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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75408 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+                       HIRAM IN THE MIDDLE WEST
+
+                                  OR
+
+                  _A YOUNG FARMER'S UPWARD STRUGGLE_
+
+                          BY BURBANK L. TODD
+
+                  AUTHOR OF "HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER."
+
+                             _ILLUSTRATED_
+
+                               NEW YORK
+                        GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY
+
+                          COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
+                        GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY
+
+                        PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+                        BACK TO THE SOIL SERIES
+
+                          By BURBANK L. TODD
+
+                      _12mo. Cloth. Illustrated._
+
+                        HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER
+                        Or, Making the Soil Pay
+
+                       HIRAM IN THE MIDDLE WEST
+                 Or, A Young Fanner's Upward Struggle
+
+                    (Other Volumes in Preparation)
+
+                   GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS
+
+
+                          I. THE MAN WHO WAS AFRAID OF RATS
+
+                         II. A KERNEL OF WHEAT
+
+                        III. INVENTOR'S LUCK
+
+                         IV. SUNNYSIDE
+
+                          V. THE TERRIBLE MISS PRINGLE
+
+                         VI. FARMING AND FURBELOWS
+
+                        VII. SEED TESTING
+
+                       VIII. THE BLUEBIRD
+
+                         IX. ORRIN POST
+
+                          X. A FRIEND INDEED
+
+                         XI. FRICTION
+
+                        XII. WORK BEGINS
+
+                       XIII. WHEAT
+
+                        XIV. YANCEY BATTICK'S STORY
+
+                         XV. THE COUNTRY DANCE
+
+                        XVI. TROUBLE WITH TURNER'S BULL
+
+                       XVII. WHEAT HARVEST
+
+                      XVIII. THE BABY TORNADO
+
+                        XIX. DISASTER THREATENS
+
+                         XX. A BARGAIN
+
+                        XXI. A PARTNERSHIP IS FORMED
+
+                       XXII. A STRANGER APPEARS
+
+                      XXIII. AN INQUIRY
+
+                       XXIV. SOCIETY
+
+                        XXV. A VISIT AND A PEST
+
+                       XXVI. THE FIGHT FOR THE WHEAT
+
+                      XXVII. DAY DREAMS
+
+                     XXVIII. CORN AND COMPARISONS
+
+                       XXIX. EXPLOITING THE WHEAT
+
+                        XXX. KING CORN
+
+                       XXXI. WHO IS THEODORE CHESTER?
+
+                      XXXII. LOOKING AHEAD
+
+
+
+
+                             ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+The two teams cleaned up the Sunnyside cornpatch in a week.
+
+Orrin ... flung the cape over the bull's head
+
+Two of his helpers had to hold the ladder steady while the other handed
+him the end of the wire cable
+
+Everybody about the place--even Sister--worked in the wheat fields
+
+
+
+
+                       HIRAM IN THE MIDDLE WEST
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+                    THE MAN WHO WAS AFRAID OF RATS
+
+
+For an hour before the accommodation train stopped at Pringleton the
+rain had etched zigzag lines upon the windowpane beside Hiram Strong's
+seat; so to find the platform aglitter with puddles in the dull lamp
+light and the water dripping drearily from the station eaves did not
+surprise him. What was rather astonishing was to find Pringleton such a
+very lonely place.
+
+As far as he could see, when he had walked around the bungalow-built
+station the light in the stationmaster's ticket office was the only
+light visible save the switch-targets and the disappearing green lamps
+on the end of the train. Hiram, with his heavy bag, was the only
+passenger who had got off the evening train.
+
+When he came around to the front of the station again he saw the
+stationmaster humped over his desk in the bay window, with a pen stuck
+over his ear, looking for all the world like a secretary bird. He
+peered out of the window at Hiram curiously, and finally pushed up the
+sash.
+
+"I don't know whether you know it or not, young fellow," the
+stationmaster said, "but the company charges mileage if you use this
+platform for a walking track. And you'll make trouble for me if you
+keep going around, for I never have found out how many laps make a
+mile, and I sha'n't know what to charge you."
+
+Hiram Strong smiled his approval of this brand of humor, yet his
+question put in reply was quite serious:
+
+"Have you seen anybody around here, sir, from a place called Sunnyside
+Farm?"
+
+"There isn't anybody at Sunnyside Farm, as far as I know," said the
+stationmaster; "and there hasn't been since the house burned down last
+year."
+
+"Yes, I know," Hiram said quickly. "But I rather expected Mr. Bronson
+would have somebody over here to meet me."
+
+"Mr. Stephen Bronson?" asked the man. "Him that's just bought the
+Sunnyside place?"
+
+"Yes. It's quite a walk to the farm, isn't it?"
+
+"It is the longest two miles you ever walked, son," declared the
+stationmaster. "Were you thinking to walk it to-night?"
+
+"As there is nobody here to meet me, I guess I'll have to," replied the
+youth cheerfully. "Which way do I head? You'll have to start me right,
+or else I may wear out your platform walking around and around on it
+all night."
+
+The stationmaster chuckled. "Well, young fellow," he observed, "it is
+evidently to my advantage to put you on your way. Turn around, pick
+up your bag, go right down those steps to the road and walk straight
+ahead. You are now facing west. When you get into the road you will
+find it not so dark as it seems."
+
+"Dark enough, I guess," muttered Hiram.
+
+"You can't miss the road even on a dark night, for there is no fork in
+it till after you pass Sunnyside."
+
+"But," asked the youth, "is there anybody up that way who will lodge me
+for the night, as the Sunnyside house is burned?"
+
+"You may get taken in at Miss Delia Pringle's, just beyond
+Sunnyside--first house after you pass the ruins of the burned
+farmhouse. This station is named after her folks. Don't make the
+mistake of going to the first house this side of Sunnyside."
+
+He said this last so curiously that Hiram asked him: "Why not?"
+
+"Because that is Yancey Battick's place. He'll likely blow a charge
+of rock salt into you from his shotgun and then ask what you want
+afterward."
+
+"Why, what's his idea?" asked Hiram much amazed.
+
+"Says he's afraid of rats--that's all," declared the stationmaster, and
+immediately slammed down the window to shut out the searching February
+wind.
+
+The youth hesitated for only a moment longer. He rather thought the
+stationmaster of Pringleton was quite as odd as the man he called
+Yancey Battick, who met all visitors with a salt-loaded shotgun and was
+afraid of rats.
+
+"And this isn't really a night fit for a rat to be out," Hiram
+muttered, after he had walked for some time along the muddy road
+leading west from the station.
+
+Occasionally while he was still near the railroad he passed a dwelling;
+but it was just about supper time, and nearly all the lights were at
+the backs of the houses. Hardly a ray of cheerful lamp light reached
+the road.
+
+The houses were situated farther apart as he continued his march. The
+fine rain was penetrating in the extreme. Hiram desired shelter more
+than he ever had before, it seemed to him.
+
+And just when it appeared as though nothing about his situation could
+be worse, the heavens opened. It had been doing this, off and on, all
+day. But this water fall seemed heavier than any of those that had
+preceded it.
+
+Hiram Strong saw a light ahead and a little to one side of the road.
+It was not a very bright light (perhaps it was drowned by the curtain
+of falling rain) but it must be in a house, he thought. At a time like
+this, it was any port in a storm.
+
+He set out at a heavy run toward the light. He found a sagging gate in
+a decrepit fence. Plunging up a muddy path, he reached a tiny porch
+which might have offered some shelter had not the roof leaked like a
+sieve.
+
+"Hard luck!" muttered the youth. "If they won't let me in--"
+
+His feet pounding on the rickety steps and the thump of his heavy bag
+on the porch aroused somebody within. Hiram heard a firm step at the
+other side of the door.
+
+Suddenly the door opened with an abruptness which was startling. The
+door opened on a chain, and through the aperture of about eight inches
+was thrust the brown muzzle of a double-barreled shotgun that, at
+the moment, looked as big as a cannon to the youth. He stepped back
+promptly, and a cascade off the roof of the porch went down the back of
+his neck.
+
+"What are you after?" demanded a harsh voice.
+
+Above the slanted gun-barrel appeared a ferocious black moustache which
+completely hid the wearer's mouth, a beak-like nose, and a pair of blue
+eyes that glittered half wildly. Altogether the householder was of
+most forbidding aspect, and the youth at once identified him as Yancey
+Battick. He had evidently stopped at the wrong house after all!
+
+"I want nothing, Mr. Battick, but shelter till the rain holds up,"
+Hiram answered.
+
+"Who told you my name?" demanded the man. "I never saw you before,
+young fellow."
+
+"I guessed it," Hiram replied. "I'm a pretty good Yankee at guessing."
+
+"And you are a Yankee, I imagine," the man said. "You're from the East,
+aren't you?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Hiram, and mentioned the locality from which he had
+just come in answer to Mr. Stephen Bronson's summons.
+
+The man still presented the gun, and although Hiram had stepped from
+under the cascade pouring down from the roof, he was anything but
+comfortable out there on the porch.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Battick, scowling still.
+
+"To Sunnyside Farm."
+
+"Why, there's nobody there! The house is burned down."
+
+"I expect to work that place this year for Mr. Stephen Bronson. I
+want to find a place to lodge near the farm, and I was told to apply
+to--Miss Pringle, I believe the name is."
+
+"What!" gasped the man. "A young fellow like you? Who sent you unwarned
+into the clutches of that old maid?"
+
+"Why--is she so bad?" Hiram asked.
+
+"There isn't any male too young nor yet too old to be out of danger of
+that old maid. Come on in," added Mr. Battick, unchaining the door. "I
+wouldn't let any male creature get into that woman's clutches."
+
+Hiram stepped rather doubtfully into the house. Mr. Yancey Battick
+certainly was a very odd person. He had been warned that the man with
+the welcoming shotgun was afraid of rats; it appeared that he was
+likewise much afraid of spinsters.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II
+
+                           A KERNEL OF WHEAT
+
+
+"Hold on!" said Yancey Battick, halting Hiram just after he was inside
+the house and the door was closed. "Who sent you here?"
+
+He seemed a very suspicious man. His blue eyes searched the open
+countenance of the boy from the East, and his expression, with
+bristling moustache and all, was fierce indeed.
+
+"I tell you I was not sent here at all," Hiram explained rather
+wearily. "In fact, I was advised strongly against knocking at your
+door."
+
+"Who advised you?" demanded Battick quickly.
+
+"The stationmaster."
+
+"That old thimblerigger, Jason Oakley? Huh! Are you a friend of his?"
+
+It was evident that Mr. Battick was not on friendly terms with many of
+his neighbors. Hiram Strong did not lack common sense. He proposed to
+say nothing to cause the householder to turn him out into the downpour,
+which was now very severe.
+
+"I am just as much a friend of his, Mr. Battick, as I am of yours," the
+youth said.
+
+"Humph! Well! And I suppose Jason told you to try at Delia Pringle's?"
+
+"He did."
+
+"Humph!" Battick said again, and finally set the gun in a rack near the
+chimney corner.
+
+At last Hiram Strong felt as though he could look about the room.
+Heretofore his attention had been given to that gun. The door by which
+he had entered opened directly from the porch; there was no entry-way.
+The room seemed to be the entire width of the cottage with a wide
+fireplace facing the door, and evidently there was another room behind
+the chimney--perhaps two.
+
+This living room was sufficiently interesting--not to say
+surprising--to the visitor to hold his full attention for the time
+being. The two ends of the room, at the right and left of the doorway,
+first gained Hiram Strong's interest. At the right the wall was
+completely masked from floor to ceiling by bookshelves, and those
+shelves were filled with books, the nature of which he could not so
+easily learn, for the hanging lamp did not thoroughly illuminate the
+apartment.
+
+At the other end was a bench upon which were retorts, a
+mortar-and-pestle, an alcohol forge, and other implements and
+instruments which suggested chemical--and other--experiments. There
+were, too, racks of seed-boxes for testing. Hiram was thoroughly
+familiar with these shallow trays.
+
+But in the middle of the room was the object that most excited Hiram's
+interest. This was a high table--or so it seemed--its shape something
+like that of a coffin. At least, it was as long as a full length
+casket, about as wide, and was side-boarded like no table Hiram had
+ever seen before. But there was a tarpaulin spread over it. The four
+legs were of round, barked, straight logs four inches in diameter.
+
+After setting the gun in the rack Battick turned toward his visitor
+and, though not very graciously, invited him to be seated, pointing to
+a rustic armchair at the side of the hearth farthest from the gun-rack.
+
+"And take off your coat, stranger. What did you say your name was?"
+
+"It is Hiram Strong."
+
+"What did you say about working Sunnyside for Mr. Bronson?" continued
+the host. "I guess you mean you're going to chore around for him?"
+
+"I hope to run the farm for Mr. Bronson."
+
+"A boy like you?"
+
+"I'll never be any younger," Hiram laughed, for he was rather used to
+having people cast reflections upon his age. He had had, however, much
+greater experience in practical farming than many men on farms who were
+twice his age.
+
+"What do you know about farming?" asked Battick abruptly. "What
+experience have you had, Mr. Strong?"
+
+Hiram smiled slowly. He was by no means a handsome boy, but he was
+wholesome looking and his smile was disarming. Even the scowling visage
+of Yancey Battick began to smooth out as he watched his visitor. But it
+was plain to be seen that the man was a misanthrope.
+
+"You see," Hiram began, "my father was a very good farmer indeed,
+although he farmed for other men all his life. He read a great deal and
+studied farming methods, and I worked right along with him until I was
+fourteen. What he learned--at least, a good deal of it--I learned, too."
+
+"Humph!" sniffed Battick, "a boy of that immature age?"
+
+"Father made a friend of me. We were like brothers--chums," Hiram
+Strong continued. "Somehow, he was an easy man to learn from--he was
+patient."
+
+"I see," muttered Battick. "Well, I take it your father died?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I had got it into my head that I did not want to be a tenant
+farmer, as he was all his life, and there was no money left. So I went
+to town thinking there would be more and better chances for a boy."
+
+"Humph! You were starting out young."
+
+"I didn't have any folks," explained Hiram. "I got a job that barely
+paid my board and lodging. And I soon got sick of it."
+
+"Of the job or the city?" asked Battick, the ghost of a smile passing
+over his face as he listened to his involuntary guest and stared into
+the leaping flames on the hearth.
+
+"Of both," replied Hiram promptly. "The city is no place for a fellow
+who loves the country as I found I did. Mother Atterson, with whom I
+boarded, had eighty acres left her near the town of Scoville, and she
+and I made a dicker. I farmed it for her for two years, and when our
+contract ended at Christmas last, I had fixed things so that she could
+run it on a paying basis with the help of a friend of mine, Henry
+Pollock, and by the aid of Sister, whom Mother Atterson has adopted,
+and Lem Camp, who lives with them.
+
+"Mr. Stephen Bronson bought a place near Scoville--"
+
+"He's always buying farms," grumbled Battick. "Got more money than
+brains."
+
+"I wouldn't say that," Hiram emphasized in disagreement. "I do not
+believe that Mr. Bronson ever invests in a farm without getting a
+good return for his outlay. He did on the old Fleigler place there in
+Scoville. And he only bought that place to live there for a part of
+each year while his daughter, Lettie, is going to school at St. Beris."
+
+"Yes. I've heard he has a daughter that just about leads him around by
+the nose," sniffed Battick.
+
+Hiram Strong laughed.
+
+"She's a girl that most any man would be willing to be led around by,
+by the nose or otherwise," he said. "Lettie Bronson is a mighty pretty
+girl. Anyhow, her father liked my work on the Atterson Eighty; so he
+has made me this offer to come out here to the Middle West and farm
+Sunnyside for a couple of years."
+
+In this brief way Hiram Strong had related the more important
+occurrences narrated in the first volume of this series, entitled
+"Hiram the Young Farmer; Or, Making the Soil Pay." His modest statement
+that "Mr. Bronson had liked my work on the Atterson Eighty" scarcely
+described the farm owner's enthusiasm, however, or explained why Mr.
+Bronson had sent for so young a fellow to run his new purchase here at
+Pringleton near the Ohio River.
+
+The rain continued to slap against the old clapboards of the house and
+the limbs of the huge buttonwood tree Hiram had seen in the front yard
+creaked loudly. A long and hard storm threatened, and the outlook for
+pushing on to Miss Pringle's was not a happy one. The woman would be in
+bed before Hiram reached her place.
+
+As Mr. Battick seemed to have fallen into a brown study and asked no
+further questions, Hiram felt free to examine the furniture of the
+living room again. The table--if it was a table--was an odd thing. The
+young man did not know what to make of it.
+
+The piece of tarpaulin that covered it was sunk in along the top, and
+he came to the conclusion that there was no real top to the table.
+Then, in leaning back in his low chair near the fire, he saw that the
+long frame was bottomed with heavy planks. It was a box on four legs
+rather than a table.
+
+Mr. Battick spoke again, in his usual abrupt fashion:
+
+"Have you had your supper yet, young fellow?"
+
+The tone could not be called cordial.
+
+"I had something to eat on the train," replied Hiram indifferently.
+
+"On that old accommodation?" sniffed Battick. "Case-hardened
+sandwiches, I bet."
+
+Hiram laughed, but admitted the fact.
+
+"I know what it is to ride on that train," the man said. "In spite of
+what Jase Oakley told you about me, I wouldn't see a man starve--not
+right here in my own house," added this queer individual, though still
+gruffly.
+
+"Oh, the stationmaster did not say anything about you except that you
+were afraid of rats," Hiram rejoined, watching Battick slyly, for he
+was very curious about the man.
+
+"That's what that old thimblerigger said about me, eh?" growled
+Battick. "Lucky he don't often come up this way. It might happen that
+I should take him for a rat."
+
+He said it so savagely that Hiram considered it best to say nothing
+more to excite his strange host. Battick brought eggs and bacon and
+half of a corn pone from a cupboard, preparing the meal deftly at the
+open fire.
+
+Suddenly Hiram's attention was caught by something on the floor just
+under the nearest corner of the odd table, or box, in the middle of the
+room. It was a tiny, cone-shaped heap of grain--wheat, he thought. It
+had dribbled through the bottom of that box by some tiny hole, it was
+plain, and had fallen unnoticed to the floor.
+
+There was something odd about this grain--something that immediately
+attracted Hiram's particular interest. When Battick's back was turned
+he stooped sideways from his chair and secured one of the kernels
+of wheat between his thumb and finger. He placed it in his palm and
+studied it minutely.
+
+The kernel of wheat was different from any grain he had ever seen.
+First of all, it was a very large, plump grain, perfectly formed, and
+upon one side was a tiny yet distinct red stripe.
+
+Suddenly Hiram looked up from the grain in his hand. Battick had made
+a strange move. He had set the skillet down on the hearth and was
+reaching for the shotgun. His eyes seemed to glow and a deep flush was
+diffused over the man's forbidding looking countenance.
+
+Hiram Strong was amazed and startled at his host's appearance.
+
+"What is the matter, Mr. Battick?" cried the visitor. "What are you
+doing with that gun?" for the man had seized it now.
+
+"Hush!" hissed Yancey Battick. "I think I see a rat!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+                            INVENTOR'S LUCK
+
+
+The thought had been impressed upon Hiram Strong's mind from the very
+first that there was something altogether wrong with Yancey Battick.
+His wild eyes and excited manner now convinced the visitor that this
+suspicion was correct. Battick was not altogether sane. And when he
+reached for that rock-salt loaded shotgun the visitor prepared to
+defend himself.
+
+The muzzle of the gun swung toward Hiram. The latter slid out of his
+chair and darted sideways just as Battick rose up with the butt of
+the gun at his shoulder. The muzzle seemed closely following Hiram's
+movements.
+
+Then the man's finger pressed the trigger and the gun roared. It seemed
+that the wind of the charge passed over Hiram's head.
+
+"What under the sun are you doing?" demanded the youth, leaping up and
+facing the householder.
+
+"What did you move for?" retorted Battick. "I might have got you
+instead of the rat."
+
+"The rat?" repeated Hiram in some doubt.
+
+Battick returned the smoking shotgun to its rack and crossed the room
+to the workbench. Under it, deep in the shadow of the corner, he found
+his game--a fat, gray rat, still kicking.
+
+"Great Scott!" murmured the boy from the East, "it really was a rat."
+
+"What did you think I would be shooting in this old house?" growled
+Battick. "It's rat-ridden. They give me no peace. They have cost me
+more--well, no use going into that," said the man, and so concluded.
+
+But Hiram Strong was now immensely interested in this strange
+individual. His fright because of Mr. Battick's reckless use of his
+shotgun was soon over. The rats about this ancient cottage certainly
+were very bold. But there must be--there was--a particular reason
+why the man was afraid of the rats. This fear of which Hiram had
+first heard from Jason Oakley, the stationmaster, was not merely some
+idiosyncrasy of Battick's.
+
+"Have you tried poison for the vermin?" Hiram demanded.
+
+"I've tried everything," replied the man gruffly.
+
+"What makes them so bold?"
+
+"The place was overrun with them when I came on it four years ago. I
+can't keep anything in the barn. Why, they have eaten a good buggy
+harness on me! I have to keep my harnesses in my bedroom. I've got an
+alarm clock in there and it ticks so loud that it scares them off, I
+guess. And, then, I snore. That must keep the creatures on the move."
+
+Hiram did not know whether the man was all together in earnest, or not;
+but he had to laugh at this last statement.
+
+"It ain't no laughing matter," Yancey Battick said, wagging his head.
+"My old horse got a nail in his hoof and I greased it well. Hanged if
+the rascals didn't near eat him up in one night. If he hadn't kicked
+and snorted so and woke me up, I guess they would have had the most of
+him eaten before morning."
+
+"But what brings them into the house--and so bold? You must be on the
+watch for them continually."
+
+"I am. Jase Oakley is right. I am afraid of the things. I scarcely dare
+leave the house because of them--"
+
+He halted. Hiram knew instinctively that the man thought he had said
+too much. He had verged on some secret, the mystery of which the youth
+had felt to be in the very air of the house since he had entered it. He
+saw that Battick was eyeing him again in his suspicious, if not ugly,
+way, so he hastily asked:
+
+"Did you learn to shoot on the fly like that by shooting rats?"
+
+"Oh, I knew how to use a gun before I came to Pringleton."
+
+"You've got good eyesight. I did not see that rat at all."
+
+"I saw the glint of his eyes under the bench." Battick was again
+giving his attention to the preparations for supper. "I've got so I am
+continually on the watch for the rascals."
+
+And he did not dare leave the house because of them! Then, decided
+Hiram Strong, there was something in the house that he feared the rats
+would destroy.
+
+Hiram looked under the odd box in the middle of the room at the little
+heap of grain that lay there. Wheat! A special kind of wheat! The
+seed-boxes on the bench told something. Hiram could guess more. But he
+said nothing at the moment. In fact Yancey Battick was scarcely a man
+to whom one would address a personal remark or ask a direct question
+about himself or his affairs.
+
+Yancey Battick brought a small stand from one corner of the room and
+set it before the fire. He spread a clean, if coarse, cloth upon it,
+and then the tableware, such as a camper would use. The smoking food,
+together with a pot of coffee, came on the table, and Battick beckoned
+Hiram to draw up his chair.
+
+"This is mighty good of you, Mr. Battick," the visitor said,
+"especially when I know you do not make a practice of harboring
+wayfarers."
+
+"I hope I shall not be sorry for having befriended you," the man said
+gloomily.
+
+"I assure you--"
+
+"You couldn't assure me of anything," interrupted Battick. "I have had
+sufficient experience to make me a thorough pessimist. You look like a
+nice young fellow; but I shall not be surprised if I am, in the end,
+very sorry that I took you in."
+
+"Even to save me from the clutches of Miss Delia Pringle?" the visitor
+suggested slyly.
+
+There came a sudden twinkle into Yancey Battick's eye. Whether or not
+he was a monomaniac on some subject (and Hiram Strong was tempted to
+believe he was) it was evident that the man appreciated a joke. He
+nodded his appreciation of Hiram's words.
+
+"That woman is a pest!" Battick said with vigor. "But I guess she is
+honest--wouldn't steal anything but an unsophisticated and helpless
+man-critter, I mean."
+
+So it was stealing that he was afraid of! Rats are great thieves. Hiram
+guessed again--and believed he had hit the fundamental trouble with his
+odd host. Battick had originated, or developed, a new seed-wheat. He
+feared somebody would steal it from him, and the rats were doing so.
+
+The rats were so troublesome that he had to keep the wheat in his
+living room. This table-looking thing was a box full of wheat. And
+because the rats were so bold he dared not leave the house. Even with
+all these precautions the thieving creatures were getting some of the
+wheat, as note that little pile of grain under the box on the floor.
+
+The young fellow from Scoville was interested in more than one way.
+First of all, Battick himself aroused his curiosity. But that single
+kernel of wheat he had picked up interested Hiram Strong much more.
+
+He had examined many samples of seed-wheat, but nothing that had ever
+looked like this large, plump grain with the tiny crimson stripe upon
+it This was indeed a distinct variety, and if its culture was possible
+on all wheat lands, and it milled all right, Hiram knew the strange man
+had the basis of a fortune--if he could put it over.
+
+This section around Pringleton, as Hiram had learned from Mr. Bronson,
+was not particularly a wheat-growing country. And yet every farmer of
+any importance grew some wheat. If this box was full of grain the man
+had about eight bushels, if Hiram was any judge of bulk and measure.
+Sown carefully, this would be enough for five or six acres. Five or six
+acres of wheat is a very small wheat crop, but an excellent seed crop.
+
+If Battick really had a new and good wheat, the crop from this amount
+of seed would pay him a good penny, if he could sell it to an honest
+seedsman. There was thus reason why he should be so afraid of
+thieves--and especially of the rats.
+
+Under fortunate conditions, the increase of these few bushels of wheat
+would yield Battick a small fortune. Perhaps the man was by no means
+as crazy as he at first appeared. And it might be that he knew his
+neighbors, and had reason to suspect them of desiring to rob him of the
+fruits of his discovery.
+
+The two finished supper and pushed back from the table. There was a
+sink in one corner of the room, and at this Battick quickly washed the
+cooking utensils and tableware, while Hiram dried them. They spoke of
+inconsequential things while they did this work Then Battick said:
+
+"I wouldn't have the heart to turn you out on a night like this, even
+if it cleared off--which it isn't likely to do. I'll let you sleep in
+my bed and I'll bunk down here before the fire."
+
+"Oh, no, Mr. Battick! I could not think of taking your bed," Hiram
+urged, but with a smile. "You have proved to me that you are a much
+better neighbor than you were quoted at; but there is no use in
+carrying the demonstration too far. I will sleep here before the fire
+and be very glad of the chance."
+
+Yancey Battick flashed him another of those hard, suspicious glances.
+It was not difficult to read the man's mind now that Hiram had
+discovered, as he thought, the key to the mystery. Battick was
+suspicious of him yet. He said gruffly:
+
+"If you remain here to-night, young man, you will sleep in my bed. And
+see that you do sleep, too, for although I snore, I'm easily roused,
+and I keep that gun right beside me."
+
+Hiram could not help being somewhat exasperated by all this suspicion.
+He was glad enough of the shelter; but he did not think he looked so
+dishonest that his host had to guard himself with a shotgun.
+
+"Look here, Mr. Battick," he said, rather tartly. "You're one of those
+cows that give a good pail of milk and then step in it. You give
+me supper and a bed, but distrust me. How do you know but you are
+entertaining an angel unawares?" and he ended by laughing a little to
+cover his vexation.
+
+"That's all right, too," Battick replied. "I know all about those
+'angels unaware.' I've had my experience with them, and I've had to
+run 'em off the place with my shotgun. Besides, I don't see any wings
+sprouting on you, Mr. Strong. I'll treat you just as good as you treat
+me. But as I tell 'em all, when you come to my front gate, call out;
+and if I don't answer, keep off."
