But the first small thrashing machines that were run by treadmill were as nothing by the side of the splendid great "separators" that took their places. It took more men to operate these machines, and the force was furnished by horses hitched in teams to the ends of the long sweeps of a "horsepower" that was set up outside the barn.

When everything was ready, the driver used to get upon the platform in the middle of the power, and cracking his long whip start the horses on an interminable journey round and round... in a small circle described by the ends of the revolving sweeps. You used to think that if when you were a man you could stand up on the platform of a horsepower and crack your whip and get $1.50 a day for doing it you would have not lived for naught.

There was another man who used to inspire you with admiration, and he was the feeder who stood on a platform and shoved the grain into the cylinder all day long. He was a man of nerve and skill, and he got bigger pay than any one else who went with the machine. His work was hardest, too, and it was possessed of an element of danger that made you shudder when you thought about it, for while he stood there mid noise and dust and turmoil imperturbable as a sphinx, he might at any moment, if he carelessly let his hand go too far toward the swiftly whirling wicked teeth of the cylinder, lose that hand or perhaps an entire arm.

You will not soon forget the horrible accident that happened to Sam L..., tall, straight, and blue eyed—Jim A...’s older sister’s "intended." He was a master hand at feedin’, but one day he turned to speak to the man at his right, who was "cuttin bands," and his left hand was drawn in. It was but a moment’s lapse, but it cost Sam his hand and most of his arm, and it was thought for days and days that he would die from shock and loss of blood. Jim’s sister jilted him, too, when he got well. She didn’t think she could afford to marry a man with only one hand, and he went away, out of the...neighborhood.