The Old Way of Reaping
Ezra knew his part would be to swing a cradle scythe. This was a rather broad scythe with a wooden frame attached which was called a cradle. This cradle was nothing more than a set of wooden fingers parallel with the scythe, which helped to lay the cut grain straight in the rows because they collected the grain and carried it to the end of the stroke. The straighter it fell, the easier it was to bundle it. The contrivance was clumsy and Ezra disliked it very much. However, he was thankful he did not have to follow the men who mowed the grain and do the bundling and tying. That work he knew was the most back-breaking of all.
Ezra was feeling anything but cheerful when he saw his father come out of the barn with a smile on his face.
"What do you think I heard last night at Lexington Court House?" his father asked, coming up the path. "Cyrus McCormick is going to try his new reaping machine here in Lexington in Farmer Ruff's wheat field to-day. I want to see the trial. We'll all go over, if you boys like."
Like to go? Indeed they would, and they thought of nothing but the possibility of a successful reaping machine all through breakfast time.
Late in the season the preceding year Cyrus McCormick had created a sensation by cutting six acres of oats in an afternoon at Steele's Tavern near his home eighteen miles north of the Hardings' farm. None of the Hardings had seen that event, but they had been deeply interested not only because they would welcome a successful reaping machine, but also because the young man's father, Robert McCormick, was a friend of Mr. Harding, and they knew of the repeated trials and failures of the father's reaping machine. In fact, Robert McCormick had worked for fifteen years on a reaper which he had tried for the last time in that same season of 1831 and then had reluctantly put away forever as a failure.
"I still believe a successful reaping machine is possible, but somebody else will have to make it," he had said sadly.
The Hardings knew that the son Cyrus, who had worked for years with his father, had not given up even then, and, begging his father to leave one small patch of grain for him to use for trial, had started a new machine on a different principle, and late in the season had tried it at home with only his own family to watch its working.
"It is a success!" they had said one to another, but they dared say very little outside because it was still far from satisfactory.