CYRUS HALL McCORMICK 



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 survey- 

 ing, 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 



[27] 



