The Threshing Machine Dad Rebuilt

The Road In

I drove the Farmall H six miles down the gravel to the show grounds while the sun came up red over the beans. It was cool, the way early September can be cool in Henry County before the heat burns through.

Dad came behind me in his pickup with the flashers on. Every time I looked back he was right there, both hands on the wheel, hat on his head.

I thought about the first time he let me drive that tractor. I was eleven. He stood on the drawbar behind me with one hand on the back of the seat, and he did not say a word the whole field. When we got to the end, he patted my shoulder twice. That was all.

That was the most I ever needed.

Belting Up

The show grounds were mostly asleep when we pulled in. A few campers had their awnings out. Somebody was frying bacon by the swine barn. The pancake tent was just lifting its side flaps.

Wendell was walking the grounds in his rubber boots with a cup of coffee. He saw the Farmall coming down the lane and stopped.

“Fern,” he said. “What are we doing?”

“Dad’s going to thresh,” I said.

He looked at me. Then he looked at Dad climbing slow out of his pickup. Wendell has run that show for twenty-two years. He has known my father since before I was born.

He did not ask one more question. He set his coffee on a fence post and said, “Bundles are under the tarp by the stack. I’ll get you the rack.”

I swung the Farmall around and lined her up with the machine. You have to get the tractor pulley square with the big drive pulley on the separator, or the belt will walk off and could hurt somebody.

I sighted down the side of the tractor the way Dad taught me, one eye shut, and moved her a foot at a time until it looked right. Dad stood by the machine and gave me a little wave of his hand. A little more. A little more. There.

Then I got the long drive belt out of the pickup bed. It was a hundred feet of heavy rubber belting, and it weighed more than I wanted it to. I dragged it out along the grass between the tractor and the machine.

I put the half twist in it. That is how the separator turns the right way when the tractor pulley runs the other direction. Dad showed me that when I was a girl, standing beside Grandpa’s machine with his hand over mine.

I slipped the belt over the separator pulley, then over the tractor pulley. Then I climbed up on the Farmall and backed her slowly until the belt came up off the ground and went tight and straight between them, humming a little in the morning air.

I set the brake. I chocked both rear wheels with blocks. I climbed down and looked at Dad.

He walked the length of the belt with his hand out, not quite touching it. Then he nodded once.

“Good,” he said.