[CHAPTER III]
THE INVENTION OF THE REAPER
NOT far from the McCormick homestead was the "Old Field School," built of logs and with a part of one of the upper logs cut out to provide a window. Here the boy Cyrus sat on a slab bench and studied five books as though they were the only books in the world,—Murray's Grammar, Dilworth's Arithmetic, Webster's Spelling Book, the Shorter Catechism, and the Bible.
He was a strong-limbed, self-contained, serious-natured boy, always profoundly intent upon what he was doing. Even at the age of fifteen he was inventive. One winter morning he brought to school a most elaborate map of the world, showing the two hemispheres side by side. First he had drawn it in ink upon paper, then pasted the paper upon linen, and hung it upon two varnished rollers. This map, which is still preserved, reveals a remarkable degree of skill and patience; and the fact that a mere lad could conceive of and create such a map was a week's wonder in the little community. "That boy," declared the teacher, "is beyond me."
At about this time he undertook to do a man's work in the reaping of the wheat, and here he discovered that to swing a cradle against a field of grain under a hot summer sun was of all farming drudgeries the severest. Both his back and his brain rebelled against it. One thing at least he could do,—he could make a smaller cradle, that would be easier to swing; and he did this, whittling away in the evening in the little log workshop.
"Cyrus was a natural mechanical genius," said an old laborer who had worked on the McCormick farm. "He was always trying to invent something." "He was a young man of great and superior talents," said a neighbor. At eighteen he studied the profession of surveying, and made a quadrant for his own use. This is still preserved, and bears witness to his good workmanship. From this time until his twenty-second year, there is nothing of exceptional interest recorded of him. He had grown to be a tall, muscular, dignified young man. The neighbors, in later years, remembered him mainly because he was so well dressed on Sundays, in broadcloth coat and beaver hat, and because of his fine treble voice as he led the singing in the country church.
Even as a youth he was absorbed in his inventions and business projects. He had no time for gayeties. In a letter written from Kentucky to a cousin, Adam McChesney, in 1831, he says: "Mr. Hart has two fine daughters, right pretty, very smart, and as rich probably as you would wish; but alas! I have other business to attend to."
NEW PROVIDENCE CHURCH, ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY, VIRGINIA