O.B. Coolidge, of Woburn, was the name of this
benefactor.
On another occasion, when he was in the most urgent need of materials,
he looked about his house to see if there was left one relic of better
days upon which a little money could be borrowed. There was nothing
except his children's school-books,--the last things from which a
New-Englander is willing to part. There was no other resource. He
gathered them up and sold them for five dollars, with which he laid in
a fresh stock of gum and sulphur, and kept on experimenting.
Seeing no prospect of success in Massachusetts, he now resolved to
make a desperate effort to get to New York, feeling confident that the
specimens he could take with him would convince some one of the
superiority of his new method. He was beginning to understand the
causes of his many failures, but he saw clearly that his compound
could not be worked with certainty without expensive apparatus. It was
a very delicate operation, requiring exactness and promptitude. The
conditions upon which success depended were numerous, and the failure
of one spoiled all.
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