HIS LIFE AND WORK 



nobody would have taken it if he had. Thus 

 far, he had made no progress towards the build- 

 ing of a Reaper business. Instead of being the 

 owner of a million, or any part of a million, he 

 was eight years older than when he had begun 

 to seek his fortune, and penniless. 



In this hour of debt and defeat Cyrus be- 

 came the leader of the family. Here for the 

 first time he showed that indomitable spirit 

 which was, more than any other one thing, the 

 secret of his success. At once he did what he 

 had not felt was possible before he began 

 to make Reapers. Without money, without 

 credit, without customers, he founded the first 

 of the world's reaper factories in the little log 

 workshop near his father's house. In the year 

 of the iron failure, 1839, he gave a public exhi- 

 bition on the farm of Joshua Smith, near the 

 town of Staunton. With two men and a team 

 of horses he cut two acres of wheat an hour. 

 At this there was great applause, but no buyers. 



The farmers of that day were not accustomed 

 to the use of machinery. Their farm tools, for 

 the most part, were so simple as to be made 



[57] 



