Chapter 323: Taming the Field Part 2

While William Mercer was turning a profit, the sixth tractor in Thomas Bell’s village was nearly causing a riot.

The idea had started with good intentions. A dozen small farmers had chipped in together to cover the tractor’s fuel and hired a local youth to drive it. But farming does not run on a tidy office timetable. Rain had delayed the spring planting, which meant every single farmer suddenly needed their fields plowed before the next storm rolled in.

When Ernest, Arthur, and Hollen arrived at the village hall, the shouting could be heard from down the gravel lane.

Inside, twelve men were leaning over a long pine table, red-faced and waving their hats. Thomas Bell was backed against the wall, looking completely exhausted.

"You had the machine for three days!" an older man yelled.

"It rained for two of them!" another shouted back. "The ground was soup! Am I supposed to plow mud?"

"That isn’t my fault! My seed is going bad in the sacks!"

Ernest stood near the door and raised his hand to speak. Nobody even looked at him. Arthur cleared his throat loudly. The men kept shouting.

Finally, Hollen took a deep breath, stepped forward, and let out a deafening, parade-ground roar:

"OI!"

The hall went dead silent. Twelve heads snapped toward the door.

Ernest glanced sideways at his engineer. "You’re getting remarkably good at that."

"Shipyards," Hollen said with a modest shrug. "You learn to project."

Ernest stepped into the center of the room. "Gentlemen, I hear we have an issue."

An older farmer scoffed. "Issue? We’re about ten minutes from an all-out brawl."

"Then let’s fix it," Ernest said calmly. He pulled out a chair and sat down. "Thomas, what’s the heart of it?"

"Nobody wants to wait," Bell said, rubbing his temple. "Everyone’s crop is the most urgent. And now some of the lads are saying I gave myself priority because I know your office."

Arthur stepped up to the table, took off his coat, and looked around the room. "Who drew up the schedule?"

"We didn’t write anything down," a farmer muttered. "We’re neighbors. We figured we’d just take turns."

"Well, that was your first mistake," Arthur said smoothly. "Informal agreements between neighbors turn into blood feuds the moment bad weather hits. If you want this to work, you need rules."

For the next hour, Arthur took charge of the room. He didn’t talk about engines; he talked about fairness.

Together, they set up a simple rotation based on soil readiness and crop type, not who yelled the loudest. They agreed to log engine hours in an open book so everyone could see where the fuel went. They built in half a day every week just for grease and maintenance. And they formed a three-man committee to handle weather delays by vote, taking the pressure off Thomas Bell.

When the meeting broke up, the mood in the room had shifted from anger to relief. Several farmers shook Arthur’s hand on the way out.

Outside in the cool evening air, Bell walked Ernest to his motorcar.

"I’m sorry you had to come all this way for our squabbles," Bell said, looking down at his boots.

"Don’t be," Ernest replied. "We built the machine to plow dirt, but we forgot people have to share it. We learned just as much today as you did."

Bell looked out toward the dark fields. "Do you still think machines like this have a future out here?"

"I do," Ernest said quietly. "Now more than ever."

Back at Plant One the following week, the engineering bay was humming.

The team laid out the blueprints for the updated Fieldmaster. The changes weren’t flashy, but they were practical. The gearbox was stiffer. The radiator had its new pull-out screen. The driver’s platform had an extra handrail, a lower hitch point, and—true to Mercer’s demand—a deep steel pan seat mounted on a thick, coiled carriage spring.

"Still not what I’d call handsome," Hollen remarked, tapping a pencil against the drawing.

"It’s a tractor, Hollen," Ernest replied with a dry smile. "It doesn’t need to look like a sports car. It needs to pull a plow without breaking."

"Don’t you dare spend a single shilling making it pretty," Arthur called out from his desk, without looking up from his ledgers.

Two days later, Arthur walked into Ernest’s office carrying an official letter bearing the crest of the Ministry of Agriculture.

"They’ve been watching our trials," Arthur said, dropping the letter on the desk. "They like the numbers. But their economists point out the obvious: most smallholders will never have the cash to buy one outright."

Ernest nodded. "We saw that in the village. If we rely on individual sales to small farmers, we’ll go bankrupt waiting for them to save up."

"So what’s the play?"

"Contractors like Mercer," Ernest said. "And organized cooperatives. If three or four villages pool their funds with government-backed loans, they can buy a machine and hire it out. The ministry helps with financing, we provide the operator training, and the tractors stay busy all season."

Arthur smiled slowly. "A steady fleet market with guaranteed service contracts. Now you’re talking like a businessman."

By the following month, the first updated Fieldmaster was delivered back to Mercer’s farm for a second trial run.

Ernest and Hollen stood by the stone fence, watching the green machine crawl steadily across the long furrow. The engine ran with a clean, deep hum. The new radiator screen stayed clear of straw, and the tractor glided over the uneven ground without bucking.

When Mercer finished his run, he stopped near the fence and stepped down. He wasn’t limping this time.

"Well?" Ernest asked.

Mercer grinned broadly and slapped the steel hood. "Now that’s a working tool. My back doesn’t ache, and the engine didn’t even cough when we hit that patch of clay." He looked at Ernest, his tone turning serious. "When can I put down a deposit for a second one?"

"We’re opening the order books next spring," Ernest said. "You’ll be first in line."

Late that night, Ernest returned to his estate at Oriel. A fire was burning low in the library grate. Eleanor was sitting by the hearth, reading through a stack of clinic papers.

Ernest sat down opposite her, letting out a long breath.

She looked up with a warm smile. "How were your farmers?"

"Loud," Ernest admitted with a chuckle. "Stubborn. But we’re making progress."

"Did the new seat work?"

"Mr. Mercer told me to convey his personal gratitude to you."

Eleanor laughed softly, closing her book. "Good. Men spend too much time admiring gears and not enough time thinking about the poor fellow who has to sit on them for ten hours."

Ernest looked out through the dark windowpane toward the hills. For centuries, the life of a farmer had been defined by exhaustion—by blistered hands, stubborn oxen, and the desperate race against changing weather. A machine wouldn’t solve every hardship, but it could shoulder the heaviest part of the load.

"It’s going to change things out there, Eleanor," he said softly.

"For the better, I hope," she said.

"If we build them right," Ernest replied, looking back at her. "Yes. For the better."