+
+"If you are a pessimist, Mr. Battick," Hiram said shortly, "I hope I'll
+never get to be one."
+
+Suddenly the man flashed him a more earnest glance than before. His
+countenance became suffused with red.
+
+"I hope you never will, young man," Battick said. "And never be an
+inventor. Immediately a man starts out to help his fellows, everybody's
+hand is turned against him. He is pariah--and likewise the prey of all
+those with thieving instincts. Consider Goodyear, what he suffered; and
+Elias Howe, and a horde of others.
+
+"I came to Pringleton to escape people who wanted to rob me. Some of
+them had. But it seems people are the same in all localities. I have to
+watch, and threaten, and live like an outlaw to keep what is my own,
+Mr. Strong. You are young and have faith. Keep that faith in people
+if you can. But never be an inventor; for that is a crime that should
+be punished by being boiled in oil, or sawn asunder, or drawn and
+quartered, or some other middle-age device for making capital criminals
+suffer."
+
+"That is dreadful!" exclaimed Hiram.
+
+"Sounds pretty rough, I admit," Battick said, in his usual tone. "But
+believe me, I know whereof I speak. Now, come this way, Mr. Strong. I
+think you will be comfortable."
+
+He lit a candle at the blaze on the hearth and led the way into his
+bedroom. It was a comfortable room, and Battick insisted upon putting
+clean sheets on the bed, which he aired before the fire, and left his
+guest finally with the word:
+
+"Don't be frightened if you hear the gun in the night, Strong. I shall
+probably be only shooting at a rat."
+
+Hiram had never been entertained in just this way before. He peered
+through the crack of the door and saw Yancey Battick loading the barrel
+of the shotgun that had previously been emptied. The young fellow went
+to bed finally feeling that he was in the midst of alarms.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV
+
+                               SUNNYSIDE
+
+
+As so often happens after a hard storm, the weather cleared at daybreak
+and a patch of cold blue wintry sky met Hiram Strong's inquisitive gaze
+through the window as he rolled over in Yancey Battick's comfortable
+bed to look out.
+
+He judged immediately that it would be a race between Boreas and Jack
+Frost as to which would gain the most advantage by the stopping of the
+rain. The sturdy wind would try to dry up the saturated earth before
+Jack Frost could get his fetters on the puddles and plowed ground.
+
+From what he had read of conditions here about Pringleton, the winter
+had already been severe enough for all farming purposes. The grain was
+in good shape, the plowed ground had already been well frozen to the
+detriment of the bugs and worms, and the fruit trees were showing no
+signs of early sap-rising.
+
+Another month of cold weather, some snow for a wheat-cover, and some
+strong March winds, would put the land in ideal shape for corn.
+
+And Hiram Strong had been brought here to the Corn Belt of the Middle
+West for the express purpose of raising corn.
+
+He was enthusiastic over the prospect. He had worked hard and
+intelligently on the little Eastern farm, and now had come his chance,
+not only to work out his present theories on a larger scale, but to
+experiment further and with greater facilities for carrying his plans
+through to successful completion. Yes, it was with eager anticipation
+and high hopes that he looked forward to the advancing spring.
+
+Mr. Stephen Bronson had been growing bumper crops on all his farms
+through the Middle West, and especially those in the vicinity of
+Pringleton. Without doubt the big farm owner, having seen what Hiram
+Strong had accomplished on the Atterson Eighty, determined to learn if
+such methods of cultivation would pay on a larger acreage and under
+somewhat different conditions of climate and with different tools.
+
+The young fellow quite realized that he was on trial only. He must make
+good within two years or he would be a failure in the eyes of such a
+sharp business man as Stephen Bronson.
+
+Hiram, however, had no intention of being a failure; he had come here
+to Pringleton to win, just as he had gone upon the old Jeptha Atterson
+farm to win.
+
+Hiram remained in bed on this morning until he heard a stir in the
+living room and the sizzling of bacon in the skillet. He had not been
+disturbed by Mr. Battick shooting at rats in the night (for which he
+was grateful), but he had not dared to venture into the outer room
+until he was sure his host was moving about.
+
+Hiram brought his bag out of the bedroom already packed. Battick only
+grunted a "good morning," and was evidently in no more cheerful mood
+than on the evening before. Had he been invited to do so, the youth
+from the East would not have wished to prolong his stay with the man.
+
+Battick, however, seemed still opposed to Hiram's getting into the
+clutches of Miss Delia Pringle. At breakfast he said:
+
+"If you can stand to 'bach it,' as I do, Mr. Strong, you can make
+yourself comfortable up there at Sunnyside, and no thanks to anybody."
+
+"But you say the house is burned down!"
+
+"That's right. The last fellow who was on the farm, however, went in
+strong for poultry. Believed in fowls--it was a religion with him. And
+I take it a man has got to make 'em his religion really to get anything
+out of them. I never had the patience myself."
+
+"I believe eighty per cent. of those who try hens for profit, fail; but
+the successful ones can easily enough point out the reasons for those
+failures," said Hiram.
+
+"Well, maybe. However, that Brandenburg who lived at Sunnyside last
+fixed up a pretty good hen plant. After the fire he went in a hurry.
+Feared he would be blamed, perhaps. And I guess that Pringle woman
+would have done something to him if she could have got the law on him."
+
+"Miss Delia Pringle?" Hiram asked, with some curiosity.
+
+"Yes. Her folks owned pretty near all the land around here two or three
+generations ago. That's why it is called Pringleton. Sounds like a
+nursery rhyme. She sold Sunnyside to Stephen Bronson, same as she sold
+me this place."
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"This was the old Pringle homestead. Built before the Flood, or
+thereabout," said Battick. "That is why it is rat-ridden. The rodents
+had it to themselves for years, while the farm lay idle. It had not
+been cropped to death by tenants; that is why I bought it. You will
+find part of Sunnyside in worse shape than this old place was. Miss
+Pringle had one tenant after another on the big farm, each one worse
+than the previous incumbent. I hope Stephen Bronson got it cheap
+enough."
+
+"You intimated I might find some means of housekeeping up there, after
+all," said Hiram. "What did you mean?"
+
+"That Brandenburg left his chicken plant just as it was. The end
+shed is tight and has a good stove in it and a bunk. He watched his
+incubators there. You get some bedclothes and some cooking utensils and
+you'll be fixed right," said Battick.
+
+"Anything rather than give me up to the teeth and claws of Miss
+Pringle, is it?" asked Hiram, with a quiet chuckle.
+
+"No laughing matter, young fellow," advised Battick, as the visitor
+prepared to depart. "I'll bet you she'll be over to see you before you
+are at Sunnyside twenty-four hours--unless she has a broken leg. Oh, I
+know her, Mr. Strong. I pretty near had to run her off this place with
+my gun."
+
+"I hope not, Mr. Battick."
+
+"Fact," said the man in a perfectly serious way. "As I tell you, this
+was the old Pringle place. She claimed she liked to come down here for
+old time's sake and sit under that buttonwood tree out there. She'd
+bring her sewing and stay all the afternoon and I had to dress up and
+make believe I was going to town to get rid of her."
+
+"That was a good deal of a time-consumer," interrupted Hiram, his eyes
+dancing with his inward mirth.
+
+"Then," pursued the harassed man, "folks riding by began to ask me if
+we were going to be married soon and whether I'd continue to live down
+here or go up to Miss Pringle's new house to live with her. It got
+right embarrassing for a modest man, for a fact!
+
+"Besides," added Battick, "I didn't know but she was aiming to get me
+into court for breach of promise. Circumstantial evidence has hung many
+a man."
+
+"I hope I shall have no similar trouble," Hiram replied, vastly amused.
+
+He believed Battick, in spite of all his moodiness, and his fear of
+rats--and dislike for visitors--was a wit and worth cultivating. At
+least, he determined to learn more about that new wheat that the man
+was guarding so religiously.
+
+In fact, Hiram had found a chance to pick up a pinch of the wheat corns
+from under the trough, and had the grain safely twisted up in a bit of
+paper in his pocket.
+
+He knew better than to offer Mr. Battick anything like money in return
+for the queer hospitality the misanthrope had shown him. Hiram did,
+however, make one attempt to return something for the kindness.
+
+"I see you have seed wheat in this box, Mr. Battick," he said. "If you
+wish to keep the rats out of it, I believe I can show you a wrinkle."
+
+"You can?" rejoined Battick, watching him with keen suspicion again.
+
+"You have a couple of old milk pans there and two wash basins. Invert a
+basin or a pan over each leg of that box and no rat can run up the leg
+and over the side of the box, or gnaw into it."
+
+"I get you!" ejaculated Battick, seeing the point at once. "I believe
+that's a good idea, young fellow."
+
+"I know it is," rejoined Hiram with confidence. "I built me a corncrib
+that way only last year. It surely gives Mr. Rat something new to think
+about."
+
+He picked up his bag, shook hands with his odd host, and went out. It
+was a keen wind he faced as he started up the hill to Sunnyside Farm.
+
+A jay winging its way from one wood to another, stopped upon a dead
+limb to stare curiously at the wayfarer. Then, with raucous cry, it
+disappeared in a piece of woodland that evidently belonged to the old
+farm that Yancey Battick had purchased from the terrible Miss Pringle.
+This windbreak divided the Battick place from Sunnyside.
+
+While he was yet at some distance Hiram saw the burned ruins of the
+farmhouse on the hill and the barns and other outbuildings. All the
+arable land of Sunnyside seemed to lie on the south side of the road;
+and the slope of the fields was toward that same point of the compass.
+
+The higher land on his right was heavily timbered clear to the summit
+of the hill. As he mounted the incline he obtained a pretty clear idea
+of what the acres he expected to farm looked like.
+
+Hiram Strong was deeply interested in his calling. Every young fellow
+must, if he would get on in the world and really amount to anything. As
+he had told Yancey Battick the evening before, Hiram's father had been
+a good farmer, and he had not only given his son knowledge, but had
+instilled into his mind the principle of thoroughness, as well.
+
+As Hiram looked, searching the fields to the far-distant line of the
+forest-bounded farm, he wondered what would be his fortune here. Would
+he be able to show a profit for Mr. Bronson on the ledger, as he had
+for Mother Atterson? As to his own contract, Hiram was on a straight
+salary, and whether he made little or much for his employer his own
+income would not be affected.
+
+But money was not the only thing that Hiram Strong saw in the bargain.
+He was after a reputation. Moreover, he desired to learn something from
+his experience--whatever it might be--here at Sunnyside.
+
+He reached the plain at the top of the rise at last. The outlook all
+about was promising, save in one direction where there was a piece of
+burned timber. The nearest house was a white painted cottage with green
+blinds on the other side of the road and a few rods beyond the burned
+timber lot.
+
+"That must be Miss Pringle's," Hiram thought, and on the heels of this
+mental decision he beheld to his surprise a woman with a shawl thrown
+hastily over her head running out of this small dwelling and out of the
+yard, approaching the main gate of the Sunnyside place, evidently in a
+state of exaggerated excitement.
+
+"Say, young man!" she shouted while still some distance away, "I want
+to know why you've kept this whole neighborhood in a stir-up all this
+blessed night? Where have you been? And you as dry as a bone right
+now!"
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+                       THE TERRIBLE MISS PRINGLE
+
+
+The woman so excitedly approaching Sunnyside was a buxom person with
+every sign of an assertive and determined character. This first
+speech addressed to Hiram made him feel that he must somehow be in
+the wrong--that he had done something to shock Miss Pringle and the
+neighborhood in general.
+
+Hiram took off his hat as Miss Pringle came near. But he did not offer
+his hand, for he was not at all sure that her greeting was intended to
+be a friendly one.
+
+"I suppose you are Mr. Strong?" the woman gasped, rather out of breath
+when she arrived.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," replied Hiram.
+
+"Well, for the land's sake, where have you been?"
+
+"I guess I don't understand you," he said. "Are you Miss Pringle?"
+
+"That's who I am," she declared with emphasis. "And I heard all about
+you from Mr. Bronson. You were comin' to stay at my house last night
+and you didn't come. Were you told to come to me?"
+
+"Not exactly. I was advised to try at your house for lodging--"
+
+"Who by?" she flashed at him.
+
+"By the stationmaster."
+
+"That dumbhead! I might have known Jase Oakley would ball it all up.
+When Mr. Bronson 'phoned to me that he could not get over in the storm
+to meet you at the depot, I turned right around and 'phoned Jason to
+tell you that I would be on the lookout for you. Didn't he tell you
+that, Mr. Strong?"
+
+"Not in just that way," replied Hiram.
+
+"Well, for the land's sake, where did you stop? When you didn't come
+along at the proper time after the train got in last evening I began
+calling folks on the line. I called everybody that had a 'phone, and
+none of 'em had seen you. It was so rough a night--"
+
+Hiram saw at once that the terrible Miss Pringle was, after all,
+a kindly soul. It could not be for the mere possession of a "male
+creature," sight unseen, that she had taken all this trouble to locate
+him, a stranger in Pringleton.
+
+"You were most kind, Miss Pringle," he said quickly. "I am sorry to
+have caused you any disturbance of mind."
+
+"But where did you stay?" insisted the woman, eyeing Hiram with two
+very sharp brown eyes.
+
+It was evident that very little of importance went on in Miss Delia
+Pringle's neighborhood that she did not see. She was kindly of
+disposition as well as shrewd, Mr. Yancey Battick's opinion to the
+contrary notwithstanding. Hiram was not at all afraid of her when he
+looked into her plump and rosy face.
+
+"I tell you," he said, smiling covertly, for he suspected from what the
+stationmaster had said how the majority of the neighbors looked upon
+Yancey Battick, "a heavy shower caught me and I made for the nearest
+house."
+
+"And whose was that, for the land's sake?" was the instant demand.
+
+"Mr. Battick's," Hiram said demurely.
+
+"Yancey Battick?" almost shrieked Miss Pringle. "Why, he's crazy!"
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if he is a little," admitted Hiram. "But I am sure
+he is harmless."
+
+"I don't know about that," she demurred. "He's altogether too quick to
+use a gun. A poor tramp came past here last summer--he never would have
+stopped, I guess, only he was out of breath completely--and Battick had
+blown his coat-tails off with a charge of rock-salt just because the
+hobo had gone into the yard of the old house and around to the well.
+That's the coldest water anywhere in Pringleton; but nobody ever gets a
+drink of it but Yancey Battick now."
+
+"I suppose he's paid for it, Miss Pringle?" said Hiram quietly.
+
+"I don't know that he has," was her quick reply. "At least, the
+neighbors blame me for selling the old place to such a man. They know
+I didn't need the money. And Yancey Battick certainly ain't what you
+can call with truth a good neighbor. We count on getting good neighbors
+into the Pringleton district if we can. That is why I was so glad to
+sell Sunnyside to Mr. Bronson.
+
+"And do you really mean to tell me that you spent the night with Mr.
+Battick?" she added.
+
+"And he did not eat me up," laughed Hiram.
+
+"Well! All I've got to say, young man, is that you're a regular Daniel.
+You'd find it cozy and comfortable, I guess, in a lion's den. Never
+heard of anybody's even getting inside of the old house before since
+Battick got into it. He _did_ let you inside, didn't he?"
+
+"I don't look as though I had stayed out on that leaky old porch of
+his, do I?" asked Hiram, still much amused.
+
+"You're as dry as a bone, as I said before."
+
+"Not only did he entertain me for supper and breakfast, but he gave me
+his own bed in which to sleep."
+
+"For the land's sake!" Miss Pringle shook her head in wonder. Then her
+brown eyes suddenly snapped. All the inquisitiveness in the woman's
+nature came to the surface; perhaps it was her single sin. "What's he
+got in that house he's so afraid the neighbors might see, Mr. Strong?"
+
+"I did not see anything particularly mysterious--nothing at all," Hiram
+assured her.
+
+"Not a thing? Wasn't he trying to hide anything from you? Didn't he
+seem afraid of anything?"
+
+"He certainly has a great fear of rats," Hiram admitted, answering
+her second query but avoiding the first. "And he has good reason to.
+He shot a big fellow right there in the house while we sat before the
+fire."
+
+"You don't say!"
+
+"If it was me I'd get me a weasel and turn him loose in the house and
+then pour cement and broken glass in the rat holes."
+
+"He knew the rats were there when he bought the old homestead,"
+declared Miss Pringle defensively.
+
+"And I guess he has a right to shoot them if he wishes to," laughed
+Hiram.
+
+"But he is too promiscuous with his shotgun," declared the woman,
+shaking her head. "Well, now, Mr. Strong, I'm sorry you did not reach
+my house. I--and Abigail Wentworth who lives with me--would have been
+glad to put you up. But I am glad you made out as well as you did at
+Mr. Battick's. I'm glad to know he's not so bad as we all thought him."
+
+"Perhaps the neighbors haven't approached him just right," Hiram
+suggested. "He wishes to be let alone."
+
+"Then there is something wrong with him," Miss Pringle declared.
+"Something that he's ashamed of."
+
+"You are jumping at a conclusion there, that may not be correct," Hiram
+said. "At any rate I saw nothing really wrong with Mr. Battick. And I
+feel grateful for his hospitality."
+
+"Well, now, Mr. Strong," the woman said quickly, "you bring your bag
+right over to the house and stop with me till Mr. Bronson can make
+other arrangements for you."
+
+"You are more than kind," Hiram told her. "But I understand that I
+may be able to go to housekeeping on my own account in one of the
+sheds--where the former tenant of the farm ran his incubators and
+brooders."
+
+"That Jim Brandenburg! He made me a lot of trouble. But he did have
+ideas about hens. I suppose that shed could be made comfortable for you
+if Mr. Bronson wants you right on the place."
+
+"I will try 'baching it,' Miss Pringle," Hiram said with firmness.
+
+"Well, just as you say. But I want you to come over to-day to dinner.
+You ain't prepared to go right to housekeeping, I'm sure."
+
+"Thank you; I will certainly come," Hiram assured her.
+
+"Do so," Miss Pringle said warmly, as she turned away. "Abigail will
+blow the horn when it's ready."
+
+He thanked her again. The terrible Miss Pringle did not prove to be so
+very formidable after all. It was evident that Battick had gained just
+as wrong an idea about his neighbors as the neighbors had about him.
+
+"I will keep on the blind side of both parties," Hiram Strong told
+himself. "It is well to have friends in both camps. One thing I surely
+want--that is, to keep on good terms with everybody about Sunnyside.
+I don't want to have any such difficulty here as I had with the
+Dickersons at first, back there at Scoville," he added, remembering
+very poignantly a neighborhood feud that had hampered him when he first
+went to work on the Atterson Eighty.
+
+When Miss Pringle had gone back to her neat little cottage across
+the road, Hiram began examining the buildings left standing on the
+Sunnyside premises. Nothing of importance but the dwelling itself had
+been destroyed by the fire.
+
+The barn had a basement with swinging stanchions for ten cows and
+stalls for several horses. The mows were filled with a good quality of
+hay, and some oats in the straw--a feed that Hiram did not much approve
+of. For a horse or mule has to be very hungry indeed to eat oat-straw,
+and fed in this way a large proportion of the grain is wasted and
+trampled underfoot with the roughage.
+
+"It looks to me," Hiram decided, after coming out of the barn, "that
+somebody tried to run a small dairy here without a silo. There are
+stacks of corn fodder, half of it winter-spoiled, and not a beast on
+the place to eat it up. It would pay Mr. Bronson to buy some young
+stock right now and turn it into the paddock back of the barn, and feed
+up all this roughage.
+
+"Even if there is little pasture on the farm, it would pay to do this,
+and if the stock is not fattened by May, hire pasture for them on
+neighboring farms. I hate to see fodder go to waste, for it is the most
+expensive feed a farmer can raise."
+
+Many an older farmer would have called in question the young fellow's
+statement. But Hiram was thinking no longer as a "one-horse farmer." He
+had got out of that class now. Here at Sunnyside, if he made a profit
+at all, it must be through much bigger agricultural activities than he
+had ever been able to compass before.
+
+He went on to the row of poultry houses and entered the first one. This
+was the incubator house of which Mr. Battick had told him. It was a
+well-built and comfortable place. There was a good-sized pot stove and
+a bunk to sleep in. There was a cupboard, too, and a table and a chair.
+
+"Guess I can make out here for a while, at any rate," he thought as he
+came out-of-doors again. "Of course, later I shan't have time to get
+my own meals; but at first--Ah! here comes an automobile. I wonder if
+this is not Mr. Bronson now?" and he started for the gate to meet the
+machine.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI
+
+                         FARMING AND FURBELOWS
+
+
+The motor-car that came swiftly along the ridge road to the gate of
+Sunnyside Farm was a big, seven-passenger touring car. Behind the wheel
+sat a big man in a fur coat. To tell the truth, however, it was not Mr.
+Bronson, his employer, at whom Hiram Strong first looked.
+
+He had caught sight of a veil trailing upon the wind from the tonneau.
+A girl sat there--a very winsome looking, bright-faced girl--and before
+the car stopped she had spied Hiram and waved a gloved hand at him,
+shouting:
+
+"Oh, Hiram Strong! isn't this a beautiful spot? How are you?"
+
+"I'm all right, Miss Lettie," he said answering the second question
+first. "I guess it is pretty here at Sunnyside in summer. But look at
+those wheels and mudguards!"
+
+Mr. Bronson began to chuckle, shutting off his engine.
+
+"Hiram's right, Lettie," he said to his daughter. "You'd better stay in
+the car and keep out of this mud. What do you think of the drainage
+hereabout, Hi?"
+
+He stepped out of the car himself and shook hands with Hiram, man to
+man. It was evident by his manner and look that Mr. Stephen Bronson
+both liked and respected Hiram Strong.
+
+"I haven't had much time to look about, Mr. Bronson," replied the
+youth, "only got here an hour ago. But it does look as though that
+field yonder"--and he pointed to one at the east of the house lot that
+was covered with shallow puddles--"would be the better for some tiling."
+
+"And yet it is high and should be dry."
+
+"All high land isn't dry--that piece proves it. What's in it?"
+
+"Wheat."
+
+"Thought so. It won't be much of a crop, I fear."
+
+"How much tiling would it need to drain that whole piece properly, do
+you think? I understand from the farmers about here that that twenty
+acres has never made heavy crops--neither of corn nor grain. It has
+been limed well, too."
+
+"The litmus paper test will prove or disprove that," said Hiram. "But
+it is high, almost level land, and right along the roadside. It ought
+to grow you a good crop to advertise the farm."
+
+"I presume that's so, Hiram," laughed Mr. Bronson. "But a carload of
+tiles, and dragged clear up here from the siding at Pringleton, would
+cost a heap of money."
+
+"Yes," agreed the young farmer. "Perhaps you had better make the better
+fields pay in advance for the improvements on the poor ones."
+
+"Oh, wait!" cried Lettie Bronson, with a pout. "You men have begun
+talking farming like a house afire--right at the start! I can't get
+a word in edgewise, and I've got news for Hiram. You know, Hiram, I
+only came on from St. Beris yesterday, just to remain at Plympton with
+father over Sunday."
+
+"And I only got here last night, Miss Lettie," the young fellow said.
+
+"Then we might have traveled together just as well as not!" she cried.
+
+"I guess not," laughed her father. "You went to see that machinery we
+talked about, didn't you, Hi?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I went all through the Comet Plow Factory and the big
+agricultural warehouse in Cincinnati."
+
+"You see, Lettie, he was several days coming here from Scoville."
+
+"I don't care," Miss Lettie declared, "I want to tell him something he
+doesn't know."
+
+"There are a whole lot of things I guess you could tell me that I don't
+know, Miss Lettie," said Hiram rather ruefully, for he felt his lack
+of book knowledge most keenly.
+
+"It is about Sister. Cecilia, I suppose her real name is, Hiram?"
+
+"But rather stiff and formal for Sister," said the young fellow,
+dodging the query.
+
+"I chanced to ride past the Atterson place," pursued Lettie Bronson,
+"and Mrs. Atterson was on the porch and waved to me. I rode into the
+yard, and she was full of the news. It seems that Sister has not known
+just who her people were."
+
+"She was an orphan when Mother Atterson got her," admitted Hiram.
+
+"Well, it seems that she really has some relatives, somewhere. And
+Mrs. Atterson says she thinks there will be some money coming to
+Sister--Cecilia. She had just received a letter from a lawyer who had
+been trying to find Cecilia for some time. It's quite a romance, isn't
+it?"
+
+"I am awfully glad for Sister's sake," the young farmer said. "But if
+she finds her folks I hope they will not take her away from Mother
+Atterson. She needs Sister."
+
+"I did not see Cecilia to speak to," Lettie said. Then to her father:
+"Now, Papa Bronson, I know you and Hiram want to tramp all over this
+farm, and you certainly shall not leave me here in the car to catch my
+death of cold. Let Hiram take me over to Miss Pringle's. She will give
+me shelter till you are ready to go home again."
+
+"Go ahead and take the chatterbox over there, Hiram," said Mr. Bronson.
+"We'll have no peace until you do."
+
+It could not be said honestly that Hiram Strong found Lettie a
+nuisance, if her father did. He would have enjoyed talking to the
+pretty girl at any length. When Lettie hopped out of the automobile,
+too, resting one hand lightly in his, the young farmer saw that she
+was, as always, very becomingly dressed. Perhaps her outfit was more
+expensive and somewhat too "grown-up" for a girl of her age; but
+Hiram--nor Mr. Bronson--did not realize that defect in the motherless
+girl's garments. That Lettie was growing up too fast for her own good,
+perhaps, would not appeal to the masculine mind as it would to a
+thoughtful woman.
+
+Having been reminded of Sister, Hiram took mental note that the
+girl whom he had first known as the boarding house slavey in Mother
+Atterson's kitchen had never in her life dressed anything like Lettie
+Bronson. Fine feathers do not always make fine birds; but the feathers
+help!
+
+Lettie chattered as Hiram helped her over the muddy spots in the road
+to the cottage where Miss Pringle lived. The woman welcomed Lettie
+vociferously. To Hiram she said, with a smirk:
+
+"Now, don't forget, Mr. Strong, to come over to dinner when Abigail
+blows the horn."
+
+Hiram saw Lettie's dancing eyes and he could not keep from blushing
+when Miss Pringle was so urgent and significant in both look and speech.
+
+"I guess Yancey Battick isn't so far out of the way, after all," the
+young fellow muttered as he went to rejoin Mr. Bronson. "Miss Pringle
+does rather work on a modest fellow. Lettie Bronson's got the laugh on
+me, all right."
+
+Mr. Bronson had been going through the poultry houses and Hiram caught
+him at the house in which he thought to set up housekeeping.
+
+"Perhaps that is a good idea, Hiram," said the gentleman thoughtfully.
+"I haven't told you what I intend to do here, have I?"
+
+"Only that you intend to farm it," the boy replied with a smile.
+
+"You are to do that, my boy, for me," rejoined Mr. Bronson. "I expect
+you to bring this farm into such a state of fertility in a few years
+that I can sell it at a big profit."
+
+"That sounds like a big contract, Mr. Bronson," said Hiram, shaking his
+head thoughtfully.
+
+"You're equal to it, my boy!" declared Bronson, confidently. "Now, is
+this the hut you think you can camp in?"
+
+"I can make myself comfortable here for a while--until the spring work
+really opens, at any rate."
+
+"All right. That suits me. We'll run down to the store at the Forks
+before I go back to Plympton and buy provisions, bedding and cooking
+utensils for you."
+
+"No need to go to any great expense," put in Hiram.
