My Boyhood and Youth 



wood that took time to chop. Therefore, I 

 prudently decided to go down cellar, and begin 

 work on a model of a self-setting sawmill I 

 had invented. Next morning I managed to get 

 up at the same gloriously early hour, and 

 though the temperature of the cellar was a 

 little below the freezing point, and my light 

 was only a tallow candle the mill work went 

 joyfully on. There were a few tools in a corner 

 of the cellar, a vise, files, a hammer, chisels, 

 etc., that father had brought from Scotland, 

 but no saw excepting a coarse crooked one 

 that was unfit for sawing dry hickory or oak. 

 / So I made a fine-tooth saw suitable for my 

 / work out of a strip of steel that had formed 

 part of an old-fashioned corset, that cut the 

 hardest wood smoothly. I also made my own 

 bradawls, punches, and a pair of compasses, out 

 of wire and old files. 



My workshop was immediately under fa- 

 ther's bed, and the filing and tapping in making 

 cogwheels, journals, cams, etc., must, no doubt, 

 have annoyed him, but with the permission he 

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