eering mechanic. "Do nothing! DRIVE THE
HORSES."

The amazed farmer started the horses, drove around the field, and came
back swinging his hat and shouting like a lunatic--as well he might. For
in the trail of his harvester the sheaves lay bound, as though there were
some kindly genie hidden among its wheels.

Deering owned, at that time, not much more than a million dollars--the
gleanings of thirty-five industrious years. But he resolved to stake it
all upon this amazing machine. If he lost--he would be a poor man at
fifty-three. If he won--he would be the harvester king of the world.

"I'll move the factory to Chicago and make 3,000 of these Appleby
twine-binders at once," he said.

His partner, E. H. Gammon, held back, so the inflexible Deering bought him
out, and from that day he, like his greatest competitor, McCormick, ran a
one-man business.

"Did you hear the news about Deering?" gossiped his fellow manufacturers.
"Clean crazy on a twine-binder!"

And, far more discouraging, the magical self-binder itself suddenly became
ill-humored and refused to form its sheaves properly. It was no easy
exploit, as any one may see, to make the first 3,000 of such complex
machines. No other artificial mechanism must so combine strength and
delicacy. No piano nor Hoe press, for instance, is expected to operate
while it is being jerked over a rough field or along the steep slant of a
hill.

One day in the early spring of 1880, Deering and his chief
lieutenants--Steward and Dixon--were in a field of rye near Alton, trying
to coax the new harvester to do its work. All day long it was obstinate
and perverse, and the men were at their wits' end.

"Well, boys," said Deering, "if we can't do better than this, I'll lose
$1,000,000."

"Try one more day," said Steward. They went to their hotel, and as it
happened to be crowded, the three were placed in a large double room.

"Steward and Dixon were mad at me the next morning," said Deering, when he
told me of that critical occasion. "They had nothing at stake, yet they
had lain awake all night; while I was apparently about to lose my only
million, and had slept like a log."

That day a slight change was made, and the harvester became good-natured
and obedient. The whole 3,000 machines were sold, and created as much
excitement as 3,000 miracles. They swept away competitors like chaff. Of a
hundred manufacturers seventy-eight were winnowed out. Instead of losing
his fortune, De