HIS LIFE AND WORK 



the self-binders among the farmers. Special 

 flat-cars were provided for him by the railroads. 

 Upon each one of these cars a binder was placed, 

 in the charge of an expert. These cars, during 

 the harvest season, were attached to ordinary 

 freight trains ; and whenever the train came to 

 a busy wheat-field it was stopped for an hour 

 or more, the self-binder was rushed from the 

 car to the field, and an exhibition of its skill 

 given to the wondering farmers. Then it was 

 put back on its car, and the train resumed its 

 leisurely course until it arrived at the next scene 

 of harvesting. 



The sensitive-natured inventor, Charles B. 

 Withington, who gave such timely aid to Mc- 

 Cormick, was one of the most romantic knights- 

 errant of industry in his generation. Born near 

 Akron a year before McCormick invented his 

 Reaper, he was trained by his father to be a 

 watchmaker. At fifteen, to earn some pocket- 

 money, he w r ent into the harvest field to bind 

 grain. He was not robust, and the hard, stoop- 

 ing labor under a hot sun would sometimes 

 bring the blood to his head in a hemorrhage. 



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