Word of his activities is carried over
the walls. His name is shouted and is carried by the wind into the tiny
inclosure in which other men live and in which they are for the most part
absorbed in doing some petty task for the furtherance of their own comfort.
Men and women stop their complaining about the unfairness and inequality of
life and wonder about the man whose name they have heard.
From Bidwell, Ohio, to farms all over the Middle West, Hugh McVey's name
had been carried. His machine for cutting corn was called the McVey
Corn-Cutter. The name was printed in white letters against a background of
red on the side of the machine. Farmer boys in the States of Indiana,
Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and all the great corn-growing States saw
it and in idle moments wondered what kind of man had invented the machine
they operated. A Cleveland newspaper man came to Bidwell and went to
Pickleville to see Hugh. He wrote a story telling of Hugh's early poverty
and his efforts to become an inventor. When the reporter talked to Hugh
he found the inventor so embarrassed and uncommunicative that he gave up
trying to get a story. Then he went to Steve Hunter who talked to him for
an hour. The story made Hugh a strikingly romantic figure. His people, the
story said, came out of the mountains of Tennessee, but they were not poor
whites. It was suggested that they were of the best English stock.
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