But, baby though he was, his days were not all spent in play. At home there were seven younger brothers and sisters to be nursed and watched and kept out of the way of the heavy waggons that were dragged by horses along the tram-road in front of the house, and much of this fell to George's share.
As the years passed the Stephenson family, obliged like other colliers "to follow the work," moved to a place called Dewley Burn, and now as George had reached the age of eight he was ready to earn some money!
To show how smart and quick the child was for his years there has come down to us a pretty story.
He and his sister Nell had gone to Newcastle one day, and among their little commissions they were bent on buying Nell a new bonnet. They found the very thing she wanted in a shop, but the price was beyond their purse. It was 1_s._ 3_d._ over the mark, and the pair, sadly downcast, had to leave the shop. Standing crestfallen outside the boy suddenly exclaimed, "I have it! Wait here till I come back." Off he darted, and Nell waited while the minutes wore to hours, and still he did not come. Just as she began to think he must either have been killed or run over he dashed up breathless and thrust the coveted 1_s._ 3_d._ into her hand.
"But where did you get it?" she asked, astonished.
"By holding gentlemen's horses," was the reply.
The child's first situation at this time was with a woman who kept a farm and needed a boy to herd her cows and keep them out of the way of passing waggons. For this the little herd-boy was paid 2_d._ a day. How happy he was in long leisure hours to bird's-nest or whittle whistles out of reeds, or in company with another boy--by-and-by, like himself, to be one of the world's great engineers--to model toy engines out of clay, using hollowed corks for corves and hemlock stalks for steam pipes!
Soon George advanced a step in life. His work was still farm-work--hoeing turnips for 4_d._ a day, leading the plough horses when his little legs could hardly stride the furrows, and working in the dawning hours of day when other children slept.
But his heart was really at the engine fire or in the coal shaft. It was "bred in the bone," and he gladly returned to the black, grimy life, and along with his brother became a coal-picker, separating stones and dross from the coal, and so earning 6_d._ a day.