MEMORIES OF THE 



eat up considerable of what they thrashed. The advent of the 

 thrashers and their care and feeding was a great event on the 

 farm and death to the chickens. It was customary with the 

 farmers' wives to have great pots of fricasseed chicken for dinner 

 whenever the thrashers came. I remember once hearing my 

 mother make an apology to Uncle Christopher Huson, who, 

 with Lafe Lanfear, was an itinerant thrasher, for not having 

 chicken for dinner, as she had intended. His answer was, 

 "Good gracious! Aunt Cynthia, don't fret about that. It's a 

 God-send, for, to be honest about it, we have had chicken for 

 dinner and warmed up for breakfast every day at the last nine 

 places in which we have thrashed, until it has got so that Lafe 

 crows in his sleep." 



The cleaning-up mentioned was done by running the thrashed 

 chaff and grain through a fanning-mill to separate the chaff 

 from the grain. This was done evenings, and all hands except 

 such as were from a distance must go to the barn and run the 

 fanning-mill until it was done, no matter whether it took until 

 ten o'clock, until midnight, or until two in the morning. 



The old sweep went out of fashion, and the next style of 

 machine that came around was the tread horse-power, with 

 cylinder and separator attached. The separator took the straw 

 from the chaff, but did not separate the chaff from the grain. 

 A little later came the self-cleaner, which was a great improve- 

 ment, saving both time and grain, and rendered running the 

 fanning-mill by hand unnecessary. 



While on this subject I had, perhaps, better tell how thrash- 

 ing was done in the early days before machines. 



The flail was the primitive thrashing machine. It is a simple 

 instrument — merely a long stick with a knob on the end of it, 

 to which is attached another shorter and larger straight stick 



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