that his life has added to the folklore of the
Western farmers.

Many a time his vaudeville tactics disgusted and enraged his fellow
manufacturers; but he was too big a factor to be ignored. Once, when a
number of reaper kings had met together to see if they could rescue their
business from its riot of rivalry, the chairman opened the discussion with
the question--"What ought we to do to improve the conditions of our
trade?" For a moment there was silence, and then John P. Adriance--as
mild-natured a man as ever lived--said blandly, "Kill Whiteley."

With daring originality Whiteley combined a tremendous physical vitality
and a brain that fairly effervesced with inventiveness. He probably holds
the record among the reaper-men for inventions, with 125 patents in his
name. And he would work twenty-four hours at a stretch, without a yawn.
One evening he asked a young machinist to remain in the factory and help
him fix a refractory reaper. After working till midnight Whiteley said:
"Well, Jim, I suppose you think you are tired. Go home and have a good
night's sleep, and come back here in three hours."

He dashed with fanatical energy into any undertaking that appealed to his
imagination. Once, when he had too much money, he bought control of a new
railway that ran through Ohio from Springfield to Jackson,--160 miles. He
wanted to know its real value, so, instead of asking the directors a few
questions, as other men would have done, Whiteley travelled over the
entire length of the railroad, _on foot_.

When I saw Whiteley, last June, he was time-worn and whitened. Since the
great failure, he has been in the harvester business only intermittently.
He has long outlived his Golden Age, but he is as busy as ever, with a new
scheme and a new factory. And he still wears the Scotch cap and long boots
that have been familiar at field tests for more than half a century.

Of the other Springfield men, Warder was unquestionably the ablest. "He
was the main wheel," said Whiteley. As a young man of twenty-seven he was
running a sawmill in Springfield when he first heard of the reaper. He was
so impressed with its possibilities that he offered the inventor $30,000
for a share in it.

"Young Warder is crazy," said Springfield people, for at that time $30,000
was a fortune and a reaper was a fad. But thirty-five years later, when
Warder had removed to Washington and become noted among its social
entertainers, his investment had multipl