Life seemed to go well for William, who loved school, though his father was tougher on him than the other students. William also loved being outside in his garden, which soon became one of the best in the village. His little sister Polly followed him nearly everywhere he went, so William made her his “research assistant” and let her carry the bag that he filled with plant and animal specimens when they went walking together. Sometimes on these walks, William would carry along his new baby brother, Tom, but not for too long. Tom grew quickly and was soon too heavy to carry.
William was interested in all sorts of things, and although he lived in a tiny village ten miles south of Northampton, the newspaper gave him a glimpse of the world beyond Paulerspury. The Northampton Mercury was published every Monday, and three copies of the paper were delivered to Paulerspury by a postboy on horseback. One copy of the newspaper went to the church rector, one to the squire, and the third to the schoolmaster. William could hardly wait for the paper to arrive each week. There were so many amazing things happening in the world to read about. In 1764, James Hargreave invented a machine for spinning eight strands of thread at a time. He named the machine after his daughter, calling it the spinning jenny. Then in 1769, Richard Arkwright improved on this invention and developed a spinning machine that would make stronger yarn than the spinning jenny. Arkwright then built large mills to house his spinning machines and used steam engines, invented in 1765 by James Watt, to power the pumps to supply the water to turn the waterwheel that ran the spinning machines. In 1769, a Frenchman, Nicolas Cugnot, used Watt’s steam engine to power a motorized carriage. William read about all these things in the newspaper.
In 1771, the Northampton Mercury celebrated the return to England of Captain James Cook and the crew of the Endeavor. Cook had sailed to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus and explore the west coast of Australia, as well as to map the coast of New Zealand. William carefully saved the pages from the newspaper that contained excerpts from Cook’s diaries. He would read and reread the accounts of the various natives Cook had met along the way.
One day, when William had read all the other books in the house, he began looking through some books Uncle Peter had left there. One of the books was a huge volume that contained many sketches of plants. There was just one problem: Eleven-year-old William couldn’t read any of the words in the book. He realized they must be in a foreign language, though he had no idea what language. Uncle Peter had uttered a few words in French that he’d remembered from his time in Canada, but apart from that, William had no idea what any language other than English sounded like or what it might look like written down.
William thought his father might know more about the language. Sure enough, Edmund Carey knew it was Latin, the same Latin that was engraved on some of the oldest gravestones and tombs around the Church of St. James the Great. Mr. Carey didn’t know how to read Latin himself, but he had noticed an old copy of a Latin grammar book tucked up on a shelf in the schoolhouse. He dusted the book off and gave it to William.
Within a couple of months, William had memorized the entire book and spoke enough Latin to hold a conversation, though he had to talk to himself! Best of all, though, he could now read for himself the text that went along with the pictures of plants in Uncle Peter’s book.
The village school taught boys only up to the age of twelve. After twelve, the boys either had to go to the city to enroll in a more advanced school or had to hire a private tutor. Unfortunately, the Careys did not have the money to do either. So, like the other boys in the village, at twelve years of age, William had to find a job and help support the family.
Seventeen seventy-two, the year William finished school, was also the year that tensions between the American colonies and the British began to grow. Some people wondered how the colonists thought they could possibly win their independence without a king to lead them into battle. Others fretted that the French might get involved and help the colonists, to get even with the English for taking Quebec from them. All this made for some lively debates in the schoolroom, but William was no longer there to take part in them. Instead, he was working as a farm laborer.
Although William had enough education to get an indoor job, he loved to be outdoors so much that he had begged his father to find him a job outside. William went to work on a farm. Although he had a slight build and was small for his age, he proved to be a hard worker. He ploughed the fields in preparation for planting the crops, and he tended the Leicester sheep, which spent their days on the rolling green hills of the countryside.
Although William loved being out in the sun, the sun did not love him. He developed an allergy to it that the village herb doctor was unable to cure. Whenever it was sunny, William got a painful rash on his face and hands. But because he longed so much to work outside with animals and plants, he put up with the pain of the rash for two years. In the end, though, he had to admit to himself that it was too difficult to go on. William would have to find another job.
Although William didn’t know it at the time, the rash on his face would change the course of his life. Had it not been for the rash, William may well have lived his whole life and died in Paulerspury. The search for a new job, however, took him ten miles away from his home—the first ten miles on a journey that would rival any of the adventures he’d read about in Gulliver’s Travels or Robinson Crusoe.
Chapter 3
The Apprentice
William’s father had to make a decision. What job should he find for his oldest son? Most people assumed that Edmund Carey would apprentice his son to a weaver, just as he had been apprenticed as a young man. But Mr. Carey was not so sure. There had been a lot of news in the Northampton Mercury over the past year about how the new spinning machines and steam-driven weaving looms were about to change the way fabric was made. Many people in Paulerspury argued that fabric had been made by hand in small cottages for generations and that was the way it would always be made. William’s father wasn’t so sure, though. He thought that steam-powered factories would soon be able to spin yarn and weave fabric a hundred times faster than a single weaver at his loom. And then where would weavers be? It might not be such a wise idea, he decided, to apprentice William to a weaver.
