and died abruptly, leaving his wife and two sons
penniless. They were not, however, a helpless band.
They, too, had their traditions, handed down by
the fighting Shaws. Peter, the older son, became a
soldier, and died bravely in the Crimean War. My
father, through some outside influence, turned his
attention to trade, learning to stain and emboss wall-
paper by hand, and developing this work until he
became the recognized expert in his field. Indeed,
he progressed until he himself checked his rise by
inventing a machine that made his handwork un-
necessary. His employer at once claimed and
utilized this invention, to which, by the laws of
those days, he was entitled, and thus the corner-
stone on which my father had expected to build a
fortune proved the rock on which his career was
wrecked. But that was years later, in America, and
many other things had happened first.

For one, he had temporarily dropped his trade
and gone into the flour-and-grain business; and,
for another, he had married my mother. She was
the daughter of a Scotch couple who had come to
England and settled in Alnwick, in Northumberland
County. Her father, James Stott, was the driver
of the royal-mail stage between Alnwick and New-
castle, and his accidental death while he was still a
young man left my grandmother and her eight
children almost destitute. She was immediately
given a position in the castle of the Duke of Nor-