Elias Howe was the son of a poor miller. He had to go to work when he was six years old. He was a lame, sickly boy and could never do heavy work. When he was old enough he went away to work in the mills. But as he grew up, his health was still so poor that he had to go back and live with his father. Elias married when he was twenty-one and, within a few years, he had a wife and three children to support. Once when he was ill, his wife took in sewing to support their little family. As the young father lay on the bed watching his wife slowly plying her needle, he thought what a blessing it would be if a machine could be invented to sew much faster and better than by hand. The idea seemed to fill his mind, for he was an ingenious man. He said to himself, “I can’t do heavy work, but perhaps I can invent that machine.” At first he said nothing about it to his wife, but he watched her taking stitch after stitch for hours at a stretch. [Illustration: ELIAS HOWE.] When he was out of bed he made a model of the machine which he had been planning. In this rude affair he first had the needle with an eye in the middle. This needle was pointed at both ends, and worked sideways through the cloth, which was held upright. The stitches on this first machine were made like a chain, and the thread raveled out too easily. Howe kept patiently at work until he hit upon the idea of laying the cloth to be sewed on a small table, and making the needle go up and down through it. He thought of a way to have the cloth pulled along as it was sewn. But the trouble was to get a stitch that would not rip or pull out. At last he tried a shuttle, which looped another thread with that in the needle so that the two made a lock-stitch. When he had done this, he had invented the sewing machine. Like most inventors, Elias Howe was poor. He found a coal dealer named Fisher, who agreed to keep Howe and his family, and furnish five hundred dollars to pay for the first machines and have them patented. For this Fisher was to receive a half interest in the patents, and the sewing machine business afterward. At first no one would buy the machine. Tailors thought it would throw too many men out of work. Mr. Fisher grew tired of his bargain and the Howes had to leave his house. There seemed to be a better chance to sell sewing machines in England; so the family went across the sea to London. But the inventor was again disappointed. He was glad to come back to his father’s house in America with his sick wife and his small children. [Illustration: HOWE’S FIRST SEWING MACHINE. _Photo. Brown Bros., N. Y._]