The Thresher

For Johnny Black, the young man we meet in Herbert Krause's classic Minnesota farm novel The Thresher, his dream of becoming a member of a steam-powered threshing crew has come true. As fireman, he builds the fire that generates the steam and blows the whistle to wake up the rest of the crew.

Here was the new threshing rig and he a fireman. For this he had counted tomorrows and tomorrows. From all the weary days of sweat on the flats (and days before that), he had looked to this shouting hour when with pride in his arches he'd swing to the platform and handle the throttle. Now that hour had arrived, was present.

As writer Patrick Hicks explains in his introduction, commissioned especially for this edition, Johnny's ambitions far exceed mastering this new technology, and what he is willing to sacrifice to achieve them is the driving force of the novel.