t morning walked wearily home,
penniless and despairing. At the door of his house a member of his
family met him with the news that his youngest child, two years of
age, whom he had left in perfect health, was dying. In a few hours he
had in his house a dead child, but not the means of burying it, and
five living dependants without a morsel of food to give them. A
storekeeper near by had promised to supply the family, but,
discouraged by the unforeseen length of the father's absence, he had
that day refused to trust them further. In these terrible
circumstances, he applied to a friend upon whose generosity he knew he
could rely, one who had never failed him. He received in reply a
letter of severe and cutting reproach, enclosing seven dollars, which
his friend explained was given only out of pity for his innocent and
suffering family. A stranger, who chanced to be present when this
letter arrived, sent them a barrel of flour,---a timely and blessed
relief. The next day the family followed on foot the remains of the
little child to the grave.

A relation in a distant part of the country, to whom Goodyear revealed
his condition, sent him fifty dollars, which enabled him to get to New
York. He had touched bottom. The worst of his trials were over. In New
York, he had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of two
brothers, William Rider and Emory Eider, men of some property and
great intelligence, who examined his specimens, listened to his story,
believed in him, and agreed to aid him to continue his experiments,
and to supply his family until he had rendered his discovery
available. From that time, though he was generally embarrassed in his
circumstances, his family never wanted bread, and he was never obliged
to suspend his experiments. Aided by the capital, the sympathy, and
the ingenuity of the brothers Rider, he spent a year in New York in
the most patient endeavors to overcome the difficulties in heating his
compound. Before he had succeeded, their resources failed. But he had
made such progress in demonstrating the practicability of his process,
that his brother-in-law, William De Forrest, a noted woollen
manufacturer, took hold of the project in earnest, and aided him to
bring it to perfection. Once more, however, he was imprisoned for
debt. This event conquered his scruples against availing himself of
the benefit of the bankrupt act, which finally delivered him from the
danger of arrest. We should add, however