+
+"The things I buy will all come in handy later. And that brings me
+around to what I started to say before, Hiram. It does not pay me to
+farm this place so far from my headquarters. My other farms are right
+around Plympton. I can move my tractor and my reapers and my thrashing
+machine and hay-balers from farm to farm in my Plympton string of
+places. But Sunnyside is too far away from headquarters to send over
+many of the machines, unless it is the thrasher. That is why I had you
+look at the farm machinery on your way out here."
+
+Hiram merely nodded.
+
+"My idea," pursued the man, "is to put Sunnyside Farm in good shape
+and then sell it at a profit to some man who wants a 'gentleman's
+farm'--you know, catch one of these city men who wants to retire to the
+country; the kind the farmers say have more money than brains."
+
+"I know," chuckled Hiram, remembering what Battick had said about Mr.
+Stephen Bronson himself. "Sometimes those gentlemen farmers show the
+old timers a thing or two."
+
+"Yes. They can afford to experiment and try out new things. However,
+that is not just what we were getting at. If I sell this farm for a
+good price I must have a good house on it. I mean to build on the site
+of the old house that was burned. I shall have to bring workmen here
+and lodge and feed them. As there are no neighbors who make a practice
+of taking boarders, other than their own farm help, I shall have to put
+up a shack, hire a cook, and feed the gang for three months at least."
+
+"I see," said Hiram. "And I can get my meals with them."
+
+"Yes. That is my idea. So if you can get along alone for a while--"
+
+"Of course I can, Mr. Bronson."
+
+"I will have a shack built and a kitchen and bunks established just
+as soon as the weather is warm enough. Meanwhile my trucks, when not
+otherwise in use, can be hauling the frame and lumber for the new
+house."
+
+"One word, Mr. Bronson," said Hiram Strong quickly. "As long as you
+must build a shed, why not build one that will afterward house these
+new tools you propose to buy for my use? I see there is no storage room
+for such things save on the barn floor, and in time they will be in the
+way there."
+
+A gleam of approval flashed into Mr. Bronson's eyes.
+
+"Good idea, Hiram! And you are as full of good ideas as an egg is
+of meat," said Mr. Bronson with enthusiasm. "Have you thought of
+any particular way in which this farm should be run--for the biggest
+profit, I mean?" and the man smiled at Hiram curiously.
+
+"I'll tell you what struck me right off the reel, Mr. Bronson," said
+the youth thoughtfully. "But it is only a thought."
+
+"Let's have it," urged Mr. Bronson.
+
+"This land has been worked by tenants only for some years. Tenant
+farmers usually supply commercial fertilizer to some extent, but not
+enough humus. The land needs humus--and that in the form of stable
+manure. Especially the manure from cattle--from cows--if you want to
+raise bumper crops of corn."
+
+"I presume that is so, Hiram."
+
+"The barn yonder is arranged for the keeping of cattle. You should at
+least drive some young stock up here right away to eat up the roughage
+that is going to waste. We want to make all the fertilizer possible and
+spread it on the land as fast as it can be made and carted out of the
+barn basement."
+
+"But we can't handle milch cows here, Hiram, before we have a house in
+which to put a family to look after the cows and the milk."
+
+"That is why I say buy some young stock for the present. I can attend
+to them myself. They can be fattening at practically no expense. And
+all the time they will be making fertilizer for the place."
+
+"Well, Hiram, what is going to happen," asked Mr. Bronson, quizzically,
+"when we give up farming with horses and mules entirely and use only
+tractors?"
+
+"A hundred tractors won't put back into the soil the fertility that one
+horse will," the young farmer said. "That is sure. Soiling crops are
+all right. But in the end, the only farms run by tractor power that
+are not going to be injured beyond repair are the dairy farms. And I
+believe the easiest and quickest way to get this half run-down farm
+into shape is by putting cattle on it."
+
+"Young stock--yes. I agree with you that can be done at once. In fact,"
+said Mr. Bronson, "I should not be surprised if I could pick up a score
+of head of stock to send up here within the week from my other farms."
+
+"Good! That will be a beginning. But two score will be better. Pasture
+them later if the pasture is any good here."
+
+"There is good pasture and the fences are in good condition. I looked
+them over before I bought the place."
+
+"All right, sir. You agree with me, then, that we should aim in the end
+to make Sunnyside a dairy farm?"
+
+"That seems to be the idea, Hiram. I fancy you are right."
+
+"That being the case, Mr. Bronson, there is one thing you must do.
+There is only one really profitable way to feed dairy cattle. That is
+from the silo."
+
+"Oh! Oh! Hiram, you hurt!" exclaimed his employer, and his smile was
+very rueful. "Do you realize that any kind of silo runs into money?"
+
+"Yes, sir. But it will cost you less to put up a silo now, while you
+have workmen on the place building your house, than at a later time. If
+you are going to make Sunnyside fertile, you must have cattle; if you
+are going to feed cattle cheaply you must cut your corn green and shred
+it and blow it into the silo. It is the safest and the cheapest way."
+
+"I suppose I have got to admit all you say as true. But your
+suggestions, are all expensive. The first outlay will be enormous. Here
+you want to tile that twenty acres of upland. And goodness knows what
+you may want to do with some of the lowland."
+
+"Make it grow good crops--bumper crops if possible--that is all," said
+Hiram smiling. "And about that twenty acres along the county road that
+is now in wheat--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I've an idea about underdraining that! but I won't tell you what it is
+until I have looked over the ground a little. I am convinced that that
+particular piece should be as fertile as any acreage around here."
+
+"It never has been, they tell me."
+
+"That is no reason why we shouldn't make it the best, is it?" and the
+young farmer laughed again.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+
+                             SEED TESTING
+
+
+By evening of his first day on Sunnyside Farm Hiram Strong was
+comfortably established in the incubator shed and prepared to keep
+house after a fashion. Mr. Bronson supplied him with the requisites for
+a home on the limited plan Hiram intended to follow. The young farmer
+believed, however, that Miss Delia Pringle really would have taken him
+to board had he not been so firm in his stand for independence.
+
+It could not be denied that Miss Pringle was a very friendly neighbor;
+but Hiram saw that Yancey Battick had some right on his side when he
+stated that he was afraid of the spinster. During those first few days
+that Hiram was at Sunnyside he, too, thought it the part of wisdom to
+dodge her as much as possible.
+
+Not that there was any harm in Miss Pringle. She was merely silly, or
+seemed to be, about men; but Lettie Bronson had teased Hiram all the
+way to the store in the automobile and back again that first day about
+the conquest the youth had made of his nearest neighbor at Sunnyside.
+
+This had made Hiram self-conscious and had served to exaggerate in his
+mind Miss Pringle's already too pronounced attentions.
+
+"You will not be lonely at all, Mr. Strong," the rougish girl told him,
+immensely pleased by the situation. "Delia Pringle is going to make
+life there at Sunnyside for you one grand sweet song! You see if she
+doesn't."
+
+"I hope she will not insist upon being too kind to me," sighed Hiram.
+
+"She told me that she thinks you are very manly for your age," giggled
+Lettie, who enjoyed making the youth feel uncomfortable. "And I am sure
+she thinks your age is just right."
+
+"Hold on, Lettie!" advised her father. "I've heard you praise Hiram
+yourself on occasion. At least, I never heard you run him down much
+when talking about him."
+
+This statement closed the girl's lips immediately and gave Hiram peace.
+But he did not wish Lettie to think for a moment that he considered
+Miss Pringle's interest in him really earnest. However, during his
+first week or ten days at Sunnyside Farm Hiram Strong was about as busy
+as one could be; so he did not have to invent many excuses to escape
+Miss Pringle's rather pressing attentions.
+
+Farming is an exacting occupation. One cannot let loose ends lie and
+be successful. Before the actual plowing and planting begins there are
+innumerable details to be gone into and many matters to be settled, for
+when the spring work once opens there is time for nothing else. And
+to Hiram, this first year of his work in this strange section of the
+country, came more than the ordinary number of affairs to be looked
+into.
+
+Mr. Bronson sent him over a dependable road horse and a run-about, so
+that he could get about the neighborhood on such errands as he might
+find necessary. And one of his first errands was to hunt up the best
+corn growers in that section and buy seed corn of them.
+
+He believed, as he had shown in farming the Atterson Eighty, that
+raising such corn as was already being grown in the locality was the
+wiser course. Corn becomes acclimated, and men who have raised the crop
+year after year in one neighborhood must know more about the proper
+seed to use than a stranger.
+
+Methods of raising the crop was another matter. Hiram had certain
+methods he wished to try out to improve and increase the yield of
+corn that had nothing to do with locality, climate, or soil. These
+experiments he would try in any case.
+
+He found one man whose cribs were full of a small-cobbed corn of a
+yellow dent variety, but with many red kernels interspersed among the
+yellow on most ears. It might not have been what the judges at a corn
+show would have called true to type, nor was it a handsome corn. But
+it was as hard as a rock, well rooted on the cob, and, furthermore, it
+ground into the finest kind of meal.
+
+"How do you select your seed for this, Mr. Brown?" Hiram asked the
+farmer.
+
+"I just throw aside what look to me like good ears as the boys bring
+the corn up from the fields and I count the baskets. I don't try to
+select ears in the field as I hear they do on the agricultural college
+farm. That's all flapdoodle," said the old fellow, with evident
+confidence in his own opinion.
+
+"When I'm ready to get my seed, Mr. Strong, just before planting time,
+I go over the ears I've saved, and what the rats have left me--"
+
+"So you are a friend of the rats, too?"
+
+"What d'you mean--a friend of the rats? I feel about as friendly to
+them as I do to potato bugs or polecats. Not any!"
+
+"But you feed them--and, what's worse, on your seed corn."
+
+"Like to see you keep rats out of anything that you have to keep corn
+in," said Daniel Brown energetically. "Not any!"
+
+"We'll take that up at some future time," Hiram said seriously. "I
+don't believe in letting rats or mice have the run of my seed corn. I
+think too much of it. Besides, they often nibble the germ of the corn
+and that particular grain never comes up."
+
+"Well, I count on the planter dropping enough in the hill to overcome
+that."
+
+"And then you have to go tediously over the field and pull up the
+superfluous sprouts, don't you?"
+
+"Who don't?"
+
+"I hate to," confessed Hiram.
+
+"Lots of things about farming, young man, that we hate to do. And
+you'll find it out as you get older."
+
+"I don't doubt it. I'm learning things--both good and bad--every day.
+Don't you test your corn, Mr. Brown?"
+
+"What d'you mean? In the silly little boxes they tell about at the
+agriculturoolarulal college?" chuckled the old hard-shell farmer. "Not
+any! And I raise the very best corn in this section."
+
+"Don't you believe in scientific farming?"
+
+"Science is all right for city folks that need it when they come
+out on to the land and mess around, raising crops," declared the old
+man in good natured disgust. "But experience counts for more than
+book-learning, and don't you forget it."
+
+"But just think what you might do, Mr. Brown, with all your experience
+and just a little science."
+
+"Rats!" chuckled the old man.
+
+"That is much to the point," Hiram said gravely. "'Rats.' A little
+science properly applied would free your cribs of rats. I am going to
+send you a Government pamphlet on that matter."
+
+"I usually roll them into pipe-spills, young man," replied Brown. "I
+ain't never cultivated a taste for fiction."
+
+But from the looks of the farms, the outbuildings, and the well rolled
+fields and machine sheds he passed in driving through the country,
+Hiram did not believe that there were many farmers in the vicinity as
+stubborn as Mr. Brown. However, he had obtained two baskets of Mr.
+Brown's seed corn, paying two dollars for it, and he was sure he had
+the foundation for a good crop.
+
+He did not intend to plant the corn haphazard, as Brown himself did. He
+stopped at the store just beyond the Pringleton station and bought some
+yards of canton flannel.
+
+Hiram drove back to Sunnyside Farm. Just as he reached the gate the
+rural delivery mail wagon stopped.
+
+"Are you the new man on Sunnyside Farm?" the postman asked Hiram.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Your name's Strong?"
+
+"Hiram Strong," he admitted, going closer to the wagon.
+
+"Here you are, then."
+
+The postman thrust out a letter and Hiram accepted it. Instantly he
+knew it was from home--for Scoville was still "home" to Hiram Strong.
+The letter was from Mother Atterson, and as soon as the postman had
+gone his way Hiram tore open the envelope and read its contents:
+
+    "Dear Hiram:
+
+    "We got your letter that you had arrived at that Sunnyside place
+    and was sleeping in the henhouse and cooking your own meals.
+    That is pretty hard going, I do allow; but Mr. Bronson is paying
+    you big wages (I wish I could afford to pay you as well and had
+    kept you here on the Atterson place) so you can put up with some
+    inconvenience. For money is a good thing and that brings me to the
+    great news about Sister. That child certainly has got money coming
+    to her. We have heard from a lawyer that says her grandmother,
+    who must have been a pretty harsh old lady, on her father's side,
+    named Cheltenham, has died and left a lot of money to be divided
+    between Sister and--What do you know about Sister having a brother?
+    Ain't it surprising? But it seems the children were parted when
+    they was small, one going one way and the other the other, and the
+    boy has to be found according to the terms of Mrs. Cheltenham's
+    will before the money can be divided. It is going to cost something
+    to find the boy who ran away from a reform school and ain't been
+    heard of since. And that's got to be paid out of the money the
+    lawyer says. But he seems like an honest man and Mr. Strickland
+    says he knows him. And I am glad for Sister's sake for now she's
+    got folks and knows who they are."
+
+Mother Atterson's letter continued in this strain and to great length.
+But Hiram was very glad to hear the particulars of Sister's good
+fortune. For there would always be in Hiram Strong's heart a very
+tender place devoted to Sister. The little slavey of the boarding house
+was developing now into an intelligent and attractive girl.
+
+Of course, Hiram told himself, she would never be like Lettie Bronson
+or the other girls who attended St. Beris, for instance. But there
+was something very sweet about Sister's character that Hiram felt and
+liked. She was almost like a real sister, and more.
+
+Hiram went on to his living quarters and made his seed testing boxes,
+using the canton flannel instead of earth in which to germinate the
+corn selected from the ears he had bought of Daniel Brown. He made his
+boxes two inches deep and about thirteen inches wide, allowing for the
+width of the flannel, which was twenty-seven inches, folded once and
+taking into consideration the slight shrinkage of the cloth.
+
+Hiram considered the flannel better in the seed boxes than either sand,
+soil, or sawdust. Three or four thicknesses of cloth in the bottom of
+the box and two thicknesses over the seed, all well dampened, makes the
+ideal seed testing bed.
+
+He washed the new cloth thoroughly and after it was dried and folded
+in the box as a bed, he marked it off into checkers of two inches each
+with an indelible pencil. He then soaked the cloth and replaced it in
+the box.
+
+Shelling off and discarding the small and irregular grains from the
+tips and butts of the ears he intended to test, he selected the kernels
+to be germinated and placed those from ear number one in the first
+square on the canton flannel, germ side up, from ear number two in the
+second square, and so on. Wetting the other strip of flannel he covered
+the corn, and on top of the box laid a pane of glass that fitted
+tightly.
+
+This method of testing seed enables one to examine the seed at any time
+without injury to it; the amount of water condensed upon the under
+side of the glass will usually show whether the cloths are drying out
+or not.
+
+The numbered ears Hiram stacked upon a hanging shelf in one of the
+laying houses, confident that neither rats nor mice would reach the
+seed corn in that place.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII
+
+                             THE BLUEBIRD
+
+
+Lettie Bronson did not come to Sunnyside again that spring, but her
+father, of course, came frequently during the first weeks of Hiram's
+incumbency as superintendent of the hillside farm.
+
+It had been finally agreed that the shed to be built to house the
+gang of workmen should be a permanent shelter for certain new farm
+implements that Hiram and his employer had decided upon. And, in
+addition, a silo was to be built.
+
+"But go easy on the first cost, Hiram," Mr. Bronson continued. "This
+farm is for sale. An expensive silo will not help sell it any quicker
+than an old-fashioned silo."
+
+"I don't know about that. It is altogether according to the man who
+buys. But I am not opposed to the old-fashioned stave silo, only it
+soon rots out."
+
+"It will stand five years."
+
+"And maybe for twenty," agreed Hiram quickly. "Just according."
+
+"How about these new all metal ones?"
+
+"They have not been tried out long enough for the reports of their
+usefulness to be verified."
+
+"My gang of carpenters can put up the stave silo," Mr. Bronson said.
+
+"All right, sir. But buy iron hoops for supports, Mr. Bronson, and use
+wire stays or one of these big winds they tell about around here will
+blow your silo over--especially before it is filled."
+
+"Oh, yes, we'll do that, of course."
+
+The lumber began to arrive, truck load after truck load. The first
+drivers to arrive at Sunnyside were very curious about the identity of
+the boy from the East.
+
+"Where's the boss, son?" Hiram was asked again and again as he met
+strangers.
+
+"I guess you will have to get along with me as boss," he was wont to
+say quietly.
+
+"You don't mean it! Bronson hasn't hired you to run this farm?"
+
+"Yes. I'm going to try to run it."
+
+"Well, I always did say that Bronson was crazy," was one frank
+statement. "More money than brains--more money than brains! Ridiculous
+to give a boy like you such a job!"
+
+"That is to be seen," Hiram said coolly. "It does not always take frost
+on the hair to ripen brains."
+
+At this the man grinned and replied:
+
+"You've got a tongue, at any rate, young fellow."
+
+One incident did not pass off so pleasantly. A hulking young fellow
+turned in at the gateway of Sunnyside and hailed Hiram:
+
+"Where's your dad?"
+
+"Unfortunately he has been dead for some years," Hiram told him. "Won't
+I do?"
+
+"Huh! Where's Mr. Bronson?"
+
+"You'll find him at his home in Plympton."
+
+"Well, when's he here?"
+
+"I could not say for sure when he is to be here. Hadn't you better tell
+me your business?"
+
+"I hear he wants to hire men for work here; but I want to do my
+business with the boss."
+
+"Then you can talk with me, for anybody who works on this farm will
+have to look upon me as the boss," Hiram told him, smiling.
+
+"You ain't got charge of this farm?"
+
+"Yes. Mr. Bronson has hired me in that capacity."
+
+"Well, I'll be switched!"
+
+"I want some men to ditch and for other heavy work for a few weeks,"
+Hiram said calmly. "After that I shall need plowmen at better pay. You
+are a farmer, I presume?"
+
+"I presume I am," said the fellow scornfully. "But I don't want to hire
+out to any kid. I want a man for a boss."
+
+"I'm afraid I would not suit you then," sighed Hiram, with perfect
+gravity. "Come around in a couple of years, when I am older, and
+perhaps we can make a dicker."
+
+The fellow went away muttering. Later Hiram chanced to pass the Pringle
+cottage and the owner came to the gate to hail him.
+
+"Did Adam Banks come to see you, Mr. Strong?"
+
+"The big fellow with the mop of yellow hair? Yes, Miss Pringle; he said
+he was looking for a job. But I doubt if he loses his eyesight looking
+for it."
+
+"You said something," declared Miss Pringle. "And he just said to me he
+wouldn't be caught working at Sunnyside if you were going to run the
+farm."
+
+"No?"
+
+"He said he should think Mr. Bronson could find enough men in the
+neighborhood to do his work without sending off for a--a----"
+
+"For a boy?" laughed Hiram. "If I can't make good in my job there will
+soon be a chance for somebody else to take my place."
+
+"For the land's sake! I do hope you will stop here, Mr. Strong. I
+shouldn't want to see Mr. Bronson put a fellow like Ad Banks in charge
+at Sunnyside. He'd be worse than that Jim Brandenburg that made me so
+much trouble--burning everything all up."
+
+"I hope your house that was burned was insured, Miss Pringle," Hiram
+said.
+
+"Yes, 'twas, Mr. Strong. But that piece of pine timber across the road
+wasn't. The sparks flew from the house and caught that, and you can see
+quite a patch of it was burned--completely ruined for any purpose, even
+firewood. Who wants to handle wood that smuts you all up? I had a log
+or two dragged up to the house and sawed and split; but Abigail can't
+abide it. Says she won't have it in her kitchen. And I can't blame her."
+
+"So you have no use for that burned timber?" asked Hiram thoughtfully.
+
+"No more'n a cat has for two tails."
+
+"Are you just going to let it stand there and be blown down by the
+wind?"
+
+"I've told some folks that haven't much firewood that they can have it
+for the cutting and hauling."
+
+"I don't know that Mr. Bronson would be willing to have me make just
+that kind of a bargain," said Hiram smiling. "But I can make use of
+some of those dead trees."
+
+"You can? Remember they are fire-killed, Mr. Strong."
+
+"I'll give you ten cents apiece for them, and I will have them cut and
+hauled, of course."
+
+"For the land's sake!" ejaculated Miss Pringle, her bargaining
+instincts coming immediately to the fore, "I think that is an awful
+small price."
+
+The young fellow laughed. "That is just ten cents apiece more than you
+had any expectation of getting for the burned trees, Miss Pringle."
+
+"That may very well be," she argued. "But this is a bargain now. Money
+is money. If you think the trees are worth ten cents apiece to you,
+like enough they are worth a quarter each. I don't like to feel I've
+done myself in any deal."
+
+"I'm afraid you will own the timber a long while at that price."
+
+"For the land's sake, you can raise me a little, can't you?"
+
+"I don't see how I can," replied Hiram gravely.
+
+"I have heard that you Down East Yankees are as sharp at bargaining as
+can be. It does seem as though I ought to get fifteen cents apiece."
+
+"The longer those blackened trees stand on your land, the longer the
+land will be worth just nothing to you, Miss Pringle."
+
+"Land isn't worth much to a lone woman like me, Mr. Strong," she
+simpered. "Unless a body's got a man--"
+
+When Miss Pringle got on this tack Hiram always felt embarrassed. He
+started to break off negotiations at once.
+
+"Oh, well, never mind. It was just an idea I had. Nothing much in it, I
+guess."
+
+He started on, but she got hold of his sleeve and held him tightly.
+Hiram blushed, and he was sorry he had spoken about the timber. At any
+rate he was very glad that Lettie Bronson did not see him now!
+
+"For the land's sake!" cried Miss Pringle, "you're so sudden, Mr.
+Strong. Won't you split the difference and give me twelve and a half
+cents?"
+
+A bargain was a bargain, and it was up to Hiram to do the best he could
+for his employer. Besides, the use of the half-charred tree trunks was
+at best an experiment.
+
+"Ten cents is my best offer, Miss Pringle. I can use a hundred of the
+burned trees; maybe two hundred."
+
+"And only the charred ones, Mr. Strong?"
+
+"You can keep tally on them," he said.
+
+"All right. Seeing it is you, Mr. Strong," she concluded, her head on
+one side and looking languishingly at him. "We're such friends, you
+know."
+
+Hiram groaned inwardly. But he went in with her then and there and
+wrote out the agreement in duplicate, both signing the papers.
+
+"Seems like a lot of folderol for ten or twenty dollars, Hiram," Miss
+Pringle whispered. "But, of course, I understand you have to have
+everything in writing to show Mr. Bronson. Mr. Bronson is a widower,
+and they do say widowers are awful strict and stern."
+
+But Hiram did not immediately tell Mr. Bronson of the bargain he had
+made with Miss Pringle for the half-charred timber. However, he planned
+to start certain activities at Sunnyside the very next day, and he
+drove down to Pringleton to see if Mr. Oakley, the stationmaster, knew
+of any laborers in the neighborhood who wished work.
+
+Coming back, he saw Mr. Yancey Battick leaning upon his sagging front
+gate. He had not seen the odd man to more than hail him since the time
+he had sojourned with him over night.
+
+"Looks like spring now, doesn't it, Mr. Battick?" Hiram suggested,
+stopping his horse.
+
+"I guess. And there's the first harbinger--a bluebird," and Battick
+pointed up the road.
+
+"What's that? Bluebird?" Then Hiram laughed, seeing the individual to
+whom Battick referred. "The first tramp of the season?"
+
+"Yes. And full as a tick, if I'm any judge," Battick said, with disgust.
+
+The fellow up ahead was staggering as he walked, and there was reason
+for thinking that he was intoxicated.
+
+"He won't get far in that shape," Hiram said.
+
+"He'll get far enough, perhaps," muttered Battick, turning away. "Look
+out he doesn't get into your barn, Mr. Strong, and set the mow on fire."
+
+The two chatted a few moments longer about the weather and neighborhood
+affairs, and then Hiram started his horse and drove on toward Sunnyside
+Farm.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX
+
+                              ORRIN POST
+
+
+This was the fifth day since Hiram had started his test boxes, and he
+was so much interested in this matter on his arrival at Sunnyside that
+he did not think again of Mr. Battick's first "bluebird," or harbinger
+of spring. In fact, he had not seen the fellow along the road and
+presumed the tramp had crept into a thicket somewhere to sleep off his
+intoxication.
+
+He bedded down Jerry, the horse, and fed him, for it was early
+twilight. He locked the barn and went up to the incubator shed where
+he lodged. He always kept a fire here, and the temperature of the seed
+boxes had never fallen below 65°, and he usually managed to keep the
+heat at about 70°. He knew that a drop below 55° would seriously affect
+the germination of the corn, and at night Hiram wrapped bags about the
+boxes and covered them well.
+
+The conditions under which he had made his tests of Mr. Brown's corn
+had been ideal. When he uncovered the boxes he saw at once that all
+the ears he had selected kernels from were not strong and vigorous. Any
+kernel of corn that does not send out vigorous sprouts of both root and
+stem within four or five days is too weak to germinate properly under
+ordinary field conditions.
+
+Hiram discarded promptly all of twenty ears in this lot--feeding some
+of the discarded ones to Jerry the next morning for his breakfast.
+
+"They look all right," Hiram observed to himself. "But looks are
+sometimes deceiving. I have an idea that Mr. Brown plants a whole lot
+of seed that either does not come up at all, or does not improve his
+general crop. I wonder if I am going to beat him at his own game and
+with his own corn."
+
+He immediately selected more of the Brown corn for testing and filled
+the squares of the seed boxes again. Later he proposed to test some of
+the seed corn he had bought from other farmers.
+
+Some of the seed boxes were in far from a good condition, and the young
+farmer spent the best part of half an hour in fixing them. A smile of
+satisfaction crossed his features as he surveyed his work.
+
+"They can't say that I haven't tried to do this right," he thought to
+himself. Then he gave a long stretch. "My! but there's a lot to this
+farm work," he murmured.
+
+By the time the work on the boxes had been completed Hiram felt
+hungry. It was growing dark, and he concluded that he had better get
+something to eat before doing anything else.
+
+There was a dishful of cold potatoes on the shelf, and these he sliced
+for frying. Then he brought out what was left of some cold meat; he
+next prepared to make himself something hot to drink.
+
+The young farmer was working around the stove when he heard an unusual
+noise outside. He listened for a few seconds, and then went to the door
+and threw it open.
+
+"Not a soul in sight," he murmured to himself. "That's queer. I thought
+I heard somebody coming. I wonder if it can be some stray animal?"
+
+He walked outside and gave another look around. Neither man nor beast
+was in sight, and, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, he returned to the
+shed.
+
+Hiram cooked his supper and then lit a lantern to make his usual turn
+about the premises before going to bed. The barn doors were padlocked,
+but there were small sheds into which wayfarers might crawl and, as
+Yancey Battick had suggested, the tramp who smokes is the farmer's
+deadly enemy.
+
+It was a dark night and a chill wind was whining through the burned
+pines across the road. Hiram's custom was to go around the barn, try
+all the doors, and flash his lantern into the calf-pens and the old
+wagon shed. It was when he got down the slant beside the barn to the
+door which he had recently locked in putting Jerry in his stall, that
+he got a whiff of tobacco smoke.
+
+"That bluebird!" muttered Hiram. "Where is the scamp?"
