Five men have been busy loading a straw bundle wagon and are taking a break. The straw bundles will be later threshed in a threshing machine. The men are sitting on and around the large steam engine. One man is sitting on the large wheel used by the belt to power the threshing machine.
A man is standing on the back of the steam engine watching and operating the controls to make sure the steam pressure will be high enough to operate the threshing machine, but not so high as to blow up the boiler.