My life with Mr. Heywood was a peculiar one. The business of the store was largely in the sale of goods for hats made of palm leaf. The business was comparatively new at the time. For many previous years the women had been employed in braiding straw and making hats and bonnets for market. Gradually, work in palm leaf had taken the place of work in straw. The neighbor of Heywood, Major Daniel Putnam, was doing a large business in hats. The preparation of the palm leaves was not an easy business. The leaves were stripped on the folds by the hand, then bleached with sulphur in large boxes. The leaves were then split so as to produce straws from one twentieth to one eighth of an inch in width. The first process of stripping the leaves on the folds was paid for at the rate of ten cents per one hundred leaves. I devoted my leisure to the work, and thus earned a small sum of money. Heywood was a shoemaker by trade, and an end of the store was used as a shop. There one man and sometimes two men were employed. From much seeing I was able to make a pair of shoes for myself--rather for the amusement of the thing than from any advantage. While at Heywood's store, probably about 1834, I had a disagreeable experience, the recollection of which has often returned. A blacksmith, named Choate, died, and with another boy, whose name I do not recall, I was summoned to watch the body during a night. We occupied an adjoining room, and once an hour we were required to bathe the face of the corpse in spirits of camphor. To this day I have never been able to understand why two half-grown boys were put to such service. Heywood was more of an inventor than a trader, and becoming interested in the manufacture of nail kegs he made an invention in connection with Dr. Bard for sawing staves concave on one side and convex on the other. In the year 1834 they obtained a patent for the invention. As a consequence the business of the store was neglected. The invention did not yield a large return in money, as it was soon superseded by other devices. The saw, a hoop-saw, was set up in a mill two miles away, and from time to time I tended the saw, and thus I began a training in mechanics which has been useful to me in my profession as a patent lawyer. Heywood also invented a wheel for bringing staves to a bevel and taper, for the construction of barrels systematically. Mr. Heywood remained in town eight or ten years, when he moved to Claremont, N. H., where he died at the age of eighty years or more. He was thoroughly upright, but he had too many schemes for a successful business man. During my term with Mr. Heywood, I had charge of the post-office, keeping the accounts, which were then cumbrous, and I made the returns once in three months.