"The night that Mrs. Howe and the children left England, it was so very wet and stormy that Mrs. Howe, who was almost in consumption, could not walk to the ship. Inglis lent Elias a few shillings for the cab hire, and Elias promised him some clothing in return. The clothing was what the washerwoman had brought home that morning, but had taken away again, because there was no money to pay her.
"Then came days of pinching poverty for Elias; but not quite such unhappy ones, I think, now that the wife and children were soon to be with the relatives in Cambridge. Elias knew that the Howes were too proud to let his family starve; and as for himself, he would borrow a shilling at a time of Inglis and buy beans to cook in his own room.
"Finally he finished the machine. Instead of getting the fifty pounds that it was worth, he had to sell it for five pounds, and even then for a mere promise to pay. Inglis soon managed to get four pounds of the money in cash for him, but that four pounds was by no means enough to pay Elias's debts and buy his passage. There was nothing to do but pawn his precious first machine and the letters-patent. That done, he drew his baggage on a hand cart to a freight vessel, and he and Inglis took passage in the steerage of another ship bound for America.
"Elias reached New York last April with half a crown in his pocket, but he found employment in a machine shop almost at once. Then came the sad news that his wife, who had been ill when she left England, was dying in Cambridge.
[Illustration: HOWE'S IMPROVED SEWING MACHINE]
"Elias had no money for a railroad journey. He had to wait friendless, except for Inglis, in a great city, wholly despairing of ever seeing his wife again and feeling that he had risked everything to gain nothing. His father, however, as soon as he knew of his destitution, sent him ten dollars, and Elias reached Cambridge just in time to speak to his wife before she died. He had no clothes, though, but his shabby working suit, and could not have gone to the funeral if his brother had not lent him a coat.
"That was the last time I saw Elias, and then I should scarcely have known him. By nature, he is, you know, a pleasant-faced, happy fellow; but then he looked as if he had had a long, painful sickness. There wasn't a trace of his old self left. And as if he hadn't had trouble enough, word arrived before I left Cambridge that the vessel to which he had carted his household goods had been wrecked off Cape Cod.