+
+It was but a faint odor Hiram smelled--the sickish-sweet odor of a dead
+pipe; it led to the nearest calf-shelter.
+
+He had been getting the pens ready for the young stock Mr. Bronson
+would send up to Sunnyside in a day or two. He had torn one of the
+fodder stacks to pieces, and scattered the broken and half-rotted
+bundles of fodder over the floor of the shed and pen to dry out and to
+be picked over and trampled by the cattle.
+
+There had been nobody on the place this day to his knowledge--certainly
+not before he had driven to Pringleton. And what would bring any proper
+visitor down here to the sheds? But the tobacco smell was stronger as
+he approached the arched opening. A whiff of it was blown directly into
+his nostrils.
+
+He reached up to the beam inside the opening and ran his hand along
+it--the very place an habitual smoker would be likely to place his pipe
+on entering the shed, sober or otherwise. Habit is strong.
+
+There it was. Although it was cold, Hiram was sure it had not long been
+so. He held up his lantern the better to see it. There was a "heel" of
+half-burned tobacco in the pipe. That was what he had smelled.
+
+The wabbly ray of the lantern flashed across the shed. Hiram, suddenly
+startled, saw a huddled form lying on the fodder-strewn floor.
+
+The young farmer did not fancy handling any individual who was half
+intoxicated, as this person probably was. He was no friend to the
+drunkard in any case.
+
+But the fellow might have matches in his pocket. In his drunken state
+he might do some damage with them. Besides, it was blowing up cold,
+and Hiram felt that he could not sleep warm himself if he knew this
+fellow-creature lay here with so little shelter.
+
+He crossed the shed and stooped over the stranger. He placed a
+tentative hand on the shoulder nearest him. The touch elicited nothing
+but a groan.
+
+"Pretty far gone," muttered Hiram. "Well, nothing to do but to roll him
+over more comfortably and bring one of Jerry's blankets--"
+
+Fitting the deed to the words, he moved the man slightly. There was an
+impatient exclamation from the stranger; then, for an instant, his face
+came into the radiance of the lantern as he arose upon his elbow.
+
+It was a wild looking and much flushed face. The eyes, seemingly
+half-filmed with sleep, rolled about but fastened their gaze neither on
+Hiram nor on anything else. It was a delirious look.
+
+"Hey! Wake up!" urged the young farmer. "What are you doing here? Who
+are you?"
+
+"Orrin Post--that's me! Orrin Post," said the stranger, loudly and
+promptly. Then he sank back upon the fodder again, and his mind seemed
+to sink, too. He only muttered impatiently when Hiram touched him again.
+
+"Here's a pretty kettle of fish!" gasped Hiram. "What shall I do with
+Orrin Post? That is what I should like to be told."
+
+He had suddenly made another discovery. There was no smell of liquor
+about the fellow. His breath was feverish, but not alcoholic. The man
+most certainly was not drunk.
+
+This was no case of leaving the man covered up in the calf shed to
+"sleep it off." Whatever was the matter, Hiram was quite sure the
+stranger needed more attention than that. If this was the fellow Yancey
+Battick had pointed out to him staggering along the road to Sunnyside
+Farm, he should have had help right then and there--a doctor, perhaps.
+
+First of all, Hiram decided, the sick man must be removed to the
+nearest comfortable place; and that place was the incubator house where
+he had made himself so much at home. He rolled the stranger over again
+and stretched out his limbs. He was quite as tall as Hiram, if not
+taller; but there was little flesh on his frame, and the young farmer
+was positive the man weighed considerably less than he did.
+
+Hiram knelt down and lifted the sick man across his shoulder, holding
+both wrists as he again staggered to his feet. He picked up the lantern
+and started up the path beside the barn. The stranger seemed sunk in
+complete unconsciousness, only muttering a word now and then.
+
+In a few minutes the young farmer had brought his burden to the shack
+which he had made his home since coming to Sunnyside. He laid Orrin
+Post--if that was his name--in the bunk and began removing his shoes
+and outer clothing. His garments were shabby, but of fair quality, and
+his underclothes were clean. He was evidently a fellow who respected
+himself. Perhaps he was not a tramp at all.
+
+However, it was not so much who he was as what he was. Hiram, stripping
+off the man's clothing, made a discovery that startled him--then
+actually frightened him.
+
+The fellow's body was burning up with fever--face, hands, chest. What
+was this? His hand, lightly touching the chest of the victim, revealed
+an eruption under the skin. It felt almost like small shot--the
+beginnings of deep-seated postules, perhaps.
+
+Hiram Strong was staggered by the discovery. For a moment he fell back
+from the bunk. He even turned his gaze on the door, and it is true that
+he thought of escape.
+
+The highly inflammatory fever; the eruption on the chest. That it was a
+malignant disease of some kind he knew, and he believed he recognized
+the symptoms as those of the most deadly of all diseases that ever
+becomes epidemic in a temperate climate.
+
+"Smallpox!" the young farmer muttered. "This fellow's got it sure
+enough, and I have exposed myself to it."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+
+                            A FRIEND INDEED
+
+
+Hiram Strong was not likely to forget the experiences of that night. He
+did not feel that he was braver than anyone else in remaining with the
+delirious man and doing what he could for him. Merely, he did not see
+how he could ever respect himself again if he deserted the stranger.
+
+And to desert the sick man was to desert, as well, Sunnyside Farm and
+his employment. Hiram could not do that. But he realized that, if this
+was a case of smallpox as it seemed to be, he had made a pesthouse
+of the shed in which he had camped for these few weeks, and none of
+the expected workmen would remain on the place while the case was
+developing.
+
+However, he plucked up sufficient courage to go back at once to the
+sick man and complete his preparations for bed. He had already exposed
+himself to infection, and if he, too, was doomed to the disease, he
+believed he could do nothing now to prevent it.
+
+Nevertheless, there was something extremely dreadful to him in the
+thought of smallpox--mainly, perhaps, because of the possible scars to
+be left on the body.
+
+Hiram neglected the unfortunate man not at all, however. Distasteful as
+the thought of handling him was, the youth that night did all in his
+power for the stranger's comfort.
+
+He kept water at boiling temperature on the stove, and made a wash
+with soda with which he bathed the sick man several times to reduce
+the fever. The purple face, the puffed eyelids, the drooling lips,
+altogether made the victim a most unpleasant looking object.
+
+Yet Hiram thought that, in his right mind and free of fever, this
+fellow who called himself Orrin Post might be a very good looking man
+indeed. And he judged his age to be not far along in the twenties.
+
+Hiram got no sleep at all. The patient began to thrash about toward
+morning and was more delirious than before. Occasionally he seemed to
+be taken with a slight chill, and his nurse kept the temperature of the
+little room much higher than 70°.
+
+"This might be good for that corn test," Hiram once thought.
+
+But he was not giving much attention to anything but his care of Orrin
+Post. He harked back to Mother Atterson's recipes for caring for
+persons who were ill. He found a stone bottle and filled that with hot
+water and put it to the patient's feet to counteract the chills. He
+wished he had some medicine to give him. Hiram wondered how he could
+send for a doctor in the morning. Whom could he get to go? And would a
+doctor come to attend a smallpox patient--any doctor but the physician
+for the county's poor?
+
+Occasionally he examined that eruption. It was spreading over the man's
+chest. If it _was_ smallpox--
+
+What a night that was! At daybreak--a chill and darksome dawn--Hiram
+went to the door, looked out, and finally stepped out and closed the
+door behind him. His eyelids were swollen for lack of sleep. He was
+tired to the bone!
+
+The pale light in the sky grew slowly. Something stirred in the
+road--toward the Pringle cottage. Miss Pringle and Abigail were always
+early risers. And here came one of them along the road!
+
+"Hiram Strong! is that you? For the land's sake what have you been
+havin' a light in your window for the whole live-long night?"
+
+There was no mistaking the energetic voice of his neighbor. She hurried
+in at the gate, her head and arms wrapped in a shawl.
+
+"Are you sick, or what is it?" pursued Miss Pringle. "I said to
+Abigail, 'I'm going to find out what that light means if it's the last
+act of my life--and before I have my breakfast, too!' I declare I waked
+up a dozen times during the night and saw your light winkin' at me just
+like a star. What is the matter?"
+
+"Don't come any nearer, please, Miss Pringle," Hiram broke in. "You
+mustn't."
+
+"Mustn't what?"
+
+"Come any nearer to me."
+
+"What's the matter with you, Hiram Strong? You ain't going to explode
+like dynamite, are you?"
+
+"It's worse than dynamite."
+
+"For the land's sake! what is it?"
+
+"It is smallpox," said Hiram, his voice on the point of breaking.
+
+"What's that?" gasped the woman. "Smallpox? You haven't got such a
+thing."
+
+"Perhaps not--not yet," Hiram said. Then he told her about his visitor
+and how he had found Orrin Post in the calf pen.
+
+"And you've been tending him all night, Hiram! You poor fellow!"
+exclaimed Miss Pringle, bustling forward again.
+
+"Oh! But you must not come here!" cried Hiram. "You find somebody to
+send to fetch a doctor. I'll stay and look after the fellow now I've
+begun the job."
+
+"And you don't really know it's smallpox. I'd took nice getting Dr.
+Marble up here, tellin' him it was smallpox, and then having it turn
+out to be nothing of the kind. He'd never let me hear the last of it.
+Let me see this Orrin Post."
+
+"But, Miss Pringle, you must not!"
+
+"Go along! Do you think I'm afraid, Hiram Strong? I guess I'm just as
+brave as you are."
+
+She pushed right by him and went into the house. The air was warm and
+close, and she sniffed it energetically.
+
+"If smallpox was much developed you could smell it, Hiram," she
+declared. "No mistake about that. The poor fellow! How red he is! Looks
+more like scarlet fever, if you ask me."
+
+She went to the bunk and placed her soft, cool palm on the patient's
+forehead. Almost instantly his head stopped weaving from side to side
+on the pillow. He sighed and murmured, asking for water.
+
+Hiram caught up the pitcher and went out to the pump. When he returned
+Miss Pringle had been examining the sick man's chest. She straightened
+up and looked back over her shoulder at Hiram. The grin with which she
+favored him was the most beautiful smile the young fellow had ever
+beheld.
+
+"Men certainly are helpless creatures," she said, breaking into a
+chuckle. "Though I will say you're better than most, Hiram Strong. Put
+out that lamp. Don't let it shine in his eyes. He wants to be in the
+dark as much as possible. He's developing as fine a case of measles as
+I ever saw and that's a fact!"
+
+Relieved? Hiram Strong could have readily and heartily given three
+cheers.
+
+"I--I've had the measles, Miss Pringle," he said warmly. "How glad I am
+you came over. I'm not afraid of measles."
+
+"I should hope not! Though I guess this fellow's got 'em pretty hard.
+It is sometimes serious with folks as old as he is. But we'll pull him
+through, Hiram--you and me together," she added with her old-time smirk.
+
+But she could not disturb Hiram's equanimity now.
+
+"You are a friend in need, Miss Pringle," he said.
+
+"I should hope so! Those are the only friends to have--especially in
+the country. We all need to help each other out here on the farms."
+
+"We'll get a doctor for him," said Hiram, promptly. "I'll pay the fee."
+
+"You'll spend your money in no such foolish way," declared Miss
+Pringle, energetically. "I'd be ashamed to have the neighbors know I
+sent for Dr. Marble for a case of measles.
+
+"You've treated this poor fellow all right, Hiram, as far as you've
+gone. After breakfast I'll come back with some medicine I've got to
+reduce his fever. You'll have enough to do around here daytimes tending
+to your work. I'll do the nursing for the poor fellow during the day if
+you'll look after him at night."
+
+"My goodness!" said Hiram, with fervor, "I'll do all I can. It is a
+relief to know it isn't smallpox."
+
+"You musn't neglect your work," Miss Pringle said, as they both came
+out of the house again. "You've got some men coming, haven't you?"
+
+"In a day or two."
+
+"That Ad Banks was around yesterday, wasn't he? I guess he's after a
+job with you, after all, even if you are a mite young for a boss," and
+she chuckled.
+
+"I did not see him."
+
+"That so? I saw him hanging about the barn and smoking that old pipe of
+his."
+
+"He can't get into the barn very easily. The doors are all locked,"
+said Hiram. Then, suddenly remembering the pipe he had found, he drew
+it from his pocket. "Could this be Adam Banks' pipe?" he asked.
+
+"Guess it could--and it is," said Miss Pringle promptly, sniffing at
+the odorous pipe. "I'd know that old thing anywhere. It's Ad Banks'.
+Where'd you find it?"
+
+"Where it had no business to be. Inside one of the sheds. Funny it
+should have been down there, too. I thought it belonged to this Orrin
+Post. I wonder what that Banks fellow was doing down there?"
+
+Miss Pringle bustled away and Hiram set about getting his own
+breakfast. The sick man murmured for water occasionally, but otherwise
+needed little attention until Miss Pringle came back.
+
+"Yancey Battick is all wrong about Delia Pringle," thought Hiram. "She
+may have her peculiarities, but she has a heart of gold."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI
+
+                               FRICTION
+
+
+The first truck to arrive that day at Sunnyside instead of bringing
+lumber, bricks, or other building material, brought ten yearling steers
+that Mr. Bronson had picked up from his other farms; and Hiram turned
+the blatting, frisky creatures into the pen and shed in which he had
+found Orrin Post the evening before.
+
+One of the young cattle had a frayed bit of rope about its neck, and
+Hiram went into the pen to get it off. The yearling ran into the far
+corner of the shed and while he struggled to remove the rope, the young
+farmer's eye caught the glint of something on the beams where he had
+found the pipe that Miss Pringle declared was Adam Banks' property.
+
+He had already looked about the shed for anything the sick man might
+have dropped. There had been absolutely nothing in his clothes but a
+little change and a pocketknife--no letter, or paper, or keepsake of
+any kind. Nor had Hiram seen anything in the fodder where Orrin Post
+had lain.
+
+He reached up to this beam and out of the far corner, where a thin ray
+of sunshine entered, he plucked a pint flask half filled with an amber
+colored liquid, one sniff of which assured him was the probable product
+of a peach-still somewhere in the neighborhood.
+
+Had it not been for the pipe he had previously found, Hiram might have
+believed this raw brandy the property of Orrin Post, in spite of the
+fact that the condition in which the poor fellow had been when he took
+shelter in the shed seemed to preclude his having hidden the brandy
+flask.
+
+The sick man was scarcely in his senses all that day. Every time Hiram
+put his head in at the door of the incubator house, he found Miss
+Pringle either fixing up the room, giving the patient his medicine, or
+sitting sewing within reach of the bunk. She made Hiram go over to her
+house for his dinner, and Abigail Wentworth, a tall, gaunt, elderly
+woman with spectacles and a neat cap pinned upon her iron-grey hair to
+hide her bald spot, served him a most satisfying, as well as appetizing
+meal. He had not eaten many such since coming to Sunnyside Farm.
+
+"I don't wish to seem harsh, Mr. Strong," said Abigail, "but it does
+seem a blessing that that man came along and was taken sick as he was.
+It's given Miss Delia something to do besides clutterin' up my kitchen.
+I am blessed beyond all when some of the neighbors fall sick and will
+let Miss Delia in to nurse 'em."
+
+"I see she is a wonderful nurse," said Hiram approvingly.
+
+"Well, she'll do less harm that way than most," said Abigail, who
+seldom was known to approve thoroughly of anything finite. "But that's
+what made trouble between her and that Yance Battick, I guess."
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"Yes. He was pretty near down sick--just hobblin' around. Rheumatism
+and all. That old Pringle house is as damp as the grave. Miss Delia
+heard how bad off he was and off she marched with her pills and
+plasters and what-not. But Yance Battick wasn't goin' to let no woman
+into his house--and he told her so to her face."
+
+"I don't think Mr. Battick understands Miss Pringle's character," said
+Hiram. "He does not realize how very kind she means to be."
+
+"'Means to be'--yes. That's it. I never could give three cheers for
+those folks that always mean so much better than they do," sniffed
+the angular woman, who could not even speak in entire approval of her
+employer. "But it's wisdom to let fellows like Yance Battick alone.
+Besides," she added, dropping her voice, "there's dark doin's in that
+house of Battick's. Ain't no place for a decent, respectable woman."
+
+"You don't mean it!" exclaimed Hiram, rather amused. "I stopped there
+over night, and I saw nothing much out of the way."
+
+"You weren't let to," said Abigail pursing her lips. "There's those
+that say Yance Battick is deeper than Sim Paget's well--and _it_ never
+had no bottom! He's got a power of knowledge that never came out of
+books. And no man would ever be so crotchety and shy off his fellowmen
+like Yance Battick does, if he wasn't sold, body and soul, to the
+devil."
+
+Hiram found no answer to this statement. It was evident that Abigail
+Wentworth, lineal descendant of Salem Puritans transplanted to this
+Middle West, possessed superstitions that are popular still in some
+localities.
+
+The following day Mr. Bronson came up to Sunnyside himself with some
+more young cattle. He had heard of the "tramp" Hiram had taken in and
+whom Miss Pringle was nursing. Hiram had had rather a hard night with
+his patient; but he was freshened up when his employer arrived.
+
+"You are a good chap, Hi," Mr. Bronson said. "But you'll overdo some
+day, helping all the yellow dogs that come your way."
+
+"Better speak to Miss Pringle about it, too," grinned Hiram. "And we're
+not altogether sure he is a canine of the breed you mention."
+
+"Well, I'll take him back with me to the Plympton hospital--if you say
+so."
+
+"I don't think that would be best. Miss Pringle says he is coming along
+all right. He is pretty measly right now, and he might catch cold if he
+was moved and then they'd 'strike in,' so she says. Then he'd be worse
+off. Guess I've got him on my hands for a while."
+
+"It's your funeral," Mr. Bronson said.
+
+"And it might have been Orrin Post's funeral if I hadn't found him as I
+did. Hello!" he added, as he observed the loutish figure of Adam Banks
+approaching. "Here's a fellow wants to see you, I guess, Mr. Bronson."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"He _says_ he wants work. But he doesn't want to hire out to me--I'm
+too young," laughed Hiram.
+
+"Do you want him? I understand you are about ready to put a gang of
+ditchers to work in that wheat field. But you haven't told me what kind
+of underdraining you are going to do there. Tile is awfully expensive
+just now, Hiram."
+
+Adam Banks slouched into hearing before Hiram could reply.
+
+"Well?" asked Mr. Bronson briskly of the newcomer. "Do you wish to see
+me?"
+
+"I hear you are hiring men for spring work, Mr. Bronson," said Banks
+respectfully. "I'd like a job."
+
+"I am not hiring anybody at Sunnyside," the farm owner said promptly.
+"That is all in Mr. Strong's hands. If he likes your looks and can make
+use of you--"
+
+"That kid!" interrupted Adam Banks, turning red in the face and glaring
+scornfully at Hiram. "I want work all right, but--"
+
+"You don't act as though you do," Mr. Bronson interposed. "Mr. Strong
+is in charge here."
+
+"Why don't you get a man to run your farm for you, Mr. Bronson?" asked
+Banks boldly. "You know my dad owns a good farm, and I've been brought
+up to work. And I'm a voter. Why don't you give a young man like me a
+chance to show you what can be done here on Sunnyside?"
+
+"Well, now," Mr. Bronson said, his eyes twinkling, "I really didn't
+know about you when I was looking about for a farmer. What's your name?"
+
+"Ad Banks. You know my dad."
+
+"I presume so. Well, Mr. Banks, I fear it is too late now. A bargain is
+a bargain. I have hired Mr. Strong--"
+
+"But that fellow ain't of age. You can see that plain. Your contract
+ain't binding if he's under age--and he is."
+
+"Indeed? Then you are quite a lawyer as well as a farmer, Mr. Banks.
+However, I always consider a contract binding, with whomever made."
+
+He turned away; but Adam Banks did not lack persistence. He urged:
+
+"If you ain't found out yet whether this Strong can fill the bill or
+no, I might be handy if I was working for you here, Mr. Bronson. I
+could jump right in and take hold when he gets into trouble--as he
+will. What are you paying for day's work?"
+
+"I am not paying anything. I tell you, young man, Mr. Strong will do
+all the hiring. And the discharging, too, for that matter. Do you want
+this fellow, Hiram?" he asked the young farm manager bluntly.
+
+"Say, what use is there askin' him?" broke in Banks, with disgust.
+"He's heard what I said. He knows what I think of him for a boss. What
+chance is there of my getting a job on his say-so?"
+
+"I am afraid I cannot make use of Mr. Banks," said Hiram quietly.
+
+"No! Of course you can't. You'd ruther take in tramps. I hear you've
+begun that. And we don't think much of tramps in these parts."
+
+Mr. Bronson merely smiled, waiting to see how Hiram Strong would handle
+the situation.
+
+"Just because you made a bid for my job doesn't influence me to refuse
+your services, Mr. Banks," the boy from the East said. "But I have two
+things against you."
+
+"What's them?" demanded Banks sneeringly.
+
+"Here they are," Hiram told him, and drew the pipe from one pocket and
+the flask of peach-brandy from another. "Here is your pipe that you
+left in one of our sheds day before yesterday, with burning tobacco
+in it. And the quantity of peach-brandy you had evidently drunk out
+of this flask made you forget both pipe and bottle. Neither of these
+things find favor in my sight about a farm, either inside or outside of
+a man."
+
+"I'll be switched!" ejaculated Adam Banks. "Huh!"
+
+His face blazed up and he gave every indication of having been caught
+with the goods. He even accepted the pipe and flask. Both Hiram and Mr.
+Bronson had already smelled liquor upon Adam Banks' breath. At least,
+he had had something besides ham and eggs for breakfast. But suddenly
+the loutish fellow decided not to acknowledge the ownership of the
+articles.
+
+"Here!" he growled. "These ain't mine. What are you trying to put over
+on me, Strong? More'n likely they were brought on the place by that
+tramp you've taken up with. I ain't been near your sheds."
+
+"You were seen there," Hiram said sharply. "More than that, your pipe
+has been identified. There is no use denying either fact. I shall not
+hire you."
+
+"Are you going to let me be treated like this, Mr. Bronson?" demanded
+Adam Banks. "Dad's a neighbor. We live right here. That upstart,
+Strong--"
+
+"That will do," interrupted Mr. Bronson, waving his hand in dismissal.
+"If Hiram doesn't want you that closes the discussion as far as I am
+concerned," and he walked away with his young farm manager, leaving
+Banks in the road.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII
+
+                              WORK BEGINS
+
+
+"I'd keep my eye on that fellow Banks if he continues to hang around
+here," said Mr. Bronson. "He means you ill."
+
+"And perhaps would do something to cause trouble. Perhaps I should have
+taken him on," Hiram Strong said thoughtfully.
+
+"I should say not! You did just right. You read him aright. His prime
+failings are drink and laziness. Just warn him off the premises if he
+bothers you. He's been in trouble and is not locally liked. Mr. Banks
+spared the rod in Adam's case, sure enough.
+
+"Now, Hiram, to get back to ditching. You don't mean to leave open
+ditches through that field, do you? I can't stand a ditch bank--always
+growing up in wild cherry and poison oak and such worthless trees and
+vines. Besides, open ditches interfere with tillage most abominably."
+
+"That is farthest from my thought, Mr. Bronson."
+
+"But tiling--"
+
+"I figure to underdrain with something much cheaper than tile," the
+young farmer declared.
+
+"What are you going to use?"
+
+Hiram pointed across the road at Miss Pringle's patch of scorched
+woodland. The underbrush and sprouts were beginning to show that faint
+blur of green that announces the coming of spring growth; but the trees
+were gaunt looking and black.
+
+"I've bought as many as I can use of those scorched trees at ten cents
+apiece," Hiram explained.
+
+"For the land's sake!" exclaimed Mr. Bronson, quoting Miss Pringle, but
+looking puzzled, too.
+
+"Exactly. For the land's sake. For the improvement of that twenty
+acres--or such of it as needs draining."
+
+"But--Hiram--my dear fellow--"
+
+"I am not starting something that I cannot put over, Mr. Bronson,"
+laughed Hiram. "Nor is it a brand new idea of my own. I have seen
+timber in the rough employed in underdraining more than once. My father
+used to do it when the man who owned the farm father worked would not
+listen to the expense of tiles."
+
+"Ha! I acknowledge the corn," replied Mr. Bronson.
+
+"I am not criticising you, Mr. Bronson. You are preparing this farm
+for a sale. You wish to put it in as good shape as possible at as small
+expense as possible."
+
+"Right, young man."
+
+"So we will put in a drain that will answer every purpose of tiling for
+a few years. In very low, wet ground logs laid in a ditch, and covered,
+will last twenty years--sometimes forty. On this upland the life of the
+timber I mean to use will not be so long."
+
+"But it is fire-killed."
+
+"That makes no difference. I've been over there and looked at it. You
+couldn't knock any of those trees down. The fire went through there
+only last year. They are not punky."
+
+"I suppose not."
+
+"And we shall be killing two birds with one stone--getting cheap
+drainage and likewise wiping out a very ugly spot right across the road
+from your new house."
+
+"That is so. And you are getting the timbers cheap enough, if they are
+any good. I wouldn't have had the heart to offer Miss Pringle such a
+price."
+
+"It is more than anybody else would have given her," Hiram declared,
+smiling. "And it is worth all you are paying for it to have those
+unsightly sticks chopped down."
+
+"Guess you are right, Hiram."
+
+"The logs will serve the purpose we want them for very well indeed.
+We'll lay two in the bottom of the ditch, six inches or so apart, and
+a third log on top to cover the aperture. Earth packed down upon them
+will soon form a firm culvert into which all the superfluous water will
+drain.
+
+"I'll put a man into Miss Pringle's patch with an axe and soon knock
+down everything that is standing. The whole patch will be covered with
+green by midsummer."
+
+"Smart boy, Hiram!" exclaimed Mr. Bronson. "Will you snake the logs
+right across the road into the wheat field?"
+
+"As soon as the ditches are begun and you send up that pair of
+Percherons you promised me. I can't do that work with Jerry."
+
+"You shall have the Percherons in a few days. They are a well mated
+pair and young. By the way, your disc-plow, harrow, check-row planter,
+and the mowing machine are on the siding at Pringleton. I'll send a
+truck over for them tomorrow. We don't want any demurrage charges
+piling up on us."
+
+"Good! I want to see those things on the big floor of the barn," cried
+Hiram, his eyes beaming.
+
+"I'd better send up a machinist to help you set them up, hadn't I?"
+
+"No, sir. Leave it to me. I must learn to put together every machine
+that comes onto the place. There are always instructions sent with the
+implements from the factory. The time may come, right in the middle of
+a job of importance, that the machine will balk. I've got to know all
+about it. Do you see?"
+
+"I see. And you are right, I guess."
+
+"Mr. Bronson, seems to me I'll be just about made when I sit up on that
+plow and chirrup to those Percherons. I've tramped along in the furrow
+behind one or two horses for so many years--Well!"
+
+Mr. Bronson laughed. "While I've ridden a plow and other farm tools
+so much that I hate to get up on one," he said. "They say it's mighty
+good exercise for a sluggish liver to ride 'em over hobbly ground.
+Ah, my boy! you've got the best of it, for you are young. You've got
+enthusiasm."
+
+"Why, so have you, Mr. Bronson," cried Hiram. "Only it is enthusiasm of
+a different kind from mine. Otherwise you would not buy farms and put
+them into shape for other men to run."
+
+"Maybe that is merely business."
+
+Before night Orrin Post was quite in his right mind. Abigail had been
+making broth and porridge for him, for now that his fever was reduced
+Miss Pringle's idea of nursing seemed to be to stuff the patient with
+food.
+
+"She will kill me with kindness," the young man said to Hiram. "I hope
+I shall not have to lie here long."
