But another consideration besides his own self-improvement had already begun to exercise an important influence on his life. This was the training and education of his son Robert, now growing up an active, intelligent boy, as full of fun and tricks as his father had been. When a little fellow, scarcely able to reach so high as to put a clock-head on when placed upon the table, his father would make him mount a chair for the purpose; and to “help father” was the proudest work which the boy then, and ever after, could take part in. When the little engine was set up at the Ochre Quarry to pump it dry, Robert was scarcely absent for an hour. He watched the machine very eagerly when it was set to work; and he was very much annoyed at the fire burning away the grates. The man who fired the engine was a sort of wag, and thinking to get a laugh at the boy, he said, “Those bars are getting varra bad, Robert; I think we main cut up some of that hard wood, and put it in instead.” “What would be the use of that, you fool?” said the boy quickly. “You would no sooner have put them in than they would be burnt out again!” So soon as Robert was of proper age, his father sent him over to the road-side school at Long Benton, kept by Rutter, the parish clerk. But the education which Rutter could give was of a very limited kind, scarcely extending beyond the primer and pothooks. While working as a brakesman on the pit-head at Killingworth, the father had often bethought him of the obstructions he had himself encountered in life through his want of schooling; and he formed the noble determination that no labour, nor pains, nor self-denial on his part should be spared to furnish his son with the best education that it was in his power to bestow. [Picture: Rutter’s School House, Long Benton] It is true his earnings were comparatively small at that time. He was still maintaining his infirm parents; and the cost of living continued excessive. But he fell back upon his old expedient of working up his spare time in the evenings at home, or during the night shifts when it was his turn to tend the engine, in mending and making shoes, cleaning clocks and watches, making shoe-lasts for the shoe-makers of the neighbourhood, and cutting out the pitmen’s clothes for their wives; and we have been told that to this day there are clothes worn at Killingworth made after “Geordy Steevie’s cut.” To give his own words:—“In the earlier period of my career,” said he, “when Robert was a little boy, I saw how deficient I was in education, and I made up my mind that he should not labour under the same defect, but that I would put him to a good school, and give him a liberal training. I was, however, a poor man; and how do you think I managed? I betook myself to mending my neighbours’ clocks and watches at nights, after my daily labour was done, and thus I procured the means of educating my son.” {52}