"But his waiting time was his testing time and proved his honesty and his single-heartedness. A French concern offered to pay for the privilege of using his first important discovery--that rubber could be cured by nitric acid--his acid-gas treatment, he called it. What a temptation that offer was, Lucy, it is impossible to realize; but Goodyear was too honest to sell a half truth for a truth, and he wrote to France that he was almost in the possession of a greater secret which he would gladly sell when he had learned it all.
"Just a little money now stood between Goodyear and assured success; and the quest for a paltry fifty dollars, which would pay his fare to New York and provide for his family during his absence, took him through the darkest days of his life.
"He thought of a friend in Boston who might be willing to lend the money. So, having prevailed upon a Woburn shop keeper to give his family credit for a while, he set out to walk the ten miles to Boston on his pitiful errand. But the friend (perhaps I ought to call him by another name) refused the loan; and, worse luck, while Goodyear was still in Boston, he was sent once more to prison for those debts so long ago forced upon him. His father somehow brought influence to bear for a release; and then Goodyear spent a week tramping about Boston streets, inviting this man and that to lend him a little money, sleeping and eating the while at a small hotel. But every one turned him only a deaf ear; and when the hotel bill came, he had to leave in disgrace.
"That night he walked to Cambridge, where, to his great relief, he found shelter with a friend; and the next morning, more discouraged than ever before, he walked wearily back to Woburn. But a greater trouble awaited him at his threshold. His little boy, two years old, who had been perfectly well when he went away, was dying. His wife was sick in bed; the faithless store keeper had refused further credit, and the family were literally starving. Was there ever a more pitiable case? There was just one friend left, and to him Goodyear turned. That friend sent seven dollars and a reprimand. Moreover, a sympathetic man, happening to hear the story in the friend's office, sent the Goodyears a barrel of flour.