Day after day the children wondered to hear the queer clinking and hammering.

They laughed at Mr. Whitney.

But that did not trouble him.

Before the end of the winter the machine was nearly perfect.

Its success seemed certain.

Mrs. Greene was very happy over the work.

She was eager that people should know about this wonderful invention.

She could not wait until a patent was secured.

A patent is given by the government.

It is given to prevent others from claiming an invention.

Often it keeps people from manufacturing the article without the permission of the owner.

So Mrs. Green invited a party of gentlemen from all parts of the state to visit her.

These gentlemen were taken to see the machine do its work.

They were greatly astonished.

For what did they see?

This curious little machine cleaned the cotton of its seed.

And it would clean in a day more than a man could do in months.

They went to their homes.

They told everybody about it.

Great crowds began coming to see it.

But they were refused permission to do so.

This was because it had not yet been patented.

So one night some wicked men broke into the building.

They stole the cotton-gin.

You can well imagine how dreadful this was.

Mr. Whitney had no money.

So Mr. Miller agreed to be his partner.

Mr. Miller had come to Georgia from the North.

He, too, was a graduate of Yale College.

He afterward married Mrs. Greene.

He became Mr. Whitney's partner in May, 1773.

Perhaps you wonder why the machine was called a gin. It was a short way of saying engine.

A gin is a machine that aids the work of a person.

The cotton-gin was made to work much the same as the hand of a person.

It dragged the cotton away from the seed.

And now begins the sorrowful part of the story.

Before Mr. Whitney could get his patent, several other gins had been made.

Each claimed to be the best.

The plans were all stolen from Mr. Whitney's.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROLLER-GIN.]

One was the roller-gin.

This crushed the seed in the cotton.

Of course this injured the cotton.

Another was the saw-gin.

This was exactly like Mr. Whitney's, except that the saws were set differently.

Many lawsuits were begun.

Mr. Whitney went to Connecticut.

There he had a shop for making the gins.

When the suits began he had to return to Georgia.

In this way two years went by.