The wife died soon after their return and the inventor had to do something to support his motherless children. He hired out to help an engineer on one of the first railroads in the United States. While he was working at that, a friend offered to see what he could do in selling sewing-machines in New York City. They found that others were making and selling machines very much like Howe’s. Money was furnished to sue those dealers. Howe’s rights to his patents were confirmed by the courts in 1846, and all other makers of sewing machines were made to pay him a certain amount, called a royalty, on every machine they sold. In this way Elias Howe soon became a very wealthy man. After the Civil War broke out, Howe enlisted as a private, and when the government was slow in paying the soldiers’ wages, he lent the money himself for the men in his company. He died before he was fifty years old with medals and honors from many countries. He had brought a great blessing to the women of the world, just as he had wished to do when he lay on his bed watching his tired wife sewing, hour after hour, to support him and their three little children. EDISON, THE WIZARD OF MANY INVENTIONS Thomas Alva Edison was born in the little village of Milan, Ohio. His father was a mechanic, who could turn his hand to anything. While Alva, as they called him at home, was a small boy, the family moved to Port Huron. Here the lad was sent to school, but he asked so many questions that the teacher sent him home. Then Alva’s mother, who had been a school teacher, tried to educate him. She had great patience with his questions, but there were so many that neither she nor his father could answer that he took to reading books. He had the same desire to “know the why” of everything that other great men have shown when they were boys. Though the Edison boy had no taste for school, he was fond of reading. When he learned how much he could find out from books, he started in, boy-like, to read all the books in a public library. He had worried through several great sets of volumes when he discovered that not all books were of interest to him. After that he chose only those on subjects he liked to read about. His father was a poor man, and as Alva was not in school he wanted to do his part toward making a living for the family. He began by selling papers around home. Then he had a chance to be train boy on the old Grand Trunk railroad between Port Huron and Detroit. His mother was afraid to have him run on trains and be away from home, but he showed that he could take care of himself. It was during this time that he began taking books from the Detroit Public Library.