+
+"Miss Pringle is awfully good," the young farm manager said stoutly. "I
+do not know what we would have done without her."
+
+"I don't know what I would have done without you, Mr. Strong. She's
+told me how you thought I had smallpox, and yet picked me up and
+brought me here."
+
+"You've got the cart before the horse," chuckled Hiram. "I got you up
+here from that shed before I discovered that you were breaking out in
+such shape. How did you get to the shed?"
+
+"I haven't a very clear remembrance of it," confessed Orrin Post. "I
+felt pretty bad."
+
+"Had you traveled far?"
+
+"I had a job with a farmer all winter at Roundspring. But I was taken
+down with this fever and he told me I had better go because he was
+afraid his children would catch it. I couldn't blame him--much. So I
+started west."
+
+"Wasn't there any place they would take you in? No hospital?"
+
+"I didn't happen to stop at a hospital," said Orrin Post dryly.
+
+"And nobody offered to do anything for you?"
+
+"I do not remember that any one did. I was kind of flighty the last day
+or two, I guess."
+
+"Were you heading for home?" asked Hiram.
+
+"If I was I didn't know it," Post said with a faint laugh.
+
+"But where is your home?"
+
+"Anywhere I hang up my hat."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"I'm giving it to you straight."
+
+"And no friends?"
+
+"You are the best friend I ever had," declared the young man, with
+sudden emotion. "Nobody ever put himself out for me before that I can
+remember."
+
+"Oh, don't make too much of what little I have done," Hiram urged.
+"Where do you go from here?"
+
+"I haven't the first idea. I'll get out as soon as I can--"
+
+"If you say that I'll take your clothes away," declared Hiram promptly.
+"You've got to eat many a gallon of Miss Pringle's broth and porridge
+before you get a chance to leave Sunnyside."
+
+"'Sunnyside,'" repeated Orrin Post wistfully. "Is that the name of this
+farm, Mr. Strong?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It must be a pleasant place."
+
+"I don't know that myself yet," laughed Hiram, "I have been here so
+short a time."
+
+And for the next few days Hiram Strong was so busy that he was not at
+all sure whether or not he would like it himself at Sunnyside Farm.
+
+He set a gang of a dozen men to ditching in the twenty acre lot. He
+could have made much better time with a ditching machine; but of course
+it would not have paid to hire such an implement for this small job.
+
+He had been all over the wheat field and had made a mental plan of what
+he wished to do before a spadeful of earth was thrown. He proposed
+running a ditch the entire length of the field, through the middle and
+parallel with the road on which the twenty-acre piece bordered. On the
+wetter portion of the piece he proposed having transverse ditches every
+hundred feet. Where the land seemed naturally better drained he would
+have the cross ditches dug less frequently.
+
+The county ditch beside the road was deep enough and clean enough to
+carry off an immense volume of water. The natural drainage of the land
+was toward the road; therefore nobody could complain of his using the
+county ditch as he intended.
+
+With a cross-cut saw they fitted the logs to match at the intersection
+of the ditches and there he laid a cap of heavy planking which chanced
+to be about the place. Any bit of rough lumber answered this purpose.
+
+As fast as the timbers were laid they covered them, tamping the earth
+over them firmly and leaving a very slight ridge through the field.
+Snaking the logs across the field did not damage the wheat much, for
+Hiram made the driver of the horses follow a single path--that of the
+main ditch--both coming and going.
+
+The man Hiram had hired to cut the timber was very dexterous with the
+axe, but after the first day he raised decided objections to working in
+the half-burned area. He was smutted from head to foot and looked like
+a charcoal burner.
+
+"I am sorry," the young farm manager told him, "if you find the work
+different from what you supposed it to be. I told you plainly enough
+what I wanted you for."
+
+"Let some of the other fellows take their turn in that patch, and I'll
+do a little digging. That's clean work," said the man.
+
+"No. I hired you because I was told you were a good axman. I hired the
+other men for ditching. You can chop better than you can ditch, and the
+others can use a spade better than an axe; I want the most I can get
+for my money."
+
+"Well, I suppose that's fair enough," agreed the man grudgingly. "But
+what my wife will say when she sees this jumper will be a plenty."
+
+He was in no better mood the second day; and that afternoon Hiram saw
+Adam Banks stroll along the road and go upon the burned-over piece
+to speak to the woodchopper. There was not so much tree cutting done
+during the next hour, and it vexed the young farm manager.
+
+"It seems, as Mr. Bronson suggested, that I am bound to have trouble
+with that fellow, whether I hire him or not," Hiram reflected.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII
+
+                                 WHEAT
+
+
+It was about this time that Hiram received his first letter since
+leaving Scoville from Sister. He was glad to hear personally from her,
+and about her wonderful fortune as well; but it must be confessed
+that had the letter been from a certain other girl he would have been
+equally pleased.
+
+He had heard of Lettie Bronson frequently from her father. She would
+graduate from St. Beris in June and come home to Plympton. Then, Hiram
+hoped, he would see her occasionally at Sunnyside Farm.
+
+Secretly the young fellow was particularly pleased with his new
+position as farm manager because it gave him an opportunity to delegate
+the heavier and dirtier work to his workmen. If Lettie came on the
+place he would be able to go to meet her in decent clothes and with
+clean hands.
+
+Sister's letter was very friendly and newsy; but upon reading it a
+second time Hiram thought he observed in it a tone that was not like
+that of the Sister he had previously known. She had been wont to be
+rather fly-away and careless of speech and act. Now there was a sudden
+primness in the way she expressed herself which must, Hiram thought,
+arise from the feeling of responsibility which her new circumstances
+had brought to her.
+
+But here spoke the old tender-hearted, if imaginative, Sister:
+
+    "I wish I could go out myself, Hiram, and find my little brother.
+    Just think of his running away--even from a reform school--into
+    the world all stark alone! I don't know anything more about him
+    than that--not even what his first name is. It seems my Grandmother
+    Cheltenham hired the lawyer to find us both before she died, but
+    she would do nothing for Brother and me until we were both found.
+    So all that I can do is to wait patiently. I hope the poor boy will
+    come to no harm."
+
+She signed the letter: "I-don't-know-my-first-name-yet Cheltenham." But
+Hiram could imagine how proud and happy Sister was with a real name of
+her own.
+
+"Bless her dear little heart," he murmured.
+
+The carpenters began to arrive at Sunnyside, and the shack, first to be
+used for a bunkhouse and kitchen, was soon put up. It would comfortably
+house twenty men, the bunks being built along the walls and a long
+table and benches occupying the middle of the room. Hiram took his old
+bed in the small house after Orrin Post moved in with the other men,
+and the incubator house was fumigated.
+
+"For as long as you are used to farmwork," Hiram had told Orrin, "why
+should you not stay here and work for me when you get strong enough?"
+
+"You are a good fellow, Strong!" declared the friendless one. "You
+won't be sorry that you took me in."
+
+"Oh," Hiram said, his eyes twinkling, "I figure to get all of my money
+back on you, Orrin."
+
+There was something about Orrin Post that Hiram found very attractive,
+and yet the fellow was as secretive about his personal history as
+though his past life was something to be ashamed of.
+
+He proved to be, now that he was convalescent, a good looking young
+man, rather frail of physique, but manly in every way. Because of his
+enunciation and judging, also, by little turns of expression in his use
+of English, Hiram thought Orrin came, too, from New England. He was
+intelligent and to all appearances well-educated.
+
+But never did the latter drop a word to reveal what his upbringing
+or his former state had been, save that he had worked on farms. He
+appeared to have none of the vices of the common tramp; he was polite,
+clean-mouthed, and an easy and fluent speaker on almost any subject but
+that of his private affairs.
+
+He read everything there was to read--books, papers, magazines, even
+a pile of old poultry journals Brandenburg had left in the incubator
+shed. Miss Pringle pronounced him to be "real nice" and lent him all
+the books and papers she owned.
+
+Now that Orrin Post was out of danger and there were so many men about
+Sunnyside Farm, the spinster did not visit them so often. But Hiram
+and Orrin sometimes called on her in the evening. In numbers there is
+safety, Hiram thought, while Orrin did not seem to be at all disturbed
+by any of Delia Pringle's languishing ways.
+
+That he was grateful both to the good-hearted spinster and to Hiram
+they could not doubt. Orrin began to do light jobs for both very soon.
+One thing, he relieved Hiram altogether of the care of the more than
+twenty cattle that the young farm manager was feeding in the pens
+behind the big barn.
+
+It was Orrin, too, who assisted Hiram in setting up the farm machinery
+that had arrived. He seemed to have some idea of mechanics, and Hiram
+always found him of considerable assistance.
+
+The two-disc plow was the first implement they set up. It was a
+splendidly built machine, one of the newest on the market, and could be
+pulled by either tractor or horses.
+
+Mr. Bronson did not intend to use a tractor much at Sunnyside; at
+least, not this first season. When the season's work really commenced
+he would have all his present tractors could do on his other farms.
+
+"But with these young elephants," Orrin said, admiring the pair of
+Percherons when they had arrived, "you ought to be able to do almost
+anything, Mr. Strong."
+
+The horses were really huge fellows, quiet, kindly, and well broken to
+work. They were not much like the horses Hiram had been used to in the
+East, it must be confessed. Even Jerry, who was a good cross of Morgan
+and Canadian stock, looked truly Lilliputian beside these huge fellows.
+
+When the Percherons started one of the largest logs in the burned
+piece, the driver chanced to steer them wrong at one point and the
+foot-and-a-half butt of the pine-log rammed a stump. The force of the
+blow, with the horses leaning against their collars, split the pine-log
+for half its length.
+
+"Say," said Will Pardee, the driver, "let me tackle them to the corner
+of that barn, and I bet I could start it. Aside from a steam engine,
+they are the best pullers I ever saw."
+
+The carpenter gang was now at work and the material for the stave silo
+had arrived. All but the wire cables with which Hiram had advised that
+it should be stayed. But those were promised.
+
+It was to be a hundred-and-forty-ton silo--one of the largest of the
+old-fashioned kind--and its foundation was of masonry. Under proper
+conditions it would last for years if the walls (the staves were
+grooved and tongued) were properly erected. The silo was placed at one
+corner of the barn just where it would be handy to shred and blow the
+ensilage into the enormous round tank.
+
+Meanwhile, Hiram had continued his corn testing, and to his
+satisfaction. Having selected the good ears among those he had bought
+of Mr. Brown, discarding the less vigorous, he shelled the remaining
+corn off these good ears and mixed the kernels thoroughly. This seed he
+sacked, tagging it plainly, and hung it where Yancey Battick's dread
+enemies, the rats, would not get at it.
+
+This bag of corn would not furnish Hiram with all the seed he would
+need at planting time. He had other corn to test and his testing boxes
+were busy for some weeks.
+
+In the meantime he had tried out the little handful of wheat he had
+brought with him from Yancey Battick's place. The vigor and uniformity
+of that red-streaked wheat was quite remarkable. Never had Hiram Strong
+seen a wheat that pleased him as much as did this new grain.
+
+He was deeply interested in Yancey Battick's experiment with this
+wheat; but he did not know how to go about gaining the odd man's
+confidence. Really, he was on less familiar terms with Battick than
+with any other neighbors about Sunnyside--save, perhaps, the rascally
+Adam Banks.
+
+The latter came around occasionally and talked with the men working for
+Hiram and interfered in a small way with the ditching and the chopping
+down of the pine trees. But Hiram was determined to have no trouble
+with the fellow if he could help it.
+
+He had been told that Adam Banks had quarreled with a farmer for whom
+he had worked, and later, when that farmer's barns were fired, the
+owner had declared that Adam Banks had done the firing. But nothing
+could be proved against the fellow.
+
+There had been a few warm days; but the ground was not ready for corn
+plowing, and Hiram was to raise no oats this year. Nor did he give
+any attention to potatoes or other truck crops. Primarily his job at
+Sunnyside was to raise corn--with a proper rotation of clover and
+grains to keep the soil of the farm in arable condition.
+
+He had mapped the farm and planned his work of seeding for the year,
+both on the land that had lain fallow over winter and that already in
+crops.
+
+He did not like the looks of the wheat on the upper twenty acres where
+the ditching was being done. It had not stooled properly; there were
+patches where it was winter killed because of the poor drainage. He
+knew the crop on this piece would scarcely pay for harvesting.
+
+And yet he understood that both lime and commercial fertilizer had
+been used heavily on this acreage before it was seeded the previous
+September.
+
+"The standing water has made the land soggy. You can't grow crops on a
+sponge--at least, not wheat," he told himself. "The fertility put into
+the soil for this wheat is still here, or it has evaporated or leached
+away. Surely the lime has not done all its work in releasing the
+natural fertility which the soil possesses. This piece should not need
+liming again for three years.
+
+"If I can get this wheat off in time for an ensilage crop--first
+broadcasting the coarse manure from the cattle pens--I might make a
+showing on the profit side of the ledger, for this piece, ditching and
+all, by the next year. Ensilage corn and peas together would make this
+twenty acres look pretty good."
+
+Thus he dreamed. He walked about the other wheat fields. None of the
+grain was as seriously injured as was that on the twenty-acre piece
+bordering this much traveled section of the county road.
+
+Through a rift in the strip of woodland between the Sunnyside fields
+and Yancey Battick's place, he saw a lovely plain of green. It looked
+so very different from his own wheatlands that Hiram ventured across
+the boundary fence to examine the patch more closely.
+
+Here was not more than an acre of level, wheat-covered land. He saw
+that the grain had been sown very thinly; and yet the plants had
+stooled so well that, at a little distance, it seemed as though the
+ground was matted by the grain plants.
+
+If this was the red-streaked wheat it must be wonderfully productive.
+At least, the plant itself was thrifty and lush--far beyond any wheat
+Hiram Strong had ever seen. Whether it was of the bearded or smooth
+variety, the grain from such a plant must make a heavy and paying
+harvest.
+
+He looked up suddenly to see Yancey Battick--his face inflamed and gun
+in hand--bearing down upon him with so savage a demeanor that Hiram
+confessed himself frightened.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV
+
+                        YANCEY BATTICK'S STORY
+
+
+"What are you doing there?" demanded Battick, with his gun cocked and
+the muzzle on a level with Hiram Strong's breast. "Have I got to give
+you a lesson, too?"
+
+"You certainly are teaching me something, Mr. Battick," returned the
+young farmer with flushed face and angry look. "Put down that gun! What
+do you mean by threatening to shoot me?"
+
+"I'll more than threaten to do it!" declared the man wildly. "You get
+away from that wheat! You get off this farm! And you stay off!"
+
+"What is the matter with you, Mr. Battick?" cried Hiram. "Are you
+crazy? You haven't got your farm posted over there where I entered."
+
+"I can't go to the expense of putting up a 'no trespass' sign every
+few feet," snarled Battick. "But you, as well as everybody else around
+here, know that I don't want anybody sneaking around my place. Get
+out!" and he advanced with the gun again.
+
+The double muzzle of the shotgun was a most unpleasant prospect. Hiram
+Strong did not fancy being backed through the wood to the boundary
+fence with the gun against his breast. It was too ignominious a
+prospect to be borne.
+
+It has always been a mooted question just how far a man may go to
+protect his property from trespass. In most cases the courts demand
+that harmful trespass be proved. And certainly Hiram had done no harm,
+and contemplated none, in coming here to look at his neighbor's wheat.
+
+He did not believe Yancey Battick was altogether sane. But an insane
+man with a shotgun is a combination as uncertain as a barrel of
+gunpowder and a match!
+
+Hiram half turned towards the woods path through which he had come.
+Battick, only eight feet or so away, raised the muzzle of his gun a
+trifle. Like a flash the young fellow wheeled, stooped, and leaped in
+to seize the man.
+
+The gun exploded and Hiram's hat went sailing into the air, its brim
+in front torn to bits. His forehead was blackened by the smoke of the
+discharge, so near was it.
+
+But he had seized Yancey Battick around the waist and held on. The
+shotgun fell to the ground under their stamping feet. The young farm
+manager was more vigorous if not more angry than his antagonist. For
+half a minute or more they strained and tugged--Hiram to throw the man,
+the latter to escape from his embrace.
+
+Suddenly they broke apart. Both staggered back a pace. They stared at
+each other, their visages pale now rather than inflamed. Both realized
+how near to tragedy the incident had led.
+
+Hiram drew a palm across his blackened and sweating forehead. Battick
+still glared, panting, at the young fellow.
+
+"I--I might have shot you, Strong. You're a young fool," he muttered.
+
+"If anybody lacks sense it is you," retorted Hiram quickly. "If you had
+killed me I'd only have been dead. But you would have had to pay the
+penalty."
+
+"You are on my land--"
+
+"Don't begin that old foolishness," commanded Hiram.
+
+He seized the man's arm and led him toward a log at the edge of the
+wood. Battick was actually shaking and he stared at Hiram in a way
+that troubled the latter considerably. Could it be that this strange
+individual was really insane?
+
+"Sit down here," said the youth, and took a seat beside him on the log.
+"Now for goodness sake, tell me what the matter is with you. I know you
+have bred a new wheat. I saw the grain at your house. I suppose this
+is a field of it. Why act like a madman about it? I can't steal these
+plants and so breed the wheat in competition."
+
+Battick looked at him solemnly. "You don't know what I have been
+through, Mr. Strong," he said.
+
+"I can see you are carrying on a regular guerrilla warfare against your
+neighbors, Mr. Battick. But I cannot imagine why."
+
+"They have hounded me--robbed me!" exclaimed Battick excitedly.
+
+"Who have?"
+
+"People you don't know, perhaps. And perhaps you do! I can never be
+sure that their agents are not around here. You may be one of them, Mr.
+Strong."
+
+"I assure you--"
+
+"Or you may be as right as rain. I was too quick just now. But I am
+suspicious of every person I see trespassing in my fields."
+
+"Who could, or would, do this wheat harm?"
+
+"Let me tell you! When I bred my Mortgage Lifter Oats I was robbed of
+my seed, my standing grain was burned just before it was ready for the
+sickle, and cattle were turned in on my young oats, a field like this,
+and allowed to graze."
+
+"The Mortgage Lifter Oats? The great new oat that Bonsall and Burgess,
+the seedsmen in Chicago, put out four years ago and which proved such a
+wonderful cropper?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"You bred that variety, Mr. Battick?"
+
+"Yes. But I do not get the credit for it, nor did I get any of the
+money--a small fortune--that has been made through its sale. I do not
+hold Bonsall and Burgess at fault. They honestly bought the new seed of
+those who robbed me and were themselves aware of no crime having been
+committed."
+
+"I never!"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Strong. There are mighty mean people in this world. Where I
+lived before I came to this place there were other men living around me
+who gave some attention to the selection and breeding of new varieties
+of seed. You see, that clergyman who years ago made a clear twenty
+thousand dollars by breeding a famous muskmelon started us all to
+hunting for new types of vegetables, fruits, and grains.
+
+"Rivalries arose in my neighborhood, of course. But I thought they
+were friendly rivalries. We even talked over our discoveries at the
+Grange meetings. I had made a study of plant life, and I gave little
+lectures--the more fool me!--to the boys and girls who were interested
+enough to come together at the schoolhouse to listen. I had no idea my
+neighbors would steal."
+
+"You don't mean to say they did?"
+
+"Exactly. And some of the very boys I had tried to interest and help
+were the ones who broke down my fence and turned the cattle into my
+young oats. That was so I should be unable to raise a crop of the new
+oats that year and so fail to take advantage of the Mortgage Lifter
+being advertised by the seedsmen. You understand that all big money is
+made on new seeds in the first and second seasons, don't you?"
+
+"I know that, Mr. Battick," Hiram agreed. "After that everybody has the
+new strain. It must be a quick clean-up in the seed business."
+
+"That's it. I don't really know to this day just who it was profited by
+my loss. In the main, I mean. Almost everybody around my place had some
+of the seed. That held the gang together and made it impossible for me
+to get any evidence against the real transgressors. You see, the other
+neighbors were bribed.
+
+"However, my crops had been destroyed, the seed-oats taken out of my
+granary in the night when I was ill. It was a dirty plot! Bonsall and
+Burgess were not to be blamed. Nor could they tell me anything. They
+were bound to secrecy in their contract."
+
+"And could you get no satisfaction?" asked Hiram, in sympathy.
+
+"I could prove nothing. You cannot patent, or copyright, a seed! Those
+fellows merely beat me to it."
+
+"It was a shame!"
+
+Battick laughed bitterly. "They certainly did me dirt," he said. "I
+sold out and came here. I may be wrong in telling you this. Nobody else
+knows what I came here for and why I bought the old Pringle place."
+
+"No," said Hiram smiling. "Some of the neighbors assume you came here
+to practice the black art."
+
+"Let them! The less they know the better for me. I've chased more of
+them than you think off the place. That lazy, good-for-nothing Adam
+Banks--"
+
+"Do you mean to say that he has troubled you?" put in Hiram, with some
+interest.
+
+"Yes. And I'll surely fill his pants full of rock salt so that he'll
+prefer eating off the mantel-shelf for a week, if he doesn't keep away.
+I don't trust anybody, Mr. Strong, and that's a fact. Unless it is you.
+I believe I have the finest strain of wheat that was ever bred."
+
+He stopped. It was plain that he could not trust Hiram sufficiently to
+talk intimately about it. He shook his head and looked away.
+
+Hiram glanced at him, scrutinizing the worn, hoop-backed figure from
+the corner of his eye. Yancey Battick was not an old man. He was worse
+than that. He was a man worn out before his time.
+
+The young farm manager could understand just how hope and faith had
+dried up in this unfortunate man and left only a husk. Fate and unkind
+circumstances, as well as wicked men, had sadly treated Yancey Battick.
+
+His best efforts had gone for nothing. His attempts to win a competence
+for his old age had been frustrated. Perhaps there were more personal
+sorrows--heart-breaking sorrows--in Yancey Battick's life that he had
+not touched upon in his angry and bitter narrative.
+
+Hiram's own heart warmed toward him, unlovely as he was physically. If
+he could help Yancey Battick he was determined to do so.
+
+"I am mighty sorry for your bad luck, Mr. Battick," Hiram said, rising
+at last from his seat on the log. "I really did not intend annoying you
+when I came over here to look at your wheat. It looked so much better
+than that on Sunnyside that I was curious."
+
+"Un-huh," muttered Battick. "I understand you, Mr. Strong. I presume
+you are all right."
+
+"Well, good-day!" said Hiram, moving off. "I'll be sure to come around
+to the front door again if I visit you," and he laughed shortly.
+
+The laugh died on his lips as he went back through the woods path. And
+for a very strange reason. Through the greenery to the right he caught
+sudden sight of a figure slinking away from behind the log on which he
+and Battick had been sitting while the latter told his story.
+
+Hiram recognized this eavesdropper. It was Adam Banks.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV
+
+                           THE COUNTRY DANCE
+
+
+Miss Delia Pringle had an idea and she came to Hiram with it that very
+day when he returned from his visit to Yancey Battick's patch of wheat.
+
+"I do love a dance, Mr. Strong, don't you?" she began with her head on
+one side and a languishing look. "We have had very few of them around
+this neighborhood this winter. The flu, you know--so many unfortunate
+sicknesses.
+
+"But the winter's well over now and everybody who hasn't died of the
+flu has recovered. I'd dearly love to have one more dance before haying
+and grain harvest--before all the young men get too busy."
+
+"Yes. But--"
+
+"Oh, I want your help in getting it up, Mr. Strong," Miss Pringle
+explained.
+
+"Why, Miss Pringle," he said rather anxiously, "I'm a newcomer. I don't
+want to put myself forward and act officiously. It might make a bad
+impression on the minds of the neighbors."
+
+"What nonsense!" cried the lively spinster. "They all like you--of
+course they do!"
+
+"Not Adam Banks," suggested Hiram, with one of his quick smiles that
+always made his rather plain face more attractive.
+
+"My goodness! I should hope not," exclaimed Miss Pringle. "If he did I
+certainly wouldn't."
+
+"And I think Terry Crane is getting to dislike me, too," added Hiram
+speaking of the man whom he had put into the burned-over patch of
+woodland to chop down trees. "I understand that Crane's wife thinks I'm
+quite a terrible fellow because I make her washing so hard."
+
+Miss Pringle laughed. "It would be a good thing, I should think, if
+these folks got together and learned more about you, Mr. Strong--got
+really to know you and how nice you are," and her smile would--when he
+first knew her--have made Hiram blush to the very tips of his ears.
+
+"You flatter me, Miss Pringle," was what he said. "And I don't believe
+I would know how to go about getting up a dance."
+
+"Oh, that's all right. You leave that to me," she said promptly. "What
+I want of you, Mr. Strong, is to get Mr. Bronson to let us dance on his
+floor."
+
+"Dance on his floor?" repeated Hiram. "At Plympton?"
+
+"Of course not!"
+
+"Where, then? What floor? His barn floor here at Sunnyside?"
+
+"No, no! Of his new house. Don't you know how Dolan and MacComb are
+going to put up the house after your silo is done? They often build 'em
+so around here. They do not raise the whole frame at once, but lay the
+floor on the sills and then put up the scantlings for the frame, story
+by story--the outside walls first."
+
+"I see. That is a common practice in some localities."
+
+"It is here," returned Miss Pringle, "for we have a good many high
+winds. Come along one of those baby tornadoes, as they call 'em, and
+a regular house-frame would be torn all to pieces, unless it was well
+boarded in."
+
+"I believe you!"
+
+"Well. If it's nice weather, as it is likely to be in June when the
+floor's laid, we always try to have a dance. Christen the floor, as
+it were. In this Pringleton district we don't get to have a real good
+dance once in a dog's age. Carpet dances are nothing, and barn floors
+are so rough. So's the schoolhouse floor. There isn't a real hall
+nearer than Plympton."
+
+"I see your idea, Miss Pringle," Hiram said; "and if I can get Mr.
+Bronson to agree--and I presume he will--I don't see why we shouldn't
+have a nice time. Miss Bronson will be home early in June, and I
+shouldn't wonder but that she would help."
+
+"Little Lettie Bronson? Of course she will. We'll have a regular
+party," declared the enthusiastic Delia. "And I hope you'll ask me to
+dance, Mr. Strong."
+
+"I promise to," laughed Hiram. "I ask you right now for at least two
+dances, and there's Orrin. I bet he can dance."
+
+"Oh, I've already promised him three, Mr. Strong," declared the
+fore-thoughtful spinster, in high fettle.
+
+This was a bit of pleasure to look forward to; and all work and no play
+does make Jack a dull boy. It was something to write Sister about, too;
+and Sister (who wrote more frequently now that she had discovered Hiram
+would answer her letters) became very much interested in "Hiram's house
+raising party," as Mother Atterson called it.
+
+    "Mrs. Atterson remembers going to a barn raising party when she was
+    a girl in the country and there she met Mr. Atterson for the first
+    time," Sister wrote in her very next letter. "She thinks she never
+    had such a nice time as she did at that party. I wish I was going
+    to be at your house raising party, Hiram.
+
+    "Miss Lettie Bronson has been here and says she expects to be
+    home for the party. She says Miss Pringle--the lady you write so
+    much about--has writ (is that right, Hiram? Mrs. Atterson says it
+    is) her all about it and how fine you are getting along with your
+    spring work. I would dearly love to see you riding your double-disc
+    plow behind those Percherons. They must be as big as elephants.
+
+    "I am most of all interested in that Orrin Post. To think of his
+    coming to your place sick, and all, and then turning out to be
+    such a nice fellow and such good help! Mrs. Atterson says it was a
+    leading. You were led to go down into the calf shed that night to
+    find the poor fellow."
