The harrowing would be the first job for the tractor. By three o’clock in the morning, Jake was up every fifteen minutes, checking the clock, anxious to get the tractor out with the twelve-disk harrow. As soon as it was light enough to see, he made one pass through the field and realized it was too much for one man. There was a seat on the harrow for an operator who could lift the disks at each turn so he didn’t have to stop at the end of each row and do it himself, then stop again to lower them after he had turned around. He also needed the extra weight. The harrow was heavy, but it wasn’t biting as deeply as it should. He came back to the house for Emaline and told her to tie a scarf over her hair to keep out the dust. The scarf helped, but the wind still blew grit into her face along with the fumes from the old tractor. Jake was running it fast. It was a bumpy, jouncing ride, the big clods and occasional rocks in the soil tossing her around like a twig on an ocean.

Still, the work went on. She had to admit it was faster with the tractor. By eleven o’clock, they had only two more passes to make and the field would be done, a job that might have taken until sundown with the team. Jake was going faster and faster, partly because he was hungry and partly because he wanted to see just how fast he could work with the tractor. As he came to the turn for the last pass, he sped up instead of slowing down and set the brakes on the left side of the tractor hard to bring it back in a very tight turn. In order to turn in as short a radius as possible, the machine was equipped with brakes for both the front and back wheels. By setting them both on one side, the operator could bring the tractor right around on itself, freezing the left side while the big driving wheel on the right kept spinning. The tractor worked beautifully, but the turn was much too tight and too fast for the harrow. It flipped over, twisting the heavy, cast-iron tongue that connected it to the tractor into a corkscrew.

Emaline was thrown from the seat and landed facedown in plowed earth an instant before the harrow came crashing down on her left leg just above the knee. With the roar of the tractor, Jake didn’t notice what had happened until he was a hundred feet up the row. Then he glanced back and saw that the harrow was upside down. He killed the engine and ran back to her. She cursed him. “You were going too damned fast, you damned idiot. You broke my leg.”