The extreme heat continued for weeks. One day, a salesman came to the work area with a new drilling machine powered by steam. He said it could drill holes faster than twelve men working together. The railroad company planned to buy the machine if it worked as well as the salesman said. The supervisor of the workers dismissed the salesman’s claims. He said, «I have the best steel-driver in the country. His name is John Henry, and he can beat more than twenty men working together.» The salesman disputed the statements. He said the company could have the machine without cost if John Henry was faster. The supervisor called to John Henry. He said, «This man does not believe that you can drill faster. How about a race?» John Henry looked at the machine and saw images of the future. He saw machines taking the place of America’s best workers. He saw himself and his friends without jobs and standing by a road, asking for food. He saw men losing their families and their rights as human beings. John Henry told the supervisor he would never let the machine take his job. His friends all cheered. However, John Henry’s wife Polly Ann was not happy. «Competing against the machine will be the death of you,» she said. «You have a wife and a child. If anything happens to you, we will not ever smile again.» John Henry lifted his son into the air. He told his wife, «A man is nothing but a man. But a man always has to do his best. Tomorrow, I will take my hammer and drive that steel faster than any machine.»