+
+There was considerable more to the letter for Sister was a voluminous
+writer when once she got started. Hiram's epistles, however, had soon
+to be of the briefest description, for the work was piling up on him
+enormously. Spring had opened with a bang!
+
+Had it not been for Orrin Post the young farm manager would actually
+have been swamped with the details of the farmwork. As he gained
+strength (and Orrin did that rapidly) he relieved Hiram of many petty
+duties that had begun greatly to try the latter.
+
+Helpful and pleasant as Orrin Post always was, he did not grow any more
+communicative about himself as their intimacy increased. His past was
+a sealed book to everybody about Sunnyside. Even Miss Delia Pringle
+confessed to the young farm manager that she had never met such a
+close-mouthed person.
+
+"A dentist's forceps wouldn't pull anything out of that Post--no more
+than as though he was a post," she declared. "But he is a mighty nice
+fellow."
+
+The workmen at Sunnyside and the other neighbors had at first referred
+to the stranger as "that tramp," but after a time they warmed up to
+Orrin. He was friendly, and was always willing to bear a hand at any
+job.
+
+The ditching was completed and the logs laid in the drains and
+covered. Miss Pringle's burned-over patch was certainly improved in
+appearance. The sprouts and bushes were growing rapidly green and would
+soon completely hide the unsightly stumps. Even the most critical
+neighbors owned to the improvement. But some of them carped at Hiram's
+underdraining scheme. That twenty acres never had amounted to much and
+it never would, according to these people.
+
+"Digging the drains was all right, Mr. Strong," said Turner, who held
+the farm back of Miss Pringle's. "That is, the ditches would have been
+all right, except they'd have been in the way of plowing and tilling.
+
+"But when you threw in the logs and covered them up you did a fool's
+trick, if you'll allow me, who was farming, it's likely, when your
+daddy was born, to say so. A fool trick--yes, sir!"
+
+But Hiram only laughed pleasantly at the grizzled old farmer's
+criticism, saying:
+
+"I cannot say I believe you are right and I am wrong, Mr. Turner; but
+there is one thing that will settle the question."
+
+"What is that, young man?"
+
+"Time," replied Hiram, quietly.
+
+"Ha! I guess that is so," agreed the aged farmer. "Maybe you ain't so
+big a fool as you appear."
+
+Criticism did not bother Hiram Strong, and as he told Mr. Turner he
+could afford to wait for time to prove him right. He knew that even the
+owner of Sunnyside Farm, Mr. Bronson, felt some doubt regarding the
+value of the kind of underdraining his young farm manager had done. And
+it had cost a pretty penny!
+
+But now came the plowing for corn and Hiram had four weeks of steady
+plowing and raking to get the fallow land into shape for his corn crop.
+And he did most of the plowing with the Percherons and the double-disc
+plow himself. There being little culch on the land, this make of plow
+worked remarkably well.
+
+This land on which he proposed to grow his main crop was limed heavily
+before it was raked, and he determined to fertilize well with a
+special corn fertilizer at planting time. Mr. Bronson mixed his own
+fertilizers. Early in the season Hiram had secured specimens of the
+soil on which he was to plant the corn, and had sent them to the State
+Agricultural College for examination.
+
+Therefore, he expected his employer to supply him with a chemical
+compound which would have in it just the needed ingredients to
+fertilize the soil in question for the growth of corn. But he knew
+these acres of Sunnyside had already been heavily cropped; and in
+spite of their having lain fallow for a year he did not look for any
+big crop. The long-tenanted farm was hungry for humus--something the
+chemicals could not put into it.
+
+"But at the last cultivation of the corn," he told Mr. Bronson, "we
+will sow crimson clover. Well limed as the land now is, we should get a
+good catch of clover. We'll cut it for hay in June--and cut it at the
+right time. I shouldn't want it to ball up in the stomachs of these
+splendid Percherons, for instance, and kill them, as many a good horse
+has been killed by crimson clover."
+
+"We usually plant wheat and clover together for hay," Mr. Bronson said.
+"I have had an unfortunate experience with crimson clover cut at the
+wrong time."
+
+"My father showed me the time to cut and cure it. It is safe as a
+church if handled right," declared Hiram vigorously. "But it should not
+be fed steadily without other hay. It would be like trying to bring up
+a child on sugar only. The youngster would like it all right--until he
+was made sick. So with the horses.
+
+"Now, we ought to get a good crop of hay off this corn land by June
+of next year. Then if we can broadcast the sod with compost or cattle
+manure we shall have an ideal soil for corn."
+
+"But, I say! you're figuring on following corn with corn and only
+clover between," exclaimed the farm owner.
+
+"Sure enough. And with the broadcasting of manure and a good, sharp
+fertilizer in the drill, I guarantee to make a fifty per cent. better
+crop on this same land next year than I can this, although next year's
+crop will have to be planted a month later than this, and I shall have
+to have help in the plowing."
+
+"All right! All right! Go ahead, Hiram," cried Mr. Bronson, literally
+throwing up his hands. "You are the most convincing talker for a young
+chap that I ever heard. But on my other farms I usually plant potatoes
+on clover sod."
+
+"Yes, the old and standard rotation of crops--corn, clover, potatoes.
+But Sunnyside is not potato raising soil. Nor are the marketing
+conditions right for going in heavily for such a crop. To make money
+here I thought we had agreed, Mr. Bronson, that nothing should be sold
+off Sunnyside save what can walk, outside of the wheat and corn?"
+
+"That's right. We did. And you are correct, my boy. But the old Irish
+Cobbler has made me so much money on my lower land around Plympton,
+on a three crop rotation, that I cannot get it out of my mind that it
+ought to work up here."
+
+"On Sunnyside we've got to raise corn, we've got to raise silage, and a
+part of the land should be excellent for grain if properly tilled."
+
+"I hear from Miss Pringle that for the last few years the wheat has not
+been much."
+
+"And the crop now in the ground will not be much," grumbled Hiram. "But
+believe me, Mr. Bronson, I won't put a grain of wheat in the ground
+next September unless I am pretty positive of a thirty bushel crop."
+
+"Sh! Don't let any of these old hardshells around here hear you say
+that or they'll think you are crazy. They don't average over twenty
+bushels to the acre, if they do that."
+
+"There's one man around here who is going to do better than that unless
+all signs fail," said Hiram quickly.
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"Yancey Battick."
+
+"What? Why, that wet, sour land of his isn't fit to grow wheat."
+
+"That's all right; but wait a while. Maybe he'll show you something.
+That is, barring the weather or the Hessian fly."
+
+"The weather we cannot control. We can only pray about that," said Mr.
+Bronson smiling. "But how about the Hessian fly and other insect pests?"
+
+"Luck. It's good luck if you don't have 'em and bad if you do,"
+answered Hiram.
+
+"Do you know anything about this new one--what they call the English
+wheat louse?"
+
+"Only that he's 'bad medicine,'" Hiram replied. "But I do have faith in
+one thing to help overcome the ravages of all pests on wheat."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"The use of a fertilizer in which nitrate of soda is prominent. The
+nitrate forces the growth and sometimes that puts the crop ahead of the
+fly or other vermin. There is not much fast-growing wheat on Sunnyside
+to-day, Mr. Bronson. Here it is corn-planting time and the wheat is not
+yet two feet high."
+
+"I've seen richer land, Hiram," rejoined the farm owner. "But I don't
+expect to see much richer around here than Sunnyside will have after
+a couple of years of your work. I'll supply the money, my boy, if you
+will supply the brains."
+
+"That swells me all up, Mr. Bronson," laughed Hiram, "But I never did
+claim that all the farm knowledge in the world is under my cap."
+
+"No one man or boy ever had too much of that, I can assure you," Mr.
+Bronson agreed. "But you must feel your responsibility. If Sunnyside
+is going to be a well tilled and profitable farm, it will come through
+your personal effort, more than by any other way, Hiram."
+
+Hiram Strong felt all this. He had taken a big contract on his
+shoulders, and he did not overlook that fact for a single waking hour.
+
+Mr. Bronson sent another corn planter from one of his other farms and
+the two teams cleaned up the Sunnyside corn patch in a week. It was the
+biggest acreage of corn Hiram had ever had anything to do with, and
+he looked over the great brown field from the altitude of the knoll
+on which the new farmhouse was being built with no little pride and
+satisfaction.
+
+[Illustration: The two teams cleaned up the Sunnyside cornpatch in a
+week.]
+
+Miss Delia Pringle had proved a true prophetess. The silo was finished,
+all but two of the hoops and the wire stays, and the carpenters were
+well at work on the new house. The lower floor was laid and the
+framework for the outer walls raised as high as the second story, and
+the back and sides were boarded in.
+
+Lettie Bronson arrived home on the eighth of June, and it was the
+evening of that day that had been set for the "house raising dance" at
+Sunnyside.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI
+
+                      TROUBLE WITH TURNER'S BULL
+
+
+The hard scrubby looking red and yellow corn that Hiram had got from
+Mr. Brown and tested so carefully, had planted a goodly patch of the
+Sunnyside cornland. Mr. Bronson looked at some of it as Hiram filled
+the two cylinders of the cornplanter, running several handfuls through
+his hand.
+
+"That's kind of scrubby looking stuff, Hiram," he observed doubtfully.
+"I sent you up better looking seed."
+
+"Yes, sir. Your seed certainly is well selected and graded," agreed the
+youth. "But I am not going to plant it on this lowland; not much of it,
+anyway. That big corn grows tall, I imagine, and takes plenty of time
+to grow, doesn't it?"
+
+"From a hundred and ten to a hundred and twenty days. But you are
+planting plenty early."
+
+"Yes. Only we may get frost on this lowland early in September. The
+farmers about here tell me they do, some years. And June frosts, too,
+once in a bad while. I am afraid, if we had a set-back in corn planting
+in June, that long-growing variety of yours would get scarcely glazed
+down here, before the September frost hit it. And it is not the sort of
+corn I want for silage."
+
+"I see. You always do have an answer ready, Hiram; and usually it's
+a good one. Though, truth to tell, an early September frost here is
+almost as unlikely as a July snow."
+
+"Just the same," his young employee said, "this corn that you think is
+so scrubby is due to make you a big crop. I am planting a specially
+prepared strip on that far side toward Battick's for seed."
+
+"No!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"But it isn't even pure breed, Hiram. There will be a dozen red ears to
+the bushel, I am certain."
+
+"Did you ever see a horse or a mule refuse a red ear of corn?"
+laughed Hiram. "I don't ever remember of seeing smut on an ear that
+turned out to be red--though that doesn't prove anything. And red ears
+make just as good meal as yellow."
+
+"I suppose you are right. But this looks like scrub."
+
+"If it comes right, when it is cured you can knock a steer down with
+an ear of it without knocking a kernel off the cob."
+
+"That will be some corn, boy!" chuckled Mr. Bronson.
+
+Hiram came up from the first raking of this seed corn patch at noontime
+of this beautiful June day to find Miss Pringle and some of the younger
+girls transforming the first floor of the new house at Sunnyside into
+a ballroom. Busy as they were at this time on the farm, both Hiram and
+Orrin gave the girls a helping hand during the afternoon.
+
+The carpenters built a small platform at the back of the house for the
+musicians. There was to be the piano brought over from Miss Pringle's,
+a violin, and a horn. Mr. Bronson had sent up a lot of Japanese
+lanterns, and these the boys strung as they were directed about the
+big, open floor and overhead. Chairs and benches were brought from the
+schoolhouse, half a mile or more away.
+
+The veranda flooring had likewise been laid, and the carpenters had
+built wide, rough steps by which the veranda could easily be reached.
+
+The girls swept out all the shavings and other litter, and the
+well-laid floor presented an attractive appearance to the eye of
+anybody who was fond of dancing. Just as the place was pronounced
+ready by Delia Pringle, and the girls and boys were retiring from the
+cleanly swept floor, Adam Banks appeared at the back door and coolly
+scrambled into the house.
+
+"Let's see how it is laid," he said, grinning, and beginning to clog
+clumsily with his heavy boots.
+
+He had been walking in muddy places, and every step he took on the
+clean boards rattled gravel and mud off his boots.
+
+"You get out of here, Ad Banks," commanded Miss Pringle, starting after
+him with broom and dust pan. "You are the biggest nuisance that ever
+was."
+
+"Aw, Delia, don't be harsh with a fellow," said Banks, grinning
+broadly. "You going to promise me a dance to-night?"
+
+"And you probably coming here half drunk!" announced the spinster,
+frankly. "I guess not!" announced the spinster, frankly. "I guess not!
+No indeed!"
+
+"You'd better. You'll be a wall-flower enough, Delia--you know you
+will."
+
+At that Miss Pringle flushed very red and her eyes fairly snapped.
+
+"If I never danced at all I wouldn't take on any such makeshift of a
+man as you, Ad Banks! Get out of here!" she commanded, "shooing" him
+with the broom.
+
+He grappled with her, still laughing in his lubberly way, and wrenched
+the broom from Miss Pringle's hands.
+
+"Oh, Delia," he sing-songed, "how I love you! You're the prettiest
+girl I know. Come on and give us a dance. No? Then I'll dance with the
+broom," and he proceeded to do a grotesque dance over the clean floor
+with the broomstick for a partner.
+
+"Now just look at what you've done, Ad Banks!" cried Miss Pringle
+almost in tears. "See that!"
+
+Broken cakes of mud were scattered about the floor wherever the fellow
+clogged while Miss Pringle looked on angrily.
+
+"That fellow needs a good licking," Orrin Post said to Hiram, while the
+girls loudly expressed their vexation at what Banks was doing.
+
+Hiram had quite made up his mind not to begin any personal violence
+with Adam Banks. The man had time and again sought to coax the young
+farm manager into a fight.
+
+Banks was half a head taller than Hiram and much bulkier in appearance.
+He could easily have overcome Orrin, who was slight and still suffering
+from the effects of the attack of measles.
+
+But when Orrin leaped back upon the veranda and started to enter
+the house, Hiram could not allow the matter to go farther without
+interference. He would not see Orrin attack a man plainly so much
+stronger than himself.
+
+"Hold on!" the young farm manager commanded. "You stay out of this,"
+and he caught the angry Orrin by the arm. "If anybody is going to make
+Adam Banks walk French, it has to be me. Really, nobody else has a
+right to throw him out, I presume, as I am the representative of the
+owner of the farm."
+
+"Hurry up and do something, then," growled Orrin. "I'm not going to
+stand around and see Delia abused."
+
+Hiram pushed ahead of his friend, and as Banks, still dodging and
+laughing at Miss Pringle, gyrated nearer, Hiram stepped quickly
+forward and seized him by his shirt collar and the waistband of his
+trousers.
+
+"Hi! Hey!" bawled Banks. "What are you trying to do?"
+
+He dropped the broom. He struggled mightily to break away. But all he
+could do was to kick and paw the air.
+
+Hiram had him right on the tips of his toes, and propelled him across
+the floor in a most undignified way and at great speed. Doubtless the
+young fellow's success arose from the unexpectedness of his attack; but
+Hiram was likewise very strong.
+
+He shot Banks out of the front door of the new house, across the
+veranda and down the steps, and thence across the front yard to the
+road.
+
+"Let me go! I'll kill you for this, Hi Strong!" Banks shouted.
+
+Hiram made no verbal reply to this threat, but to the delight and with
+the applause of the girls he flung Adam Banks from him with such force
+that the fellow sprawled on hands and knees in the dust.
+
+"There!" Hiram said. "I am sorry that I was obliged to do it; but I
+_have_ had to and so the matter is settled. Mr. Bronson told me to put
+you off the place and keep you off. I've done part of my duty--I've
+thrown you off of Sunnyside. I'll do the rest of it just so sure as you
+come loitering around here--I'll keep you off."
+
+"You blamed fool!" sputtered Banks, "don't you dare touch me again."
+
+"You step back on to the farm and see how quick I'll touch you."
+
+Banks, after so emphatic an exhibition of Hiram's ability to handle
+him, took it out in sputtering. He did not come back. But he threatened
+dire vengeance as he stumbled away. The girls and the carpenters
+working within sight approved of Hiram's exploit--so much so, indeed,
+that the young fellow was glad to get out of the way for a while after
+Banks had gone, and so escape their congratulations.
+
+But after supper at six-thirty in the workmen's shack, Hiram Strong
+was obliged to appear in front of the new house and meet people. What
+he had done to Adam Banks, the neighborhood bully, seemed to have been
+circulated by some method of grapevine telegraph, and Hiram realized
+that those who did not speak to him about it showed that they had heard
+the story by their curious smiles.
+
+He was a newcomer, and naturally his neighbors were sizing him up. The
+young farmer from the East expected they would be curious about him if
+not actually doubtful.
+
+The thing that soon began to make the deepest impression on the young
+manager of Sunnyside was the number of automobiles that were arriving.
+There were some horse-drawn buggies and carriages, but one after
+another the more popular makes of motor-cars arrived at the farm until
+there were more than fifty parked along the roadside.
+
+The Bronson car came after the dancing had begun. Hiram ran out to
+greet his employer and Lettie. The latter was dressed in the very
+height of city fashion and when she came up to the dancing floor on
+Hiram's arm the country girls fairly buzzed.
+
+But in spite of Lettie's _outré_ style in dress, she was by no means
+snobbish. She greeted everybody whom she knew with perfect freedom,
+and she displayed no air of patronage. Hiram thought to himself that
+Lettie Bronson had greatly improved during these past few months.
+
+Miss Pringle, who had already danced once with Hiram and once with
+Orrin, ran over to meet the daughter of the owner of Sunnyside Farm,
+and her effusive greeting only made Lettie laugh.
+
+"There is a whole flock of fellows here who will want to dance with
+you, Lettie Bronson," the young-old girl declared. "You'll have a good
+time here."
+
+"Of course she will," said her escort, smiling.
+
+"Hiram, first," declared Lettie, smiling up at her father's employee in
+a way to make the young fellow's heart increase its beat. "I haven't
+danced with him since we had our barn dance last corn husking at
+Scoville. Remember, Hiram?"
+
+"I should say I do," he agreed with warmth.
+
+"And then I want to know Orrin Post. Does he dance, Hiram?"
+
+"There he is now dancing with Miss Paulsen," said Hiram.
+
+"Of course Orrin can dance," Miss Pringle joined in.
+
+"You know Sister--or is it Cecilia?--is very much interested in this
+Orrin Post, too," Lettie said to Hiram as they got into step with the
+music. "I saw her and dear old Mrs. Atterson just the other day. You
+will have to make good here at Sunnyside, Hiram Strong, or you will
+disappoint Sister and Mrs. Atterson fearfully."
+
+"I mean to succeed. I hope all my friends will root for me from the
+side lines," laughed Hiram, yet with a certain wistful glance at his
+partner.
+
+"Of course we will," cried Lettie frankly. "And nobody will root any
+louder than 'yours truly,' Hiram. Why! next to father I am sure nobody
+can have your welfare more at heart than I."
+
+Lettie said this with her very best grown-up air. But it pleased Hiram
+a great deal. His interest in his employer's daughter was very deep and
+very serious. Lettie Bronson was the most interesting girl he had ever
+met.
+
+The dancing floor was now well filled every time the orchestra
+played, and the chairs and settees around the edge of the floor were
+crowded. It was a lively scene, and the lanterns furnished all the
+light necessary. At the openings for the windows that were not yet, of
+course, framed in, men and boys who did not dance stood and talked or
+smoked.
+
+The crowd increased both on the floor and outside the new house. Now
+and then Hiram went out to see what was going on. There was some
+shouting and ribald laughter at a distance, but the rowdy element
+seemed to keep away from the vicinity of the dance.
+
+"I hear you finally took my advice about Ad Banks," Mr. Bronson said to
+Hiram, chuckling, "and ran him off the place."
+
+"Folks are making too much of it," the young fellow replied. "Hullo!
+What is this coming?"
+
+There was a wood road through the burned-over patch belonging to Miss
+Pringle, and there was light enough from the moon and stars to show
+Hiram and those who stood with him on the front porch of the new house
+a crowd of men and boys approaching along this rough way.
+
+"There's Ad Banks now!" exclaimed one man. "You are going to have
+trouble with him, Bronson."
+
+"Not me," declared the farm owner. "It's all in Hiram's hands, and I
+have confidence that he can handle anything Banks can start."
+
+Hiram had already started for the road. A sharp cry arose in front:
+
+"Look out, there! That bull is as mad as he can be. Look out!"
+
+A huge, plunging shape came out of the wood path with two men, or boys,
+hanging on to the ropes hitched to the monster. The latter headed
+right across the road and those in the way scattered like chaff before
+a wind.
+
+"That's Turner's bull!" shouted somebody behind Hiram. "He is as savage
+as a lion."
+
+At that the two men clinging to the maddened animal let go of the
+ropes. With head down, and uttering a reverberating bellow, the
+creature came toward the new house on the floor of which the girls and
+boys were dancing.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII
+
+                             WHEAT HARVEST
+
+
+There had been two powerful lamps lifted from automobiles and placed so
+that they would light the veranda. Therefore the front of the partially
+built house and the yard were well illuminated.
+
+As the bull charged through the gap in the fence his coming cleared the
+yard in a hurry. The only person who stood his ground was Hiram, and he
+did not do so from any choice of his own.
+
+It seemed that the mad bull was aiming directly for the steps to the
+veranda, and the young farm manager stood directly in his path. The
+youth was not fear-paralyzed, but his mind was quite as empty of ideas
+at the moment as the others who had run in all directions. His single
+thought was:
+
+"If I only had a club!"
+
+Hiram Strong had not overpowering fear of this, or any other, bull. He
+quite realized the danger threatening whoever stood in the way of the
+beast. But he had dodged more than one animal of the kind, and with a
+hardwood stick in his hand he would not have been panic-stricken at
+this meeting. The nose of a bull is a very tender spot.
+
+"Oh, if I only had a club," the young farmer repeated to himself.
+
+But Hiram had no club, and he saw no other weapon within his reach. As
+Turner's bull charged across the yard directly at him, Hiram skipped
+backward until he reached the steps, and up those he stumbled.
+
+The figure of the young fellow--the only living thing in his
+path--evidently held the bull's attention. He came on after Hiram,
+uttering another bellow.
+
+Within those few seconds the excitement outside the new house was
+communicated to those inside. The music stopped suddenly; the girls
+began to scream. And when the boys at the bay windows began to shout
+that Turner's bull was loose a good many of the dancers and spectators
+acted as though the beast was already upon the dancing floor.
+
+And it actually did seem as though the animal had that very intention
+of entering the partly finished house. Hiram had no more than leaped up
+the steps than the bull plunged clatteringly after him.
+
+Had there been a bit of plank or a piece of scantling lying about,
+the young fellow might have beaten the bull back. But the girls that
+afternoon had cleaned up the rubbish all too thoroughly.
+
+Hiram flashed a single glance behind him. Within the wide opening left
+for the front door he caught a glimpse of the startled faces of both
+Lettie Bronson and Miss Pringle. They were both screaming some advice
+to him; but what it was they said Hiram did not know. The general
+hullabaloo drowning their cries. The excitement was growing.
+
+But here, through a gap in the front wall, darted another person. It
+was Orrin Post bringing with him a cape belonging to one of the dancers
+that he had caught up and which floated behind him like the cape of a
+matador.
+
+The flying garment doubtless caught the eye of the enraged bull. He
+bellowed again and again and stopped to paw the boards of the veranda
+floor.
+
+His hesitation was his undoing. Orrin rushed right in between Hiram and
+the bull and flung the cape over the bull's head. Quickly Hiram leaped
+forward to help, and between them he and Orrin wound the cape about the
+animal's head so that it could not shake off the all-smothering folds.
+
+[Illustration: Orrin ... flung the cape over the bull's head.]
+
+"We got him!" shouted Orrin, in high delight. "All right, Strong?"
+
+"Yes," replied Hiram. "Grab that rope. Here's one on this side. They
+are hitched to his horns. Whoever those fellows were, they had no need
+to let the beast go."
+
+"It was Banks and his friends. They did it purposely, you can just bet."
+
+"No doubt of that."
+
+All the ferocity of the bull seemed to have evaporated. They backed him
+off the veranda while the girls and boys returned with much excitement
+and noise. The bull, half smothered in the folds of the cape, uttered a
+rather plaintive "moo!"
+
+"Hear that creature, will you?" cried Miss Pringle's strident voice.
+Then, with increased excitement: "What have you got his head wrapped
+in, I want to know? For the land's sake if it isn't my best broadcloth
+cape! Now what do you folks know about that!"
+
+The laugh that rose after this excited statement by the spinster
+relieved the situation to some degree. But it did not pacify Hiram
+Strong's anger.
+
+"I wish with all my heart I had trounced that Banks fellow this
+afternoon when I had the chance," he declared to Orrin.
+
+"I agree with you. Nothing but a blamed good licking will ever do a
+fellow like him any good."
+
+"I don't want to do him good," grumbled Hiram. "I just want to pound
+him and make him suffer."
+
+But they were not likely to see Adam Banks again just then, or have a
+chance to beat him properly. Having encouraged younger boys to help
+lead Turner's bull from the pasture to Sunnyside and turn him loose,
+Banks had taken his own hasty departure.
+
+Then, evidently awakening to the enormity of his offence after he
+reached home, he packed a bag and departed from his father's house
+before daybreak and was not seen in the neighborhood again for some
+time.
+
+The excitement did not serve to spoil the house-raising dance, however,
+for when the bull was led away the crowd returned to the dance floor,
+and the gaiety continued until long after midnight.
+
+Hiram met most of the people worth knowing for a wide district
+surrounding Sunnyside Farm, and he was glad to make their acquaintance
+in this friendly way. Most of all, however, did he enjoy the dance
+because of the presence of Lettie Bronson. She gave him several dances,
+and when he finally put her into the car beside her father Hiram
+secretly felt that this evening was marked with a very agreeable
+milestone in his career.
+
+They next day opened a season of work even more strenuous than that
+which had gone before. The cultivating of the corn crop had to be
+carried on every day now unless it rained. Mr. Bronson had furnished
+Hiram a second small horse, and that, with Jerry, kept the cultivators
+and rake busy. The Percherons were too big and clumsy to use in the
+cornfield after the planting, and there was, too, plenty of other work
+for them to do.
+
+Such hay as there was on Sunnyside had to be harvested, and then came
+wheat harvest. Most of this crop--especially that on the twenty acre
+piece which had been underdrained--was rather thin. Sunnyside had not
+grown heavy crops for years--if it ever had--and Hiram felt somewhat
+doubtful about the final outcome of this attempt to make the old farm
+productive when he saw how slim the wheat crop was.
+
+They cut and stacked it, however, trusting that it would pay for
+thrashing later. Hiram went to the expense of removing the sheaves from
+the field entirely and building the stacks on a lot near the barns.
+Immediately he put the Percherons to work plowing the twenty acres
+along the county road.
+
+He had no stable manure to broadcast here; yet he desired to help fill
+his silo from this very piece of ground as well as to put the soil in
+better condition for winter wheat.
+
+The Percherons certainly earned their keep that week. It was dry, with
+the ground getting harder and more baked every day. Yet Hiram ploughed
+the piece deep and raked it well before setting out to broadcast a good
+dressing of bone meal.
+
+Turner came along and stopped to watch Hiram, who was himself riding
+the harrow which, in this case, pulverized the soil better than the
+disc machine.
+
+"I don't know why it is," the aged farmer said, as Hiram stopped near
+the road fence in a cloud of dust, "but this soil fines up, seems to
+me, after such late plowing, better than I ever remember its doing
+before. Why do you suppose that is, Mr. Strong?"
+
+Hiram smiled across the fence at him: "I never saw the piece plowed
+before, you know, Mr. Turner. I don't think much of it even now. But if
+there has been any change in the condition of the soil I am inclined to
+lay it to that foolish job of underdraining I did."
