The Longest Four Miles

By Staff
Published on September 1, 1993
article image

19150 Murphy Road Peyton, Colorado 80831

One bright, sunny, Sunday morning, my husband said,
‘Let’s go for a ride.’ As we were driving down the back
roads, he spotted a Farmall M with an International corn picker on
it sitting in a farmer’s yard with a ‘for sale’ sign.
Nothing to do but drive in to see how much the man wanted for it.
Well, it was more than we wanted to pay! We decided to sleep on
it.

After a week, my husband decided to buy the big M. He had always
wanted a corn picker to play with since leaving the farm years ago!
You can take the boy out of the farm, but you can’t take the
farm out of the boy. My husband couldn’t wait to get that
tractor home! We started out early to go get it. He was as proud as
a peacock, driving that big M with the corn picker down the road. I
came on home to start lunch. I looked up to see him coming in the
door. I said, ‘Are you home already?’ He said, ‘The
tractor stalled about four miles back.’ ‘How did you get
home?’ ‘A couple of ladies came by in a pickup truck full
of chickens. They said I could crawl in with them and I
did.’

My husband picked up some tools and we jumped in the car, drove
back to where the tractor stalled, and tried to get it started no
such luck! So, we went into town after gas to pull it home with
another tractor. By this time we were hungry, so we ate lunch, then
started out on our long journey. Would you believe we got hold of
dirty gas and had to stop about every ten minutes to clean the
sediment bulb on our four mile trip back?!

We finally made it. My husband said, ‘You get on the M and
steer while I pull it.’ When he hooked those two tractors
together with a chain, my stomach got queasy. I looked up at that
big thing weighing 9,000 lbs., if not more. Little bitty me,
I’m only five feet tall, 105 lbs., with short legs. After
crawling up on that big M, you couldn’t even see me in that
seat!

We started up this mile long hill, yes a mile long, and you
guessed it the chain broke! I shoved my short legs on those brakes
and said to myself, ‘Oh no! They don’t work!’ The
tractor started to roll backwards. My husband yelled, ‘Turn it
to the bank!’ I kept yelling ‘I can’t stop it!’ In
the meantime, he stopped his tractor, jumped on the M, pulled the
steering wheel out of my hands and turned it to the bank. Guess I
just froze. I jumped clear off that thing. It’s a wonder I
didn’t break a leg. After we caught our breath, we decided to
try it again. Yes, I had the nerve to crawl back on that tractor. I
really didn’t want to, but I didn’t have the heart to say
no, four miles from home.

We started up the long hill again. The old girl was chugging
right along. I thought, ‘Boy, we got it made now.’ About
that time, she conked out with dirt in the sediment bulb. This
time, when my husband yelled to get it to the bank, I did!

After all this, we decided to go home to get a bigger tractor to
pull the Farmall M home. I said, ‘You also need to find a man
to help because I am NOT crawling back on that M the third
time.’ We drove the other tractor back home, jumped in the car,
went into town once more to get clean gas for the bigger tractor,
and to the neighbors to get some help. All in all, we started out
at 10:00 a.m. and finally got the Farmall M in our yard at 6:00
p.m. Even though I was shaken up with a few black and blue spots,
and a few remarks on how I could have been killed, I am still
alive! The moral of the story is if I had to do it all over, I
would probably do the same thing again to help my husband get a
tractor home.

Online Store Logo
Need Help? Call 1-866-624-9388