Brook Farm, by Reuben Catchpole

An original novel extract set in the twentieth century.

The threshing tackle came to Brook Farm on the last Monday of November 1927, and Sam heard it long before he saw it, a slow iron grinding on the lane that set the dogs barking in three farmyards at once. Then it rounded the elm at the corner: a black traction engine with a brass band round its chimney, smoke rolling off the top in fat grey coils, and behind it the drum, painted a faded pink, swaying on its wheels like a cart full of washing. A man stood on the footplate in a waistcoat and no coat at all, though Sam’s own fingers were stiff with cold, and steered with a wheel no bigger than a dinner plate. Behind the drum came the elevator, folded up like a heron’s neck, and last of all the water cart, slopping over at every rut. The engine stopped by the stacks with a long sigh of steam that blew across the yard and hid the house completely for a moment. When it cleared, Sam saw that his mother had come out with a tray of mugs and was laughing at something the driver had said.

List five things Sam sees when the threshing tackle arrives.