+
+"Pshaw! Nonsense! Couldn't be that!" exclaimed the old fellow, driving
+on. "We ain't had no rain to amount to anything yet. When I see the
+water pouring out o' those log drains of yours into the county ditch
+I'll take back all that I said about that foolishness."
+
+"Mighty hard work to convince some people they are wrong," chuckled
+Hiram to himself, as he started the Percherons again. "But it looks as
+if we would get enough rain pretty soon to prove one of us--either Mr.
+Turner or me--in the wrong."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII
+
+                           THE BABY TORNADO
+
+
+Hiram had not lost sight of the fact that Yancey Battick's wheat had
+promised to be better than any of that planted on Sunnyside, to say the
+least; and although since his rather serious experience with Battick
+and his gun he had barely nodded to the strange man in passing the old
+Pringle homestead, Hiram had been very curious as to how Battick's crop
+was coming on.
+
+While Mr. Bronson's binder was at Sunnyside Hiram offered Battick the
+use of the machine.
+
+"Of course, I will drive it myself, so nobody else need know anything
+about your crop," Hiram said.
+
+"Very kind of you, Mr. Strong," said Battick, but in such a way that
+Hiram was not at all sure whether the man was still suspicious or not.
+"But I am going to reap that field with a sickle. I always do. This
+seed wheat is too precious to waste with a binder. I cradle it by hand
+and shall thrash it with a flail, too. That wheat which you happened
+to see in my house was harvested in the same way; and then it was all
+winnowed and selected by hand, grain by grain."
+
+"Some job!"
+
+"But worth it if I can once get a sufficient quantity to interest a big
+seed house."
+
+"I presume so," agreed Hiram. "How does your wheat stand the dry
+weather?"
+
+"I take it you have not been over to see it of late?"
+
+"I can assure you I have not crossed the line fence since you showed
+me so plainly how you felt toward even innocent trespassers," Hiram
+rejoined stiffly.
+
+Battick gave him a sidewise glance and said nothing for a moment. He
+was leaning, smoking his pipe, on his sagging front gate.
+
+"Come on down to the field and take a look at my wheat, Mr. Strong,"
+said the man at last, and only because Hiram saw that it was such an
+exertion for Yancey Battick to give the invitation did the youth accept.
+
+They walked down past the old house, and Hiram saw that Battick had now
+made plank shutters to all his lower windows which fitted flush with
+the frames and were barred on the inside. He certainly had prepared to
+withstand a siege!
+
+It seemed silly. Surely the man's troubles must have turned his brain.
+Yet when Hiram considered what Battick had suffered of wrong and
+disappointment, he did not altogether blame him, sane or not.
+
+"And this wheat is a wonder!" the young farmer thought.
+
+He said it aloud when he came in sight of the field in question. It was
+not more than an acre in extent, and he presumed it was the best spot
+on the little farm which Miss Pringle had sold Battick along with the
+old homestead.
+
+The undulating field of grain was shoulder high and was now all of a
+wonderful golden hue. Such a field of golden luxuriance Hiram had never
+before seen. The wheat was of a bearded variety, the awns very stiff
+and long, while the ear itself was the fullest and longest Hiram had
+ever seen.
+
+"It is a picture! A picture!" he declared with enthusiasm.
+
+Yancey Battick's leathery face lit up as might the face of an artist
+who heard his masterpiece praised. His gloomy eyes glowed. There was
+even a smile trembling on his lips as he said:
+
+"You are right, Mr. Strong. It is one of the finest pictures ever
+painted by Nature. A field of wheat, when you consider it, is the most
+wonderful thing to contemplate on this, our western hemisphere. Next
+to rice, it is the grain most depended upon as the staple of human
+consumption. And when used in its entire, or whole, state it has no
+rival for nourishment and health.
+
+"An entire rationing of a people with rice may, some medical men claim,
+nourish the germ of leprosy; we know that badly cured corn is the start
+of the dreaded pelagra. But wheat--even when refined and bleached until
+its goodness is all but wasted--brings no disease in its train save
+indigestion and that quite an unnecessary result of its use. Ground as
+a whole grain and properly baked, we need not even fear indigestion.
+More and more is the bread made from wheat becoming the Staff of Life."
+
+"You certainly have a variety here," Hiram said, carefully examining
+one of the ears, "that might well be named that when you put it on the
+market, Mr. Battick."
+
+"Named what?"
+
+"'Staff of Life Wheat,' you know," Hiram said, smiling.
+
+"A good suggestion, Mr. Strong--a cracking good suggestion," declared
+Battick, with some enthusiasm. "I'll bear that in mind."
+
+"And can I have one of these heads, Mr. Battick?" Hiram asked.
+"Frankly, I'd like to show it to Mr. Bronson."
+
+The man started, reddened, and glared at the young farmer sharply
+again. His easily roused suspicion was immediately awakened. But Hiram
+looked at him steadily--unwinkingly. Battick's gaze finally fell.
+
+"You know how I feel about it, Mr. Strong. Your Mr. Bronson may be an
+all right man; but it was just such men as he appears to be who robbed
+me of my Mortgage Lifter Oats."
+
+"He won't rob you, I guarantee," Hiram said shortly.
+
+Meanwhile Battick plucked several of the long plants and handed them to
+Hiram.
+
+"You won't find their like around this part of the country, that is
+sure," the proud owner of the new wheat said. "If I had better land on
+which, this coming fall, to plant the grain I have, I should feel the
+time was ripe next season to sound some seedsman."
+
+"I hope you will make a fortune out of it, Mr. Battick," said Hiram
+with earnestness.
+
+"No fear!" bitterly returned the man. "But I mean to try. Of course,
+Mr. Strong, I'd just as soon you wouldn't show that grain to everybody."
+
+"I understand."
+
+"Or tell the folks around here where you got it."
+
+"Trust me," rejoined the young man.
+
+After he had left Battick, however, he thought of something. There was
+probably one person in the neighborhood--or of the neighborhood--who
+knew about Battick's wheat and about Battick's former ill-fated
+attempts to make something out of breeding seed.
+
+Should he turn back and speak to Battick about Adam Banks? Ad had gone
+away. Hiram had heard that after the night of the dance at Sunnyside
+the fellow had gone to another county and was working on a farm.
+
+"Let sleeping dogs lie," muttered the young farm manager. "And Ad Banks
+is a dog all right."
+
+The twenty acres of the Sunnyside farm along the county road, and on
+which Hiram had made his experiment in underdraining, was now in shape
+for replanting. There had been no rain, but if a farmer did not have
+hope--and especially hope in helpful weather conditions--there would
+be few crops planted. The twenty acres were made into a smooth and
+good seed bed; but when he went upon it with the Percherons and the
+grain-drill the dust rose and floated in a stifling cloud across the
+field.
+
+"I am afraid that a part of my bone meal is drifting off this field
+with the dust," he told Orrin. "Loose as ashes, by jinks! But if I can
+get the seed in and covered deep, and if a rain comes--"
+
+He had stopped every other spout of the drill and filled the boxes
+alternately with silage corn and cowpeas. The drill had to be arranged
+in a particular way to sow these large grains properly.
+
+The corn was of a low-growing variety and the ears would be pretty
+sure to glaze in seventy-five days. The cowpeas, rich in nitrogen
+and a soil improver almost unsurpassed, would be at their best
+condition--green-podded and with the leaves still clinging to the
+vines--when the corn was ready to cut. Harvested together, shredded and
+blown into the silo, this crop should pretty well fill that huge tank.
+
+There were now on Sunnyside nearly forty head of yearlings and
+two-year-olds. Mr. Bronson picked up all the strays about his other
+farms and brought them to Hiram. The Sunnyside pastures were in good
+condition, and now all the young cattle were far down in the river-lots
+getting sleek and fat at practically no expense to their owner.
+
+Hiram desired to have plenty of the right kind of feed for them the
+coming winter. And the next year he hoped to feed the herd almost
+altogether at the barns so as to conserve a greater proportion of the
+fertilizer which the cattle made.
+
+Yes, Hiram desired to see that silo filled, and with just such
+succulent silage as would make the herd of young cattle put on flesh
+at a cheap rate. He got the twenty acres planted, and the Saturday
+afternoon he finished the job, thunder heads gathered in the west and
+south, threatening a tempest if nothing more.
+
+Dolan and MacComb were pretty well along with the new house now. In
+fact, by hastening the erection of that building the carpenters had
+neglected the completion of the silo, although Hiram had spoken of this
+neglect on several occasions.
+
+Of course, he had no authority over the contractors or their men; but
+the iron hoops and cable-stays for the silo not having been at hand
+when the walls of the tank were completed and the roof on, the gang had
+been taken off the silo job and had not gone back to finish it.
+
+When Hiram and Orrin drove the sweating team of Percherons back to the
+yard with the drill the carpenters had picked up their tools for the
+day and were getting ready to depart in a big auto-bus for Plympton.
+They all went home over Sunday, and besides Hiram and Orrin Post only
+one farm laborer and a boy remained on Sunnyside over the week-end.
+Even the cook went home, and the four remaining on the farm had to make
+out as well as they could with amateur cooking until Monday morning.
+
+"Everything is all right at the house, Mr. Strong," said the boss
+carpenter to Hiram. "The windows are in and the roof is tight at last.
+If it rains it can't do us any harm."
+
+"Say!" exclaimed the young farmer. "How about if a big wind came up?
+Those clouds over yonder look ugly."
+
+"Oh, no baby tornado is going to do the house any damage," declared the
+boss, following his men into the bus.
+
+"How about the silo? Suppose something happens to it?"
+
+"Oh, that'll be all right. Anyway, it is too late to put those bands on
+now."
+
+"Or the wire stays?" cried Hiram as the automobile started.
+
+"Pshaw! You are an old Betty, Hi Strong!" sang out one of the
+carpenters as the machine rolled out of the yard. "I don't believe it
+will rain enough to lay the dust."
+
+However, that prophecy went by the board before Hiram and his helpers
+got the chores done at Sunnyside that evening. They ran for the shack
+as the big drops of water began to fall. The drops soon turned to
+sheets of wind-driven rain that slatted against the walls of the shed
+like sleet.
+
+In the midst of the supper preparations Orrin opened the door to look
+out. He stared through the thinning rain toward the south.
+
+"She's letting up, boys," he said confidently, and then turned to look
+across the road and up the hillside. Immediately his voice changed and
+the cry he uttered was one of positive fear.
+
+"What's the matter?" Hiram shouted, and all of them darted out of the
+door.
+
+The moment the old man, Blodger by name, looked over the shoulder of
+the hill he threw up his hands and shrieked:
+
+"It's coming! Tornado! The wind'll change and come from the
+north--right from the North Pole--in a minute. There!"
+
+For an instant it was calm and the rain ceased. Then, with a whistle
+and roar and the sudden writhing of the branches in the wood, the
+tornado came. It might be only a "baby," but to Hiram's mind the
+funnel of black cloud sweeping down upon Sunnyside seemed a full-grown
+wind-storm indeed.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX
+
+                          DISASTER THREATENS
+
+
+"Who's that scurrying down the road toward Pringleton?" demanded
+Blodger in the lull before the tornado struck Sunnyside.
+
+They all saw the man hurrying along the county road with the tails of
+his coat over his head. Jim Larry, the boy, shrieked:
+
+"I believe that is Ad Banks. What's he doing around here? I thought he
+was working over at Loomisville."
+
+Nobody gave the running figure much attention. The phenomenon of the
+coming tornado quite filled their minds.
+
+The whine of the wind rose to a demoniac shriek. Hiram turned to shout
+to his companions and a sudden gust seemed to take his breath so
+completely that he could not utter a sound.
+
+He staggered, crouching, and seized Orrin Post who was actually being
+swept down the yard by the force of the gust. Jim Larry had scuttled to
+cover. Blodger stood in the doorway of the shack yelling something that
+Hiram could not understand.
+
+The trees across the road and up the hillside bent and writhed as
+though seeking to uproot themselves. Into the air sprang a shed on the
+Pringle place, and when it had crossed the road and was about ten feet
+above the ground it fairly exploded as though a bomb had been set off
+inside of it.
+
+Then the tornado struck Sunnyside--struck the place in all its fury.
+
+There was not much rain, but what there was, blown by this terrible
+gale, cut like a knife. Loose boards began to fly over the yard.
+Everything the wind could get under seemed to shoot right up into the
+air. There was a cloud of light litter sucked up into the churning
+black mass that was flying over the farm.
+
+Hiram and Orrin had managed to get into the lee of the shed. The wind
+thundered against it, shaking the structure as though to tear it loose
+from its foundations. But being low it did not offer the resistance
+of a higher structure, and perhaps was as safe from disaster as any
+building about the farm.
+
+"Unless we got into the cellar," Orrin managed to make Hiram hear.
+
+"Seems as though this wind would scoop us right out of a cellar,"
+shouted Hiram. "Hey! Look there!"
+
+He pointed to the corner of the barn where the silo stood. The round
+tank positively shook under the recurrent blows of the wind!
+
+"She's going!" yelled Orrin in dismay. "She's going!"
+
+"Like fun she is!" returned the other young fellow. "Those bands and
+cables should have been put on. But as the tank's empty and there is
+nothing to hold her down, she'll shift on her foundation if we don't do
+something."
+
+"We can't help it, Strong," objected Orrin.
+
+"We can try," returned Hiram forcefully. "You get Blodger and Jim. I'm
+going over there. There are two sets of fastenings for the cables on
+the barn and the barn won't blow down--that's a sure thing."
+
+"I don't know that it is a sure thing," grumbled Orrin. "You'll take
+your life in your hands if you go out there."
+
+But Hiram had already started. The wind did not come steadily, and he
+ran stooping between gusts to the silo. The wire cables, cut as he knew
+to proper length and wound on a spool, lay with some other material
+against the barn foundations.
+
+Of course, Hiram knew they could not put on the iron bands; but if they
+could pass a couple of the length of cable around the silo and fasten
+them to the barn Hiram was sure it would aid in keeping the tank on its
+foundation.
+
+He looked back across the yard and saw Orrin propel the frightened Jim
+out of the doorway of the shack; and he had to fairly drag Blodger out
+as well. Both the old man and the boy knew these tornadoes too well to
+desire to be out-of-doors.
+
+Hiram was endeavoring to unwind the first cable alone when the others
+reached him. He had fastened the end of the twisted wire through one
+of the rings in the side of the barn about eight feet from the ground.
+They unwound the entire length of this first cable, struggling against
+the wind, and carrying the end around the silo.
+
+Here the fastening ring was too high to be reached without the aid of
+a ladder. The carpenters had left their various ladders behind the
+new house. Hiram spied them, and, shouting to Orrin to come with him,
+started against the wind for that place.
+
+They had actually to tack like a boat in a heavy seaway to reach the
+ladders. And coming back, each bearing an end of the ladder selected,
+they were blown to the ground half a dozen times.
+
+This was the most awful gale Hiram, at least, had ever been out in.
+And for the four of them to raise the light ladder was one of the most
+serious tasks one could imagine.
+
+Meanwhile the silo was weaving back and forth in a threatening manner.
+Hiram had selected a ladder long enough to enable him to reach the
+upper ring intended for the second cable. Two of his helpers had to
+hold the ladder steady, however, while the other handed him the end
+of the wire cable. It took more than half an hour of hard fighting to
+secure both ends of the two wire ropes.
+
+[Illustration: Two of his helpers had to hold the ladder steady while
+the other handed him the end of the wire cable.]
+
+The silo rocked back and forth, the vibrations seeming, of course,
+much greater than they really were. But the cables--or good
+workmanship--held it in place. The four got back to the living shack
+and cowered therein in darkness for another two hours before the wind
+really ceased blowing. The rain had stopped long since, and beyond the
+hurrying shreds of cloud the moon and stars appeared.
+
+Drenched as everything had been by the first tempest, the ground was
+now fast becoming dry. The water drained away quickly from the knoll on
+which the Sunnyside buildings stood.
+
+As soon as the danger from the big wind was over, however, Hiram had
+thought for another thing. He lit a lantern and said to Orrin:
+
+"Come on down the road and take a look."
+
+"Who for? That Ad Banks? If he's drowned in the ditch I wouldn't much
+care."
+
+"I'd forgotten all about him," confessed Hiram. "But come on. I want to
+look at something."
+
+Curiously Orrin followed him while the old man and the boy sought their
+bunks. The rain had washed and rutted the road deeply. The ditches were
+carrying the surplus water off, however.
+
+At the first cross-drain through the recently planted corn and pea
+field Hiram flashed the light of his lantern into the ditch. A stream
+of water the size of his leg was spurting from the opening.
+
+"Cracky! Look at that!" ejaculated Orrin. "Why, Strong, _the darned
+thing works_!"
+
+"Of course it works. Didn't I tell you it would?" replied the young
+farm manager.
+
+They went on along the road, and at every such opening the yellow flood
+poured forth. That particular twenty acres of Sunnyside Farm would
+never be sour or lumpy to work as long as Hiram's simple underdraining
+scheme continued to work so successfully as it was now doing.
+
+They were about to turn to go back to the house when Orrin clutched
+Hiram by the arm and pointed toward Yancey Battick's place.
+
+"What's the matter down there do you suppose?" he asked, with anxiety.
+
+There was a sudden glow against the sky, seemingly rising from behind
+Battick's buildings. Then a long streamer of flame bannered into the
+air above the treetops.
+
+"It's a fire! Something's burning!" declared Hiram.
+
+The two lads set off on a hard run down the road toward the old Pringle
+homestead which Yancey Battick occupied.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX
+
+                               A BARGAIN
+
+
+Before Hiram Strong and Orrin Post reached the strip of woodland that
+divided the open field of Sunnyside from the old Pringle place they
+heard somebody shouting. After the passing of the rain and the terrible
+gale of wind the whole countryside seemed very quiet. This raucous
+voice could have been heard a mile:
+
+"Fire! Fire!"
+
+"It must be his house," Orrin panted, having some difficulty in keeping
+up with the young farm manager.
+
+"That flame is too far back for the house," Hiram rejoined with
+confidence.
+
+"The barn, then?"
+
+"It is something at any rate," was the grim reply.
+
+The flames were streaming high in the air; yet before the young fellows
+reached Battick's gate the fire seemed decreasing. They could still
+hear Battick hoarsely shouting.
+
+Entering by the gate they dashed around the house and out behind the
+barns. Hiram had felt, although he had not said it to Orrin, that he
+knew the nature of the disaster. Yancey Battick's stack of wheat was
+more than half consumed!
+
+He had been running madly from pump to stack, trying to throw enough
+water on the sheaves to put out the fire. But the blaze had burned up
+through the very heart of the stack. It must have, indeed, to have
+burned the wheat at all after the exceedingly heavy rain of three hours
+before.
+
+"You're too late! Too late!" shrieked the man wildly. "They have got
+me again. What did I tell you, Strong?" for he recognized the young
+manager of Sunnyside by the fading light of the fire.
+
+"Why didn't you pull the stack to pieces?" shouted Orrin, beginning to
+burrow into the bottom of the stack which the fire seemed not to have
+consumed, a good deal as a terrier would burrow for a rat. "Come on,
+Hiram. We can save some of this wheat."
+
+But the sheaves which he dragged out proved to have had their heads
+entirely burned. Although the flames soon flickered out and left but a
+smouldering heap, there was but very little wheat left.
+
+"They got me again! They got me again!" mourned the shaken Battick.
+"What did I tell you, Mr. Strong?"
+
+"Why, Mr. Battick, do you really believe some enemy burned your wheat
+stack?"
+
+"It certainly was no friend of mine," returned the man laughing wildly.
+
+"You said a true word there, Brother," Orrin Post remarked bluntly.
+"Whom do you suspect?"
+
+"Who about here knew anything about this wheat?" asked Hiram. "Yes, you
+might as well let Orrin know about it. I can assure you I have not told
+him."
+
+"What's that?" asked Post curiously.
+
+"This wheat!" almost sobbed Yancey Battick. "It was a special variety
+that I was raising for seed. They have burned it up on me! Oh, the
+rascals!"
+
+"Who do you suspect?" demanded Orrin again. "Couldn't it have been set
+on fire by accident?"
+
+"How by accident? There was no lightning accompanied that tempest. I
+tell you somebody came here and set it off. I have had as bad done to
+me before."
+
+"Who could it have been?" Hiram murmured. "And so soon after that
+terrible wind. You wouldn't think anybody would have gone out in that
+gale to do a neighbor an ill turn."
+
+"Hey!" ejaculated Orrin suddenly. "There's that Ad Banks."
+
+"Where?" demanded Hiram turning around quickly.
+
+"I don't mean that he is here now," Orrin said grimly. "But don't you
+remember we saw him coming down the road in this direction in the
+middle of that rain storm?"
+
+"So we did," Hiram agreed.
+
+"Banks isn't at home now," said Yancey Battick, looking at the two
+young fellows doubtfully.
+
+"We saw him all right," Orrin declared. "Jim Larry who works up at
+Sunnyside knows him well. Lives right on the next farm to the Bankses."
+
+"Mr. Battick!" exclaimed Hiram, smitten by a new thought, "have you
+ever had any trouble with Ad Banks?"
+
+"I told you once I had to run him off my place."
+
+"And there is something I did not tell you," Hiram went on. "Remember
+the day I was over looking at your wheat field? Back there in the
+spring, I mean?"
+
+"Yes, I remember, Mr. Strong," said Battick, reddening.
+
+"When I left you that day I chanced to see Adam Banks sneaking through
+the underbrush away from that very log on which we had been sitting to
+talk!"
+
+"Had he been eavesdropping?" demanded Battick angrily.
+
+"Like enough. I did not give it much thought at the time. But he may
+have learned at that time all about this special wheat."
+
+"He did it!" ejaculated Battick. "He was paid to do it, I bet."
+
+"We-ell," said Hiram thoughtfully, "that's rather jumping at
+conclusions without much evidence. But it might be."
+
+"It is!" repeated Yancey Battick. "They told me Ad Banks went over to
+Loomisville to work."
+
+"That is right," Orrin said.
+
+"That," said Battick significantly to Hiram, "is where I lived before
+I came here. They robbed me of my Mortgage Lifter Oats over in that
+neighborhood."
+
+Orrin looked at him curiously, but Hiram understood.
+
+"You think they might have sent Ad over here to do this?" the manager
+of Sunnyside said thoughtfully.
+
+"I'm sure they did."
+
+But Hiram was not convinced. He began to see flaws in this theory.
+
+"How did Banks set it off? How could anybody have set it off?" he
+queried.
+
+"With a match," said Orrin, grinning faintly in the lantern light.
+
+"That's all right," Hiram said. "But we saw Banks coming down this way
+when the rain was almost over. This stack was thoroughly wet on the
+outside by that time."
+
+"It was set off somehow inside," interposed Battick. "When I looked out
+of my door after the big wind the flames were shooting right out of the
+peak of the stack. It had been smouldering all that time deep down in
+the heart of the pile."
+
+"Yes. Well, like the famous query about the old woodchuck's hole: How
+did the fire get there?"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Battick and Orrin in unison.
+
+"If the fire had been set before the wind, it would have spread much
+sooner. Doesn't that stand to reason?"
+
+"Uh-huh!" agreed Orrin, although Battick looked doubtful.
+
+"Of course! And if it was set on fire after the wind stopped, how did
+the incendiary get his fire into the heart of the wet stack?"
+
+"You're just asking questions," snarled Battick. "Why don't you say
+something that is worth while?"
+
+"I will say something," replied Hiram. "I'll say this much: Perhaps
+your stack was not burned by an enemy, Mr. Battick. It might even be
+your own fault."
+
+"What do you mean?" snapped the other with a sour look.
+
+"You are a smoker," said Hiram; "and it might be that you dropped a
+match when you were stacking this wheat. It's been done more than once."
+
+"What do you mean?" cried Battick, "That it has taken all this time for
+a match to ignite? Do you mean by spontaneous combustion?" he scoffed.
+
+"Not at all. I mean that it may have been ignited by the sharp little
+teeth of a field mouse. Such things have happened."
+
+"That's right!" exclaimed Orrin. "I believe a fodder stack where I
+worked once was burned in that way."
+
+"Mice and rats have been my bane since I came to this old Pringle place
+to live," admitted Yancey Battick slowly. "But I think your idea is
+far-fetched, Mr. Strong."
+
+"At least, it is as good an idea as that Adam Banks set the stack off.
+We ought to find proof before we accuse the fellow."
+
+"I don't mean to accuse him. What good would that do?" demanded Battick
+in disgust. "The harm is done. I've lost my wheat--"
+
+"But you have all that in the house for fall seed," Hiram said.
+
+"Yes," growled Battick. "And I mean to guard that with my gun. I mean
+to warn everybody that I'll put something besides rock-salt in my
+shotgun after this."
+
+"Whew!" ejaculated Orrin Post, "you sound very savage."
+
+"I do not blame you for feeling as you do, Mr. Battick," said Hiram
+cautiously, "even although I think you have jumped to a wrong
+conclusion. But I am sure trying to shoot your neighbors, good or bad,
+will not help you. I have an idea I'd like to talk over with you and
+will do so the next time I am down this way. But it is time we were all
+in bed now."
+
+He and Orrin started back for Sunnyside. The latter asked Hiram:
+
+"Where do you suppose that Ad Banks did go, Strong?"
+
+"I haven't the least idea."
+
+"Do you really think he had nothing to do with that fire?"
+
+"At least, Battick can show no proof. Suspicion only, breeds trouble. I
+am inclined to blame the field mouse instead."
+
+"Humph! Well, maybe," grumbled Orrin Post.
+
+"At any rate it will do no good to spread abroad any suspicions you
+may feel about it."
+
+"We-ell."
+
+"Promise me you will not speak of Banks in connection with the fire."
+
+"Oh, all right! If you don't want me to," said Orrin promptly.
+
+"It's a bargain," Hiram rejoined, and they dropped the subject for the
+time being.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI
+
+                        A PARTNERSHIP IS FORMED
+
+
+Not until morning was the full result of the tornado revealed on and
+about Sunnyside. Most of the buildings being comparatively new, Hiram
+found that few had suffered. The sheds were under the break of the
+hill, anyway; therefore he looked for little misfortune there.
+
+The silo had suffered despite the efforts they had made to stay it with
+the wire ropes. It had a decided list to the east and was no longer set
+true upon its cement foundation. The neglect of the carpenters in not
+staying it firmly before the storm came was a matter that would have to
+be settled between them and Mr. Bronson. Hiram was glad it did not come
+under his jurisdiction.
+
+The young farm manager had enough trouble of his own. The heavy rain
+which had preceded the gale of wind had beaten some of the corn on the
+lowlands almost flat to the ground. It was about two feet high and the
+sun of Sunday, the day following the tempest, began to revive the corn.
+
+But it was evident that it would be impossible to get into those fields
+with the cultivators for several days. At this stage of the corn crop
+continual cultivation was necessary. Hiram had always followed a system
+of cultivation not altogether approved of by corn raisers in this
+vicinity.
+
+All cultivation, Hiram had previously held, should not be shallow. It
+was all right to use a two- or three-horse hoe as most of the corn-belt
+farmers do, until the plant is half-leg high. But after that Hiram
+believed in using the fluke harrow.
+
+"Now we've seen something of what can be done to a field of corn by
+a big wind and rain. If such another baby tornado comes in August or
+September," Hiram said to Orrin Post, "and knocks the corn down, it
+never will recover unless the area of rootage is very wide and strong.
+
+"In the South they plow corn in July to hold up the stalk through
+heavy winds and rains; but that leaves the land in bad shape for the
+following tillage. I like to use a fluke harrow and cultivate deep.
+Tear right through the small roots and rip them apart. That more than
+doubles the root-system and finally gives the plant a hold on the soil
+that will enable it to stand up under almost any kind of blow and
+rain."
