nathaniel Hayward, who had been
the foreman of the old Roxbury works, and who was still in charge of
them when Goodyear came to Roxbury, making a few rubber articles on his
own account. He hardened his compound by mixing a little powdered
sulphur with the gum, or by sprinkling sulphur on the rubber cloth, and
drying it in the sun. He declared that the process had been revealed to
him in a dream, but could give no further account of it. Goodyear was
astonished to find that the sulphur cured the India-rubber as thoroughly
as the aqua fortis, the principal objection being that the sulphurous
odor of the goods was frightful in hot weather. Hayward's process was
really the same as that employed by Goodyear, the "curing" of the
India-rubber being due in each case to the agency of sulphur, the
principal difference between them being that Hayward's goods were dried
by the sun, and Goodyear's with nitric acid. Hay ward set so small a
value upon his discovery that he had readily sold it to his new
employer.

[Illustration: AN AMAZING REVELATION.]

Goodyear felt that he had now all but conquered his difficulties. It was
plain that sulphur was the great controller of India-rubber, for he had
proved that when applied to thin cloth it would render it available for
most purposes. The problem that now remained was how to mix sulphur and
the gum in a mass, so that every part of the rubber should be subjected
to the agency of the sulphur. He experimented for weeks and months with
the most intense eagerness, but the mystery completely baffled him. His
friends urged him to go to work to do something for his family, but he
could not turn back. The goal was almost in sight, and he felt that he
would be false to his mission were he to abandon his labors now. To the
world he seemed a crack-brained dreamer, and some there were who, seeing
the distress of his family, did not hesitate to apply still harsher
names to him; but to the Great Eye that reads all hearts, how different
did this man appear! It saw the anguish that wrung the heart of Charles
Goodyear, and knew the more than heroic firmness with which, in the
midst of his poverty and su