Adam set the brake and hopped off his threshing machine. He doffed his hat and stepped forward to shake hands with the two men, but his eyes were searching for Bella. She would be here, wouldn’t she? Wouldn’t she want to see his victory?
Perhaps not. Not when she had her exam later. Not at the expense of her father. Or had Mr. Eden forbidden her from being here at all?
“Step back, step back.” Dr. Paulson lifted his hands toward the crowd and tried to make space. “Adam needs some room to set up his equipment.”
Adam went to the harness of his team. Unhooking them from the front of the machinery and re-harnessing them to the treadmill was the most time-consuming aspect of the process, but once everything was in place, they would rip through that wagon of wheat in a matter of minutes.
“Hold on there.” The crowd parted as Mr. Eden stepped through. His worn cotton shirt was freshly laundered and his boots cleaned, but his hat was for work, make no mistake. “Since this contest is to determine which is faster, manpower or machine, we’re not giving you a head start. You can’t set up the machine until the contest begins.”
Adam’s eyes widened. “That’s not a contest of the machine. It’d be a contest of how fast I can harness my team. That’s not what we’re disputing.”
Mr. Eden shrugged. “If you have to set this machine up with every usage, the farmers need to figure in that time. Else they’re waiting around for you to get ready instead of working.”
Adam looked from the wagons full of wheat to the two men who would be working against him. It still was impossible for Mr. Eden to beat him. Threshing and winnowing wheat was backbreaking, hot, and dirty business. Once he got his horses harnessed, he’d be running through that wagon like wildfire, but it made the contest a little closer.
His nearest horse’s ears perked. It stepped sideways, and he saw that Bella had come and was standing next to her mother in a perfectly fitted traveling suit. Today was the day of her exam. He should be done before she had to catch the stagecoach to Anderson. He’d talk to her then. It could be his last chance.
But Adam was going to win. He had to win for his future and hers. It looked like they were both going to be tested today.
He telegraphed her all the love he could across a field full of haymakers. Although troubled, she held his gaze bravely. Like him, unsure of the outcome of the day’s events but determined to face them squarely.
“Let’s get started, then,” he said. “But at least clear a place before the clock starts ticking.”
Mr. Eden had picked a good spot. The wind was brisk here, and stronger in the morning than it would be at noon. Adam positioned the treadmill, the sweeps, and the gearbox in a place where they wouldn’t be obstructed, then directed his team that way. Eyeballing it one last time, he set the brake and climbed down. Dr. Paulson had already agreed to prod the team on the treadmill, but besides that, Adam was on his own. This was it.
Mr. Eden’s helpers had pulled a large canvas forward into the field, and someone had handed them threshing flails. Adam’s fear vanished. If he didn’t believe in his machine, he wouldn’t have signed the note to buy it. He would win. He only hoped Mr. Eden wouldn’t hold a grudge in defeat.
Everyone was looking at one another, not sure what to do, but when there was a lack of leadership, Mr. Woodward naturally stepped forward. Holding his hand above his head, he waited until the crowd had stilled and then dropped his arm.
Adam sprang into action. Dr. Paulson had never assisted with the teams before, but he was doing what he could to free their harnesses while Adam hooked up the sweeps and gears that would power the big machine. Mr. Eden and his team lost no time in tossing the first sheaves onto the canvas and beating or threshing them with the hinged sticks.
Adam should have insisted on a larger sample for the contest. He should have thought to ask whether he’d be able to prepare his machinery, because those three men were beating at the crops with everything they were worth. Knowing that their labor would be over within an hour, they were holding nothing back.
Already Adam could see them gathering the beaten stalks and tossing them aside to make room for more sheaves from the wagon. The wheat was left on the canvas, but it wouldn’t be for long.
Taking a rag from his back pocket, Adam wiped the grease from his hands as he turned toward the horses. Dr. Paulson had managed to get two unharnessed from the threshing machine, so Adam took them and started hooking them into their places on the treadmill.
From where he was working, he couldn’t see the harvesters, but the crowd’s excitement told him everything. They were making progress. So much progress that no one thought that he could catch up. But Adam knew better. Still, the bigger the win, the more impressed they’d be, and potentially the more who would become his customers.
The last horse was in place, and Eden’s team was slowing on their threshing. A few more thwacks with their flails, and they must have felt that they’d gotten a respectable amount of grain off the stalks.
Adam climbed into the back of his full wagon. “Get ’em going,” he called to Dr. Paulson. The professor didn’t need the prod, because the horses knew their task and started around.
The machine began to whirl. Adam slashed the ties on the sheaves with his knife, then took up the pitchfork and tossed the first bunch into the feeder.
“Too late to start now,” said Mr. Gleason. “They’re all but done.”
But they hadn’t winnowed the chaff from the wheat. They