So if William could no longer work outside and wasn’t going to be a weaver, what should he do? The question hung in the air for several days, until Edmund Carey heard that a cordwainer named Clarke Nichols was looking for an apprentice. A cordwainer was a person who made shoes from scratch. The job included making shoe “forms” out of wooden blocks, cutting the leather to shape, and stitching it together. This all took a lot of skill, much more skill than it took to be a cobbler, a person who mended shoes for a living.
Clarke Nichols lived in Piddington, a town eight miles northeast of Paulerspury. Edmund Carey made the trek there to visit Mr. Nichols. The two men talked for a while and then shook hands. Mr. Carey walked home quickly to tell his son the good news: William was now an apprentice cordwainer.
Being an apprentice was a serious matter in 1774. A young man would sign a contract to learn a trade from a master tradesman. He would then be the master tradesman’s apprentice for seven years until he himself became a tradesman. In the seven years it took to learn a trade, an apprentice did not get paid. However, along with teaching the trade to his apprentice, the tradesman fed his apprentice, clothed him, and gave him a place to live. Once signed, the apprenticeship agreement was binding, meaning the apprentice had to obey his master and could not leave until the seven years were up.
For the first time in his life, fourteen-year-old William Carey had to move away from home to work. In a kerchief, his mother packed him a spare shirt, a pair of knitted socks, and a tin plate and cup. The family walked with him out to Whattle Road, which would take him to Piddington. Twelve-year-old Ann and seven-year-old Tom were sad to see him leave, but nine-year-old Polly was heartbroken. She hugged William and promised to look after every item in his specimen collection.
It took William four hours to walk to Piddington. He could have done it faster, but he paused for almost half an hour to watch a barge being pulled down the newly dug canal just outside of Paulerspury. Canals were being dug all over the countryside, and William thought a barge looked like a whole lot more comfortable way to travel. As he walked along, horses galloped by, and a large carriage pulled by four horses also rattled past, but most people on Whattle Road were walking, just as he was. And as people walked past him, William thought how sensible it was to become a cordwainer. People would always be wearing out their shoes on rough roads like the one he was walking on.
It was midafternoon when William finally got to Mr. Nichols’s workshop, which was also his cottage. He was met at the door by a tall, dark-haired boy, whom William decided was about three years older than he.
“John Warr is the name,” said the boy, introducing himself. “You must be the new apprentice.”
William nodded shyly.
“Well, it’s about time you showed up. I’m tired of doing all the deliveries myself,” said John with a grin.
William smiled. “Anytime you want to send me out for a walk is fine with me,” he replied wryly.
William stepped inside the cottage, thinking how much he liked John already. As he had guessed, John Warr was already three years into his apprenticeship. He showed William up the stairs at the back of the workshop and into the attic, where the two of them were to share a room. William looked around at his new bedroom, thinking of where he might ask to put up shelves. He was sure that while making his delivery rounds he’d come up with a whole new collection of specimens to study.
The two boys made their way back downstairs just as Mr. Nichols bustled in the door carrying several newly tanned hides. He spotted William immediately. “Glad you’re here, lad,” he said. “Your father tells me you’re a quick one. We’ll soon see if that’s true. You can start by picking up the leather scraps and putting them in that bag over there.” He pointed to a cloth bag hanging from the back of a chair.
It did not take William long to settle into the routine of work. There was plenty to keep him busy. Being the newest apprentice, he got to do all the worst jobs, like beating the leather to make it more pliable, hammering in rivets, and delivering the finished pairs of shoes. It was on one of these delivery rounds that William made a foolish mistake he would remember for the rest of his life.
It happened around Christmastime. Since an apprentice did not earn money, at Christmas he was often allowed to collect a few pennies in donations from some of the other tradesmen his master bought supplies from. These donations were called a “Christmas Box.” One of William’s deliveries was a pair of boots to the local blacksmith, who paid William the shilling he owed Mr. Nichols for the boots. Then he asked, “And what would you like for your Christmas Box, lad? Will it be a sixpence or a shilling?”
William could hardly believe his luck! A shilling was a lot of money, enough to buy the new quill pen he’d had his eye on for weeks.
“The shilling, thank you, sir,” he replied quickly, before the blacksmith had a chance to change his mind.
The blacksmith chuckled to himself as he handed over the coin, and soon William was out in the snow heading for the store to buy the quill pen.
Inside the store, William pulled from his pocket the shilling he’d been given and handed it to the storekeeper. The storekeeper frowned as he turned it over in his hand. “This here is not a silver shilling, lad,” he said sternly. “It’s made of brass if ever a coin was. You weren’t trying to get the better of me, were you?” The storekeeper peered down at William.
