finding him so valuable an assistant, soon gave him
the superintendence of all his machinery, and took him to live in his
own family.

As has been stated, his employer's business was the manufacture of
organs and clocks. Powers displayed great skill in the management of the
mechanical department of the business, and this, added to the favor
shown him by the "boss," drew upon him the jealousy of the other
workmen. There hung in the shop at this time an old silver bull's-eye
watch, a good time-piece, but very clumsy and ungainly in appearance.
Powers was anxious to become its owner. Being too poor to buy it, he hit
upon the following expedient for obtaining it. He had carefully studied
the machine used in the shop for cutting out wooden clock wheels, and
had suggested to his employer several improvements in it. The workmen,
however, had ridiculed his suggestions, and had denounced as the most
barefaced presumption his belief that he could improve a machine which
had come all the way from Connecticut, where, they said, people were
supposed to know something about clocks. Nevertheless, he maintained his
opinions, and told his employer that if he would give him the silver
watch, he would invent a much better machine. His offer was accepted,
and in ten days he produced a machine, not only much simpler than the
old one, but capable of performing twice as much and better work. The
workmen promptly acknowledged his success, and his employer gave him the
watch. "The old watch," said he, a few years ago, "has ticked all my
children into existence, and three of them out of this world. It still
hangs at the head of my bed."

About this time, in a chance visit to the Museum in Cincinnati, he saw a
plaster cast of Houdon's "Washington." It was the first bust he had ever
seen, and he says it moved him strangely. He had an intense desire to
know how it was done, and a vague consciousness that he could do work of
the same kind if he could find an instructor. The instructor he soon
found in a German living in the city, who made plaster casts and busts,
and from him he learned the secret of the art. He proved an apt pupil,
and surprised his teacher by his proficiency. His first effort at
modeling from life was the bust of a little daughter of Mr. John P.
Foote. She sat to him during the hours he could spare from his regular
work. His model was made of beeswax, as he was afraid that clay would
freeze or stiffen. His success encouraged him