Sabina’s father waved to the two young people, but then quickly returned his hands firmly to the controls. He had to mind what he was about. Matthew could see immediately that the field was indeed an uneven one, and the contraption seemed so rickety and had so many moving parts that he scarcely imagined it being able to hold together for an hour.

In mesmerized fascination, they stood and watched the baron make two complete passes of the long rows of the field, then Sabina led Matthew farther on, to the wheat field beyond, which now lay reduced to stubble sticking out of the earth, strewn with the remnants of straw left behind after the combine had done its work.

“There they are!” shouted Sabina, pointing across the field. “Heiko and Hans are pressing the straw into bales—let’s go!”

She took off across the stubbly field, and Matthew gave chase. He caught her, and they ran side by side across the vast former wheat field, until they arrived at the scene of today’s labors. A tractor pulled another of the baron’s new mechanical devices, a smaller clattering, clanking, spidery apparatus, which was in turn attached to a flatbed wagon that was pulled along behind.

Sabina fell in immediately with the three men present, one of whom drove the tractor in front, another who walked alongside hoisting the bales of straw as they fell from the baling machine, up to the third man perched precariously on the bed of the slowly moving wagon. It was clearly rigorous work for just two men to keep up with the progress of the tractor, for the bales came more quickly than they could easily get them off the ground and stacked neatly on the wagon.

It was not hard to tell what was to be done. As the tractor continued to pull the baler and wagon along, Sabina clambered up onto the half-full wagon, jumped to her feet, and began helping the man already there to stack the bales ever higher as they continued to be tossed up from the ground. Observing for a moment, Matthew easily caught on and began helping the fellow on the ground with the bales as they came tumbling out onto the ground from behind the machine.

The next time he looked up, Sabina was alone on the back of the wagon. She shouted at him to climb up.

“Where’d the other guy go?” he said, hoisting himself over the edge of the wagon as it bounced slowly across the dirt field.

She pointed to his retreating form already halfway across the field.

“He’s going to get another empty wagon and to see if Papa needs any help with the oats. There are several fields in progress right now, so the minute any extra help shows up, they put you to work and go on to something else.”