Jack

Once, a long long time ago, before there were combines to cut the grain, there were reapers. Now, Reapers were hired hands that traveled from town to town, harvest to harvest. Reapers carried sharp, curved blades to cut the grain, called scythes. Jack was one of these reapers. From the time he was abandoned at the age of nine, Jack had worked in the fields; it was hard Back- breaking work. But Jack knew that he would not survive without the pay from the farmer, so he worked without complaint. By the time he was twenty-one, Jack was strong and with two scythes he could cut more grain than any other reaper in the United States, with one scythe in each hand he could cut a two hundred acre field in One day, by himself. Most combines could cut that field in the same time as it took Jack. One day the farmer wheeled a strange contraption into the field, it was a McCormick Reaper, and it could cut more grain in one day than any man.1

Jack walked up to the farmer and said “ I can beat your machine” and so it was decided. The machine started on one side of the field, Jack on the other. They would each cut one half of the field. The farmer whipped his team and it started forward the motion turning two wheels. One to work the cutting bar and the other to push a wheel to move the grain away, on the other side of the field Jack’s arms were a blur of motion, the grain falling just a fast and neat as the machine. Jack slowly started to pull ahead of the machine, his cuts still neat and uniform. Jack had never hayed this fast before, and sweat was beading on his brow. Only one more pass left and Jack was done, but he grew tired with each swing of the scythes. The machine was gaining on him; they were neck and neck when they were half way through the last row. Jack thought, “ Well, I can’t live if I let this danged machine beat me at my own game.” So he stepped up his pace, No more were the machine’s cuts neat and clean, they were jagged and the rows of hay were as crooked as corkscrews. But Jack’s were still clean-cut and the windrows were straight as arrows. The machine shuddered and groaned. A bolt that held the cutting bar was coming loose. With a snap it gave and the cutter bar snapped back and sliced the machine in half. Jack, with the last ounce of strength left in his body he cut the last few strands of wheat left in his way. And Jack fell, dead, still holding his beloved scythes. Few people know of Jack’s story, and at night if you look up into the heavens, you can still see Jack, holding his scythes, cutting hay in the heavens. He is there to look after the Farmers of earth, to aid them in harvest, and to help them reach their dreams.2

The end 3