He still employed his water-wheel to pull him out of bed in the middle
of the night. He had, of course, to make considerable alterations in, or
rather additions to, its machinery, after changing his bed-room, for it
had then to work in a direction at right angles to the former; but this
he managed perfectly.
It is well for Willie's reputation with a certain, and that not a small
class of readers, that there was something even they would call useful
in several of his inventions and many of his efforts; in his hydraulics,
for instance, by means of which he saved old Tibby's limbs; in his
house-building, too, by means of which they were able to take in
grannie; and, for a long time now, he had been doing every little repair
wanted in the house. If a lock went wrong, he would have it off at once
and taken to pieces. If less would not do, he carried it to the smithy,
but very seldom troubled Mr Willett about it, for he had learned to do
small jobs, and to heat and work and temper a piece of iron within his
strength as well as any man. His mother did not much like this part
of his general apprenticeship, for he would get his hands so black
sometimes on a Saturday afternoon that he could not get them clean
enough for church the next day; and sometimes he would come home with
little holes burnt here and there in his clothes by the sparks from the
red-hot iron when beaten on the anvil.
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