I was then on the
farm to which I had returned, more because I wanted to
experiment than because I
wanted to farm, and, now being an all-around
machinist, I had a first-class
workshop to replace the toy shop of
earlier days. My father
offered me forty acres of timber land, provided
I gave up being a machinist. I
agreed in a provisional way, for cutting
the timber gave me a chance to
get married. I fitted out a sawmill and a
portable engine and started to
cut out and saw up the timber on the
tract.
Some of the first of
that lumber went into a cottage on my new
farm and in it we began our
married life. It was not a big
house--thirty-one feet square
and only a story and a half high--but it
was a comfortable place. I
added to it my workshop, and when I was not
cutting timber I was working
on the gas engines--learning what they were
and how they acted. I read
everything I could find, but the greatest
knowledge came from the work.
A gas engine is a mysterious sort of
thing--it will not always go
the way it should. You can imagine how
those first engines acted!