rom the
harvest labour, gazed with contemptuous curiosity at the queer contraption
which was expected to cut grain without hands.

[Illustration: CYRUS HALL McCORMICK]

A little group of Negro slaves had spasms of uncomprehending delight in
one corner of the field, not one of them guessing that "Massa" McCormick's
comical machine was cutting at the chains that bound their children. And a
noisy crowd of white labourers followed the reaper up and down the field
with boisterous enmity; for here was an invention which threatened to
deprive them of the right to work--the precious right to work sixteen
hours a day for three cents an hour.

The field was hilly and the reaper worked badly. It slewed and jolted
along, cutting the grain very irregularly. Seeing this, the owner of the
field--a man who was Ruff by name and rough by nature, rushed up to
McCormick and shouted--"Here! This won't do. Stop your horses! Your
machine is rattling the heads off my wheat." "It's a humbug," bawled one
of the labourers. "Give me the old cradle yet, boys!" exclaimed a
round-shouldered farmer. The Negroes turned handsprings with delight; and
the whole jeering mob gathered around the discredited machine.

Just then a fine-looking man rode up on horseback. The crowd made way as
he came near, for they recognised him as the Honourable William Taylor--a
conspicuous politician of that day.

"Pull down the fence and cross over into my field," he said to young
McCormick. "I'll give you a fair chance to try your machine."

McCormick quickly accepted the offer, drove into Taylor's field, which was
not as hilly, and cut the grain successfully for four or five hours.
Although the United States had been established more than fifty years
before, this was the first grain that had ever been cut by machinery. The
Fathers of the Republic had eaten the bread of hand-labour all their
lives, and never dreamed that the human race would ever find a better
way.

When he arrived home that evening, Cyrus thought that his troubles were
over. He had reaped six acres of wheat in less than half a day--as much as
six men would have done by the old-fashioned method. He had been praised
as well as jeered at. "Your reaper is a success," said his father, "and it
makes me feel proud to have a son do what I could not do."

Two Big Men had given him their approval--William Taylor and a Professor
Bradshaw, of the Female Academy in the town of Lexington, Virginia. The
pro