 The American Trail, the American Trail, blazed in blood, defended in blood. Chapter 6, The Golden Ocean. It seems to me I can still see the covered wagons. The way they rolled along the Cumberland Road, head and waist. Only when me and Kathy crossed into Illinois, we went alone, me driving the two horses, and Kathy sitting beside me on our wagon. Just the two of us. Me and Kathy used to have a piece of land in the Virginia Valley. When we decided to move west, I saddled a horse, went around saying goodbye to my neighbors. There was Cyrus McCormick. His folks had a big farm in the valley, big enough so they had their own blacksmith shops. That was where Cyrus spent most of his time, bending pieces of iron into all kinds of square shapes. You still fooling around with that contraption, Cyrus? You'll see. Sit down, Jeff. Use that barrel. I reckon I'm not staying, Cyrus. Well, there's cider in the pitch here. Help yourself. You got time for that, anyhow. Jeff, I think I just about got this machine figured out. I don't ever do a man's work, even if you do get it to run. Do the work of 20 men in a quarter of the time. Jeff, there's a need for this machine. I don't see no need for a listen. You know when my folks first came to this country, 1743, going on 90 years ago. Now, what about it? We're still plowing and reaping just the way they did when they first came here. Well, what's wrong with that? I'll tell you something else. We're still plowing and reaping the way people did 4,000 years ago. There can't be much wrong with it. Jeff, fellas, like you make me tired. Farming ought to be made much easier and quicker. A man who's worth his salt doesn't want things made easier for him. Jeff, when I've got this machine reaper working, I wouldn't sell you one if you begged me for it. Cyrus, you'd have to travel a long way to sell me one. Me and Kathy, we're leaving here. Leaving? Where are you going? Out west. Virginia's fine, Cyrus. But it ain't big enough for me. A few days later, me and Kathy set off. I can't even remember all the places we went. Ohio, Indiana, some states that only had a handful of people. No roads, hardly anything you could call a town. Just every once in a while, a little cluster of cabins on all that land. Then we moved even further west into Illinois. Nothing but planes. Planes. When are we going to see some people? I'll forget what people look like. Then one night, we drove into a big covered wagon camp, maybe a couple of hundred settlers. New England from Europe. Right nice bunch. I'm Fred Tucker, wagon master of this train. Well, howdy, Fred. I'm Jeff Baker. Hi, my wife, Kathy. Oh, man, it's a pleasure. Oh, I could cry. I'm happy to see people again. Well, I bet you could, ma'am. You people staying here? Going on. We don't have to go any further. Just beyond that ridge under. No further than that. Yeah. Yeah, you see where I'm pointing? I see. Some of us rode over there this morning. Man, you should see the soil. Jeff, we can grow enough food in that country to feed all 13 million people in the United States. Ragon, this is where me and my wife are going to stay, then. It was the middle of summer, and we moved in on the Great Plains. We staked out land, built log cabins, and shelters for the horses and cattle. But by that time, winter sat in. It was a hard winter. A long one. Snow drifting across the plains. Fourteen, sometimes 20-foot deep. Sound of cold winds sweeping down from the continental divide, whipping across the Great Plains. Neighbors living five miles away. We can't even get to see them. It's lonesome, all right. But wait'll spring. We'll see everybody then. No, Jeff. That's no. It's going to melt one of these days. It'll soak into that good soil. And then it came. The spring. The real hot weather hadn't set in yet. It was just right for hard work. The two horses had grown fast. They wanted to work. They wanted to be hitched up to the plow. They wanted to feel the soil under their feet. Hey! Pull that plow there! Hey, a fire! Man's work! This is real man's work! You'll kill yourself! Hot like a desert. The wheat came up. We thought the sun would burn it up, but it was good wheat, strong. The soil was full of moisture in that winter snow. Cathy, you ever see a sight like this before? Oh, it's beautiful, Jeff. Real beautiful. You ride all through this country, days and days, miles and miles, waving corn and wheat. It's like looking at a golden ocean. Far as you can see. It all belongs to us. But, Jeff, you'll have to let me help you with the harvest. Sure could use some help. I'll hate to see you working in the fields, Cathy. Well, you can't do it alone. You just couldn't do it, Jeff. You have to know to the day when to start reaping. It's a man's work, all right. Been an overall day, been in and swinging that side. Cathy following me, bundling up