136 Old Bays on the Farm 



seen doing it, my partner in distress threw the 

 chain off the pulley and saved the situation. This 

 chain occasionally jumped off of its own accord 

 and so we were not suspected. It gave us a much 

 needed breathing spell, also an opportunity to get 

 the straw well back from our position and so we 

 held the fort without a surrender. If that pa- 

 triotic song "We'll Never Let the Old Fag Fall," 

 had been extant then I guess we 'd both have been 

 singing it as we worked. 



AN OPEN C3YLINDER 



I remember an open cylinder machine was used 

 in our district to thresh peas. The grain was 

 forked into the cylinder and straw and grain went 

 out together to the ground behind. By some 

 means a stone hidden in the straw was thrown 

 in and a shower of broken granite and steel teeth 

 from the cylinder flew into the air. The two young 

 fellows forking in the grain faded away from the 

 vicinity in haste, and no wonder. But the old chap 

 who owned the outfit had this to say to them, 

 **Ye'd make mighty poor sodjers, you two, if 

 ye'd run from the likes o* that." 



But the flail has gone forever and the horse- 

 power, at least as a means of threshing, is almost 

 a curiosity. Has the acme of eflSciency been 

 reached in the modern steam traction engine and 

 self -feeding and stack-building separator? Who 

 knows? 



