Eli"s mother died when he was a little boy.
This is a sad event in any boy"s life.
When Eli was about twelve years old, his father took a journey from home.
He was gone two or three days.
When he returned, he called the housekeeper.
He asked her what the boys had been doing.
She told him what the elder boys had done.
"But what has Eli been doing?" said he.
"He has been making a fiddle," was the answer.
"Ah!" said the father, "I fear Eli will take his portion in fiddles."
The fiddle was finished like a common violin.
It made pretty good music.
Many people came to see it.
They said it was a fine piece of work for a boy.
Afterwards people brought him their violins to mend.
He did the mending nicely.
Every one was surprised.
They brought him other work to do.
Eli"s father had a nice watch.
Eli loved to look at it.
It was a great wonder to him.
He wished to see the inside of it.
His father would not allow this.
One Sunday the family were getting ready for church.
Eli noticed that his father intended leaving his watch at home.
He could not lose such a good chance.
So he pretended to be quite sick.
His father allowed him to stay at home.
Soon he was alone with the wonderful little watch.
He hurried to the room where it hung.
He took it down carefully.
His hands shook, but he managed to open it.
How delightful was the motion of those wheels!
It seemed a living thing.
Eli forgot his father.
He thought only of the wonderful machinery.
He must know just how it went.
He took the watch all to pieces before he remembered how wrong it was to do so.
Then he began to be frightened.
What if he couldn"t put it together!
He knew his father was a very stern man.
Slowly and carefully the boy went to work.
And so bright was he that he succeeded in getting it together all right.
His father did not find out the mischief.
Several years afterward Eli told him about it.
When Eli was thirteen years old his father married a second time.
Eli"s stepmother had a handsome set of table knives.
She valued them highly.
One day Eli said, "I could make as good knives as those if I had tools.
"And I could make the tools if I had common tools to begin with."