fessor, who was a pompous and positive individual, made a solemn
investigation of the reaper, and then announced, in slow, loud, and
emphatic tones--"That--machine--is--worth--a hundred--thousand--dollars."

But if Cyrus McCormick hoped to wake up the following morning and find
himself rich and famous, he was roughly disappointed. The local excitement
soon died out, and in a few days the men in the village store were
discussing Webster's last speech against Nullification and Andrew
Jackson's war against the bankers. One old woman expressed the general
feeling by saying that young McCormick's reaper was "a right, smart
curious sort of thing, but it won't come to much."

McCormick was at this time a youth of twenty-two. He had been one of four
pink, helpless babies, born in 1809, who became, each in his own world,
the greatest leader of his day--Darwin, Gladstone, Lincoln, and McCormick.
Like Lincoln, McCormick first learned to breathe in a long cabin--but in
Virginia. He was bred from a fighting race. His father had wrenched a
living from the rocks of Virginia for his family of nine. His grandfather
had fought the English in the Revolution. His great-grandfather had been
an Indian fighter in Pennsylvania; and his great-great-grandfather battled
with a flint-lock against the soldiers of James II., at the siege of
Londonderry.

The McCormick family, in 1809, had a good deal of what was then called
prosperity. They had enough to eat--a roof that kept out the rain--1,800
acres of land, or near-land--three saw-mills--two flour-mills, and a
distillery. They had very little money, because there was little to be
had. In the whole United States there was barely as much money as would
buy half of the New York Subway.

The first American McCormicks had a thousand dollars or more when they
resolved to leave Ireland, and they were Scotch enough to invest the whole
amount in linen, which they sold at a high profit in Philadelphia. This
capital enabled them to acquire a small stock of books, tools, and
comforts, which were passed along from father to son.

Robert McCormick--the father of Cyrus, was himself a remarkable Virginian.
He was quick with his hands in shaping iron and wood. In fact, he was
fairly famous in his county as the inventor of a hemp-brake, a
clover-sheller, a bellows and threshing machine. His mind was greedy for
knowledge; and it was his habit, when the seven children were asleep, to
explore into the mysteries o