[Illustration: _Works at Elizabeth, N.J. The Singer Manufacturing Company_] Genius Rewarded; OR, The Story of the Sewing Machine [Illustration: The Story of the Sewing Machine] NEW YORK: JOHN J. CAULON, PRINTER, NO. 20 VESEY STREET. COPYRIGHT, 1880, BY JOHN SCOTT. THE STORY OF THE SEWING MACHINE. CHAPTER I. THE SEWING MACHINE’S RIVALS. “With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread— Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger and dirt, And still, with a voice of dolorous pitch— Would that its tone could reach the Rich!— She sang the ‘Song of the Shirt.’” [Illustration: THE SONG OF THE SHIRT. ] In a back street of Boston two men sat one sultry August midnight upon a pile of boards. They were penniless and friendless; they were smarting under failure and keen and bitter disappointment. Actual want stared them in the face and made them desperate. And yet, upon the outcome of that midnight scene mighty issues hung quivering. All the world had a stake in the thoughts of those poor, friendless, desperate men. One of them had heard from across the seas the “Song of the Shirt;” he had heard its sad echo even from the more prosperous homes of our own land, and its dismal chords had awakened in his breast a burning desire to still its horrible refrain, and carry relief and help to the weary seamstress. Golden visions, too, had floated before him of the princely reward the world would offer for such service to its great sisterhood.