the wheat as I cut it. Oh, look at the color of this wheat, Cathy. The size of it! Jeff, I can't stand the sun. Jeff, I feel like I'm going to faint. I got a whole of you. I feel so dizzy from the sun. I got a whole of you. I'm going to carry you back to the cabin. Oh, I want to help you. I ought to help you. No, no, Cathy. Won't let you work in the field no more. Never again. It's too much for you. This is too much. When Cathy felt a little better, I went back to the field. Out there, just me alone, in the middle of all that wheat. With a job of reaping to do before something happened, I... I lost my harvest. I'll never forget that day. First sound of thunder, me looking up at the sky, seeing it getting dark, and then darker until it was near black. Black and orange and everything looking a queer yellow color. I get the pit of my stomach. The rain coming. Big rain. Me standing there in my field, staring up at the sky, crazy like crazy and yelling something. No. No. Give me a week. Just one week. Let me cut my harvest. Don't ruin it for me. Just give me a little more time. A mud sheet of water. Like somebody had opened up the sky. He just stood there. Seemed like my wheat wasn't there no more. All flattened out. Oh, yeah. It's all gone. A harvest. Gone. Ruined. The only way to have a little more time if only I could have had that sweet cut before it happened. Hot sun came out next morning, but I had no harvest left. Me and Kathy, we just stood outside the cabin looking. I was so happy here. I was content. Now I'm scared again. Jeff, I want to leave. We could get through winter, maybe next year. Next year. Next year it'll be something else. Hey, Kathy, we need some help, but we could only get it. Where are you going to get anybody to help you? You're right. I know you're right, Kathy. Only we're still pretty young. Well, we won't be much longer. We'll be old before our time. Jeff, let's go back. Anywhere. I don't care where. Just so we don't stay here. It's too big for us here. It's too much for one man. We started getting ready to leave. Me and Kathy, a lot more of the settlers. Then one morning, Fred Tucker rode over. Jeff, Kathy, saddle up and come with me. Come on. There's a fellow down by the river. A fellow from Virginia Valley. He's got something to show us. I'm no crazy man. I tell you, you don't have to quit your land. You don't have to go back and you don't need to hire more help. It was him. Cyrus McCormick. A few years older now, not so much of a dreamer as when we last saw him, but real business like standing there beside the river. One hand on his Reaper machine and talking to us. That machine was the queerest looking contraption any of us had ever set eyes on. Here it is, my friends, the McCormick Reaper. Takes only one man and one horse to run it. And it does the work of 20 men and half the time. Cyrus, you can't prove a thing around here. We ain't got no wheat to cut. I'm not here to prove anything, Jeff. I'm here to take orders. Just come from Ohio and Indiana. It was harvest time. I demonstrated this same machine to a lot of farmers back there. They saw how it worked. Did you tell your machines to them, Mr. McCormick? I took orders, promised delivery and time for next year's harvest. Cyrus, how would we pay for one even if we stayed on here? Well, you buy on credit, Kathy. You pay later. It'll be you I'll sell one to, Kathy. I told Jeff years ago I wouldn't sell him one. Well, Cyrus, that ain't no way to remember an old friend. Look, I was just telling Kathy it don't make sense for a man to break his back when he can get a machine to do his work for him. It don't make no sense at all. Cyrus, we'll buy one. Kathy, wait until next year. Wait until you see us plowing this land and waiting for harvest time. Wait until you see me sitting up there in that seat like I was a king driving my own reaper machine. Like he was a king driving his own reaper machine. As far as he could see the yellow weave waving in the sun and him, king of it all the golden ocean. Yes, there on the great plains the McCormick reaper met the need of the day brought to farmers an end to drudgery. A century and a quarter of progress has passed since then. Today, tractors replace horses. Machines plow the soil, reap the harvest, bind it, and stretch the wheat. The great plains of America have become the bread basket of the free world. Out of this very heart of America thunder freight cars laden with grain enough for our domestic needs, enough for foreign trade as American wheat flows to the four corners of the earth. The product of the golden ocean. This has been the sixth chapter in the story of the American nation brought to you by the ladies' auxiliary to the veterans of foreign wars. Next week, another story to make you proud of this great country of ours as we follow the American trail.