+
+"Shallow and frequent cultivation seems to be the rule around here,"
+Orrin remarked.
+
+"Yes. And Mr. Turner tells me that only year before last he lost
+fifteen acres in one piece by the corn being knocked down in a big wind
+and hail storm just as it was silking. However, our cultivating is
+going awfully slow. I don't know but I shall have to get Mr. Bronson
+to furnish one of those three-horse hoes for next year, if I am really
+going to make a corn crop."
+
+This conversation was carried on while Hiram and Orrin were driving
+over to the pasture behind Jerry, and carrying with them a tub of salt
+for the cattle. Salting the cattle is always a Sunday job on the farm;
+but as a usual thing Hiram went to church before going to the pasture.
+
+They had got up too late on the morning after the tornado, however, to
+drive to the church service. It was only high noon when they came to
+the pasture gate.
+
+"I don't see that spotted yearling," Orrin said, as he climbed down to
+open the gate and the herd began to turn toward them. "He's usually
+right at the head of the bunch."
+
+"That red one with the crooked horn is missing, too," Hiram said, "I am
+afraid something has happened, Orrin."
+
+"Oh, they've just strayed away," said Post cheerfully. "Don't be
+worried."
+
+However, after the herd had come up and been counted and they found
+that four were missing, even Orrin acknowledged that there was reason
+for anxiety. They salted the young stock and then left Jerry to graze
+while they beat the pasture brush and the woods adjoining in search of
+the four missing animals.
+
+There was a plain path of the tornado's passing in this patch of wood.
+Several trees were uprooted and one huge forest monarch that had been
+struck by lightning years before and had stood dead and stripped of
+bark, had been snapped off at the butt.
+
+Under its heavy and sprawling limbs lay the four young steers, their
+backs broken by the weight of the fallen tree.
+
+"There lies a hundred dollars profit, as sure as you live, Orrin,"
+Hiram Strong declared. "I hate to tell Mr. Bronson that. And look at
+that silo, too."
+
+"Don't worry," said the other, but looking grimly at the dead cattle.
+"You did not bring the wind, I should hope. And that silo isn't your
+business, either."
+
+Hiram, nevertheless, was much disturbed by the unfortunate accident.
+Mr. Bronson and Lettie came up to Sunnyside that afternoon. The loss
+of the young cattle was, of course, irreparable; but the owner of
+Sunnyside declared he would demand that Dolan and MacComb straighten
+up the silo and make it firm before the next wind.
+
+"Maybe I would have been wiser had I built the silo of cement, after
+all," he said to his young farm manager. "It is hard to know sometimes
+where real economy begins. 'Penny wise and pound foolish' is not my
+usual failing--
+
+"How about your log drains, Hiram? That was another economy."
+
+"You ought to have seen the water spurting out of the drains after that
+big rain last night. Come down there and have a look now."
+
+He included Lettie in this invitation and hoped that she would come;
+but the girl tossed her head, although it was with a smile that she
+refused.
+
+"That is all I hear--farming," she said. "Now that I have finished
+school I think papa ought to take me to some summer resort this year.
+I'm tired of Plympton."
+
+"Wait till you are grown up, Lettie," said Mr. Bronson carelessly.
+
+"If I'm not grown up yet, when shall I be?" asked the girl. "I'll soon
+be an old maid like Delia Pringle."
+
+Mr. Bronson and Hiram laughed at this statement. But the latter felt
+that Lettie was more in earnest than her father considered. St. Beris
+seemed to develop its pupils rather early. Hiram was glad that Sister
+did not attend that school--not, however, that he really compared
+Sister to Lettie Bronson in any way!
+
+However, Lettie Bronson went over to call on Miss Pringle while her
+father and Hiram started down the road toward Battick's place. From
+every drain the water was still pouring into the roadside ditch, but of
+course not in the volume it had the night before.
+
+Mr. Bronson cheered up immediately when he saw this.
+
+"And not a puddle in sight on the whole twenty acres! Well, Hiram, it
+looks as though you had done a good job here--and saved me money. We
+won't worry over the dead yearlings. That you certainly could not help.
+The tree you tell about must have fallen in the midst of the herd. It
+is fortunate no more of them were killed.
+
+"One of my neighbors near Plympton had his barn torn to pieces last
+night and all his cattle killed. Who else suffered around here?"
+
+"I am not sure that anybody suffered much damage by the tornado, but
+Yancey Battick lost his stack of wheat--and it was a wonder of a stack!"
+
+"Did he have much?"
+
+"It was the handsomest wheat I ever saw," Hiram told him earnestly. "I
+want to show you a sample of it that he gave me, Mr. Bronson. I think
+there would have been thirty-five or forty bushels of it when it was
+thrashed."
+
+"Humph! At the price wheat is going to be--"
+
+"He has got a new variety and had raised it for seed," Hiram explained.
+
+When they got back to the farm buildings he showed his employer the
+heads of grain Battick had given him. They shelled out the wheat. Every
+grain of it was perfect, with the tiny red stripe upon one side. Hiram
+watched Mr. Bronson's face with interest as the big farmer examined the
+kernels of wheat.
+
+"My goodness, Hiram!" exclaimed the man at last, "do you mean to say
+that Battick had bred this wheat--that it is all alike?"
+
+"I have every reason to believe it is all fully as good as that in your
+hand and true to type."
+
+"And he's lost it all?"
+
+"He has lost his crop for this year. He believes the stack was set on
+fire."
+
+"No!"
+
+"Yes, sir. And you cannot blame him after what he has been through. Let
+me tell you, Mr. Bronson."
+
+They sat down and Hiram related the details of the story Yancey Battick
+had told him, as well as of his own adventures with the strange man.
+
+"Well," was Mr. Bronson's first comment, "I had an idea that Battick
+was not quite right in his head. But I guess he is sane enough. And an
+educated man, too, isn't he?"
+
+"I should not wonder if he were college-bred; only he has grown
+careless of speech. And he certainly is a crank."
+
+"Who could blame him?" muttered Mr. Bronson thoughtfully.
+
+They discussed the matter at some length, and gradually Hiram got
+around to a plan that had formed in the back of his mind since he had
+learned so much about Yancey Battick's new wheat.
+
+Hiram had come by this time to know his employer pretty well. Not only
+was Mr. Stephen Bronson a money-maker and deeply interested in any new
+agricultural idea, but he was the sort of business man who is always
+willing to take a legitimate chance.
+
+If Mr. Bronson had a choice of making a sure ten dollars and a possible
+hundred dollars, he would naturally take the long chance. It was
+characteristic of him to be immediately interested by the story of
+Yancey Battick's wonderful new wheat. And when Hiram pointed out a way
+by which Battick, Bronson and Hiram himself might form a partnership
+to breed and exploit the new variety of grain without taking any
+seedhouse into the scheme, Mr. Bronson was eager for it.
+
+"If you can make Battick see it, I'll find all the cash necessary. A
+seed firm would want to hog it--they always do. Battick must know that.
+If he's got a good grain and we can introduce it ourselves to the grain
+farmers farther west, we'll all make money," Mr. Bronson declared with
+enthusiasm.
+
+That very week Hiram arranged a meeting and the three discussed the
+plan fully in the shaded dooryard of the old Pringle homestead. The
+loss of his whole crop--a possible forty and surely thirty bushels of
+the grain--had vastly discouraged Yancey Battick. The sensible way in
+which Hiram had approached him before introducing Mr. Bronson into the
+matter encouraged the unfortunate wheat breeder to look favorably upon
+the assistance that Mr. Bronson was able and willing to lend.
+
+Whether the wheat stack had been set on fire maliciously or had been
+destroyed by accident, as Hiram had pointed out, the fact remained that
+if the crop had been properly handled the grain would not have been
+destroyed.
+
+In the first place, the wheat had not been allowed to cure long enough
+in the shock before being stacked. Battick admitted that he had only
+stacked it because he dared not leave the shocks in the field for long.
+He had camped in the field with his gun every night until he built the
+stack at the barn.
+
+In fact, to conserve the wheat and handle it in the best shape, it
+should have been cured in the shock and then thrashed immediately,
+afterwards being spread in a proper granary. There was no granary on
+the old Pringle place and the rats and mice were a pest, as Hiram had
+seen the first time he had met Yancey Battick.
+
+In fact, taking it all around Battick had tried to do the impossible.
+He had neither capital nor land nor housing facilities to develop and
+grow a sufficiently large crop of the new wheat to make its sale for
+seed a profitable venture.
+
+"You tell me that you lost everything on your Mortgage Lifter Oats
+undertaking," Hiram said to him. "So far you have tried to keep
+secret your new wheat, and you have lost out. If your neighbors have
+not robbed you, and if the burning of the wheat stack was not a case
+of incendiarism, it was a sure thing that the rats and the mice are
+against you. I do not believe that one man alone can handle such an
+undertaking.
+
+"Suppose you make a contract with Mr. Bronson for two years, during
+which the wheat can be properly developed and a big crop raised. You
+furnish such seed as you have left--half to be planted this fall, the
+remainder to be held against chance of accident. Mr. Bronson will
+supply the land, the fertilizer, the tillage, paying for the harvesting
+and thrashing and storage, as well as for any guard that may be needed
+if trouble should arise. You'll make more under the terms of such a
+partnership than you would if you made the crop entirely by yourself
+and sold out to a seedsman."
+
+"And where do you come in, Mr. Strong?" Battick had asked.
+
+"If you go fifty-fifty with Mr. Bronson on the final profit obtained
+from the exploitation of the wheat, I'll get my share from Mr.
+Bronson," Hiram said.
+
+The proposal was most thoroughly thrashed out between the three, and in
+the end an agreement following closely Hiram Strong's suggestion was
+drawn up and signed by Yancey Battick and Mr. Bronson. Hiram being a
+minor, he could not enter into the partnership agreement; but he had
+his own contract with the owner of Sunnyside Farm by which he was to
+have a half interest in Mr. Bronson's share of the profits from the
+wheat transaction, if profits there were.
+
+And, under fairly favorable conditions, from what he had already seen
+of Yancey Battick's new wheat, the young manager of Sunnyside Farm
+was confident the profit for all would be large. He already had five
+hundred dollars in the bank when he came to Sunnyside. From his wages
+as farm manager he expected to lay aside at least two hundred and fifty
+dollars each quarter while his contract lasted.
+
+And for every dollar of these savings to which he looked forward, Hiram
+Strong had a definite use.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII
+
+                          A STRANGER APPEARS
+
+
+Hiram Strong was learning something about corn growing that he had not
+found out before. That is, after all, one of the greatest charms of the
+science of agriculture: There is always something new to learn.
+
+There is in addition always something new to find out regarding the
+methods adopted in different localities for the cultivation of the same
+crop. Farmers who have cultivated a certain plant in a certain locality
+where their fathers and grandfathers have grown the same plant, usually
+develop an almost uncanny knowledge of the conditions under which that
+particular plant will best grow and come to fruitage.
+
+All the scientific knowledge of farming methods does not come from the
+agriculture colleges; the ordinary farmer often cultivates his crop in
+a certain way because it is the right way without knowing the reason
+for following that particular method.
+
+One thing about growing corn in this Middle West section of the
+country was fast becoming a conviction in Hiram Strong's mind. Methods
+which had grown him a bumper crop of corn in the East might work quite
+as well here on Sunnyside Farm, but there had arisen objections to
+them. He had admitted as much to Orrin Post on a recent occasion.
+
+His old methods were quite necessary for the locality in which he had
+used them. But corn growing on the Atterson Eighty and corn growing on
+Sunnyside Farm were two distinctly different matters.
+
+"Always something new to learn," Hiram said to his companion.
+
+"Right you are," answered Orrin. "A good deal to learn," and he sighed
+heavily.
+
+Throughout July and more than half of August Hiram and Orrin worked
+almost on the run to keep up with the growing corn. Jerry and his mate
+lost flesh under this grilling work. To get over all the fields, and at
+the proper time, with one-horse cultivators, was an almost superhuman
+task.
+
+Besides, Hiram watched the shallow cultivation of his neighbors'
+corn. They used two- and three-horse knife-hoes that stirred the soil
+scarcely an inch deep and left the earth between the rows just as level
+as the harrow had left it when the field was first smoothed.
+
+Most of these farms about Sunnyside were more heavily manured than
+the fields that Hiram cultivated. The neighboring farms had not been
+cropped to death by careless tenants.
+
+These neighbors planted their corn in rows rather than checking it. The
+stalks stood twelve to fifteen inches apart in the row, making more
+than twice the number of hills to the acre than Hiram had planted.
+
+He was satisfied that he had planted and left to grow all the corn his
+land would develop properly. Two stalks to a hill and two good ears to
+a stalk was better to his mind than more fodder and less corn.
+
+The cultivating method followed by the neighboring farmers was not
+all it might be. The two- and three-horse cultivators left much to be
+desired. There were more weeds left in the row than Hiram cared to see.
+When he and Orrin got through cultivating a piece of corn they could
+safely have offered a prize for any weed in the field that had not been
+covered.
+
+In this connection, however, Hiram had something to learn, too.
+This land was not so cursed with weeds as that he had been used to
+cultivating farther East. There was no twitch-grass, wild mustard,
+or purslane. After many years of deep plowing and crop rotation, the
+fields of this part of the corn-belt were comparatively free of weeds.
+Only on land that had been allowed to lie fallow were the weeds a pest.
+
+The fields of Sunnyside Farm must be greatly improved before Hiram
+could, however, take up the local methods of corn growing in every
+particular.
+
+He knew of no improving crop better suited to his needs than crimson
+clover. It is rich in nitrogen, makes a heavy crop of hay before
+corn-planting time, and it could be sowed at the last cultivation of
+the present corn crop.
+
+The drawback was that it necessitated the cutting of the corn to the
+ground and the removal of the shocks from the field. On the better
+farms near by the corn was allowed to cure on the standing stalk and
+then the cattle and hogs were turned in to graze on the fodder, the
+stalks being knocked down and cut up by the disc harrow before plowing
+in the spring.
+
+That was another method Hiram could not adopt. If his clover catch was
+worth anything at all he did not want the corn stalks mixed with it
+at hay-making time. He talked the matter over with Mr. Bronson, and
+a machine was secured at harvesting time that, drawn by one of the
+Percherons, went through the field cutting two rows of corn at a time
+and giving the two men working with it all they could do shocking the
+corn at proper intervals.
+
+This corn finished curing in the shock and the husking was done at the
+barn where the fodder was stacked against the increasing need of the
+herd of young stock that Mr. Bronson was continually adding to.
+
+This method of harvesting cost more in time and labor than Hiram could
+have desired; but it left his fields clean and gave the young clover a
+better chance.
+
+The corn he had obtained from Daniel Brown proved to be all that Hiram
+had hoped it would be. That which he had raised for seed was so evenly
+matured and sound in the ear that Mr. Bronson admitted it was by far
+the most satisfactory variety Hiram had tried. And how it did mount up
+in the cribs with its glossy red and yellow grains!
+
+The wheat thrashing had yielded Hiram not more than sixteen to eighteen
+bushels to the acre--scarcely a paying investment. But it was all
+profit for Mr. Bronson, as the crop had been planted when he bought the
+farm.
+
+Hiram knew well enough where the fault lay. The land was not strong
+enough for wheat, and he proposed to plant but a small acreage to that
+grain for the next season.
+
+"Oats will pay us better, I believe. Some of this upland can be plowed
+early in the spring, and as soon as the oats are off we'll disc and
+put in cowpeas, turning them under for the corn crop."
+
+"Ow!" ejaculated his employer, "do you mean to plow under both the oat
+stubble and the peas for the corn?"
+
+"If you want corn--real corn," the young fellow told him. "This land is
+poverty stricken. And give me all the cattle you can find, Mr. Bronson.
+I'll manage to feed them somehow or other."
+
+The ensilage crop demanded his attention and the labor of all the hands
+for the better part of a week. Even Mr. Turner had been forced to
+confess that _something_ had happened to that twenty acres of Sunnyside
+along the county road that heretofore had yielded such poor crops.
+Since Hiram's underdraining scheme had gone into effect the soil seemed
+entirely different. The corn and cowpeas had grown like a rank swamp.
+When cut and carted to the shredder it was so heavy it was all a man
+could do to lift a forkful.
+
+It was not particularly hard to load the wagon in the field; getting
+the ensilage off the cart was the more difficult part of the job.
+
+A brief experience taught the young farm manager something. He unhung
+the wagon and put the low wheels behind and the big wheels in front.
+With side racks spread at a wide angle and chains front and rear to
+hold the racks, they were enabled to pile an enormous load upon the
+sloping wagon body.
+
+The Percherons could pull all the ensilage the men could pile on. When
+drawn to the shredder all that was needed was to unfasten the chains at
+front and rear and draw the wagon out from under the load.
+
+This was quick work and kept the crew at the shredder busy all the
+time. The ensilage was blown into the silo as rapidly as it was
+shredded, and at the end of the week the huge tank was filled.
+
+Hiram at once had the twenty-acre piece broadcasted with stable manure,
+and as the heavy crop of corn and peas had kept the soil comparatively
+moist it was plowed much easier than might have been expected after the
+August drought. At wheat planting Hiram used a good fertilizer in the
+drill and set the sprouts to run about a bushel and a half rather than
+a bushel and a peck to the acre.
+
+This he did save on the lower four acres next to Yancey Battick's
+place. This patch was considered by both Mr. Bronson and Battick the
+best soil for experiment with the new wheat, and Battick planted the
+wonderful new grain himself, using a hand-sower and sowing only three
+pecks to the acre.
+
+The new wheat plant proved to stool so heavily that Battick claimed
+the field would be quite as well covered in the spring as the rest of
+the twenty acres. Hiram had observed the stooling property of the new
+wheat; but he had some doubt about its being well to sow the grain so
+thinly. He feared it would not furnish sufficient protection for the
+ground.
+
+But as this crop was for seed rather than for bulk of grain, it might
+be all right. In any case the young farmer watched the experiment with
+much interest.
+
+Long before Thanksgiving the farm work was pretty well cleared up.
+Hiram kept only Orrin and the boy, Jim Larry, to help him do the winter
+chores. The three of them could feed the cattle, draw out the stable
+manure and spread it on the corn land which he would first plow in the
+early spring, and do the other necessary winter work.
+
+The house had been long since finished, although the interior had not
+been decorated, as Mr. Bronson wished to wait for the house to settle.
+It was otherwise ready for occupancy and there was a heating plant in
+the cellar. Hiram and the boys moved into the house when the weather
+became severe and started the furnace. Mr. Bronson furnished some
+necessities in the way of cots and warm blankets, and the three were
+very comfortable.
+
+Miss Delia Pringle insisted upon coming over on frequent occasions and
+"ridding up" for them.
+
+"For, talk as you will, men-folks ain't fitted by nature to be good
+housekeepers. For the land's sake! I remember once my mother and I
+went away from home for a time and left father alone, and when we came
+back we couldn't tell for the mess there was whether it was father or
+the dog that had lived in the kitchen. I am sure of one thing--the
+dog-kennel was a long sight the cleanest!"
+
+Miss Pringle was anxious to have another dance in the new house at
+Sunnyside; but Hiram did not like to ask Mr. Bronson for permission.
+There were certain rough fellows in the neighborhood who Hiram believed
+had helped Adam Banks loose Turner's bull on the occasion of the former
+dance. Besides, Ad Banks himself was at home again for the winter.
+
+What the fellow had been doing about Sunnyside at the time of the
+tornado in June, Hiram had never discovered. He certainly had not
+remained at home for long on that occasion. Yancey Battick was not at
+all convinced that Banks had not come straight from Loomisville for the
+express purpose of burning his stack of wheat. Battick still clung to
+the belief that the men who had stolen his Mortgage Lifter Oats had
+information of the new wheat, and were determined to ruin his chances
+of raising a crop of it for seed if they could do so. Adam Banks would
+be a perfect instrument to their hands, he declared, and he felt that
+Banks must be watched closely.
+
+However this might be, Hiram did not wish to tempt the ne'er-do-well
+to try any further tricks about Sunnyside Farm. Hiram, with Orrin and
+Jim Larry, were always on the keen lookout for Adam Banks. Orrin, by
+this time, was in good health and quite able to defend himself in
+any case. His ability to work well and his willingness pleased Hiram
+immeasurably. If only the fellow was not so secretive about his past!
+Hiram knew little more about Orrin Post now than he had when he found
+him in the calf shed, eight or nine months before.
+
+Orrin in all this time had never mentioned his family, his friends,
+where he was born, or what his circumstances had been before he came to
+Sunnyside Farm. His having been driven away by his former employer when
+he was taken ill, was positively all the information he had vouchsafed.
+
+Hiram had learned that he had come through Pringleton the day he had
+arrived at Sunnyside. Previous to such arrival, however, Orrin Post's
+life was a total blank to the young farm manager.
+
+Hiram did not believe that Orrin's previous life had been a happy
+existence. It might be even that he had had trouble with the police,
+and for that reason was so close-mouthed. Nevertheless, Hiram kept such
+thoughts as this to himself. For his own part he accepted Orrin Post at
+his face value.
+
+The three young fellows at Sunnyside used the kitchen to cook and eat
+in, set up their cots in the dining room, and occasionally on a rainy
+day or on Sunday sat in the parlor, where they could watch the road
+through the broad windows.
+
+They were doing this last on one dripping Sunday afternoon, when Jim
+spied a vehicle coming up the hill from the direction of Battick's and
+Pringleton. He did not identify the horses or the man driving them.
+
+"Stranger in this neighborhood," he announced. "That fellow driving has
+got a bushel of whiskers on his face. Did you ever see the like?"
+
+Hiram was reading and did not even get up to look out. Orrin, however,
+examined the approaching turnout at some length, but he made no comment
+and finally drifted out of the room. Hiram heard him open and close
+the back door just as Jim exclaimed:
+
+"Hey! Old Whiskers is stopping here. He's waving his whip and calling.
+What do you suppose he wants, Mr. Strong?"
+
+Hiram put down his book. "The best way to find out is to ask him," he
+said laughing, and rose to go to the front door.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII
+
+                              AN INQUIRY
+
+
+The rain dripped from the porch roof and a curtain of drizzle fell
+between the house and the gate where the gray horses stood. The
+bewhiskered individual had a rubber blanket over his knees and the
+water dripped from the brim of his hat into his lap--just as it dripped
+from the roof over Hiram Strong's head.
+
+On the back seat of the old-fashioned carryall sat a second man. But
+Hiram could not see him very well at first.
+
+"Hey!" yelled the bewhiskered man, "you ain't all deaf in there, are
+you?"
+
+"Not all of us," replied Hiram. "I still have my hearing unimpaired.
+But 'hay' is for horses. It doesn't mean much to me. What do you want?"
+
+Suddenly the man in the rear seat of the vehicle thrust forward his
+head. He wore spectacles and was evidently no farmer. He demanded:
+
+"Have you any information of, or do you know anything personally
+about, Theodore, or Teddy, Chester, or a man calling himself by such
+name?"
+
+"Never heard of him," declared Hiram.
+
+"He is supposed to have come this way."
+
+"I might say that lots of people drive this way--especially in summer."
+
+"He would probably have been walking," said the bespectacled man
+confidently.
+
+"Not many strangers walk by here, I admit."
+
+"And if he came this way--as seems probable--it was months ago. Early
+last spring, to be more exact."
+
+"Why," laughed Hiram, "I would not be likely to remember anybody who
+passed here so long ago."
+
+"Suppose he asked for work?" put in the bearded driver of the carryall.
+"He'd be likely to. Ted wasn't lazy."
+
+"You may remember the men who asked you for work last season?" repeated
+the more professional looking man with emphasis.
+
+Hiram began to think this man was a lawyer. An inquiry of importance
+was being made, and he grew interested. He put his head back into the
+house door and asked Jim Larry to get his umbrella. In a moment, when
+the boy had brought it, Hiram went out to the carriage to discuss the
+matter more at his ease.
+
+"You do remember the fellow, hey?" asked the bearded man, his little
+blue eyes sparkling. "I bet you do!"
+
+"I won't say 'yes' or 'no' so easily," laughed Hiram. "When was it the
+man was supposed to come this way?"
+
+The man on the rear seat of the carryall gave a date. It was well back
+in the spring.
+
+"It was after that date--soon after, we believe. We know almost
+positively that he came through Pringleton and was heading this way."
+
+"Heading for Sunnyside?" asked Hiram in surprise.
+
+"Is that the name of this place? I don't mean to say that he was coming
+to this particular farm. Only that he was walking in this direction."
+
+"Really," said Hiram, who had been trying to think of the incidents of
+the previous spring, "I don't know that there were many tramping people
+who asked me for work at that time."
+
+"Do you run this farm--a kid like you?" demanded the bewhiskered one in
+surprise.
+
+"Yes," Hiram said with his customary smile, "I try to. I would know
+if anybody came along asking for work. And at that time I was having
+ditching done and hired almost every man I could get."
+
+"I don't know about Ted doing ditching," said the driver of the
+carryall. "He was a notch above that."
+
+"At that season of the year I presume a farm worker is not likely to
+have his pick of jobs," the other man suggested shrewdly.
+
+"I feel almost sure I would have remembered anybody who came here and
+whom I did not hire if he really wanted work at that time," said the
+young farm manager thoughtfully. "But there was nobody by that name."
+
+"He might not have given you that name," the legal looking man said
+quickly.
+
+"No?"
+
+"Mr. Post knew him by that name," continued the gentleman, indicating
+the driver.
+
+Hiram was shocked to sudden and keen attention. But he controlled his
+features. He asked, after a moment, as though he had been thinking:
+
+"What did this Theodore Chester look like?"
+
+Here the bearded individual answered. The other man did not seem so
+familiar with the lost one's personality as was the driver of the
+carriage.
+
+"Tell you, he wasn't much to look at. Kind of slimpsy lookin'. Lean
+like. But he could work. Had a sleight with him about most things."
+
+"You are not giving the young man a very clear description
+of--er--Ted," interrupted the legal looking man. "What color are his
+eyes and his hair?"
+
+"Oh, his eyes are sort o' blue, or blue-gray, and his hair is brownish.
+Leastways, I should say it was. And he had kind of crinkly wrinkles
+about his eyes when he laughed--"
+
+"How old was the man?" interrupted Hiram quickly.
+
+"He is twenty-three years old this very month," replied the man from
+the back seat of the carryall.
+
+"He looks older," said the bewhiskered farmer.
+
+"Of course, you have no photograph of him?" asked Hiram slowly.
+
+"Wish I had!" exclaimed the other man. "I would plaster this whole
+country with reproductions of it if I had one."
+
+"Yes? Well," said Hiram, "I do not know any such man. At least, I do
+not remember any such asking me for work or passing this farm."
+
+"Well!" sighed the bewhiskered man, and took up his reins.
+
+"If you should ever see such a person let me hear about it, will you?"
+asked the other quickly, and thrust his hand into the rain with a card
+in it.
+
+"What did he do?" asked Hiram as the gray horses started.
+
+"He ran away from me, young fellow," the bearded man said shortly and
+grimly, and the carryall rolled away.
+
+Hiram looked at the card. It read: "Eben Craddock, Attorney at Law,"
+with an address in a Cincinnati office building.
+
+"Odd thing," muttered Hiram, slipping the card into his pocket. He went
+back to the house, leaving the umbrella on the porch to drip. He went
+in and found that Jim Larry seemed to have followed Orrin out through
+the rear door.
+
+He sat down and picked up his book again; but he could not fix his mind
+on the story he had been reading. That bearded man's name was Post and
+the young man of twenty-three had run away from him.
+
+The date the lawyer had mentioned as that on which the fugitive
+was supposed to have come through Pringleton was the very day--he
+remembered it now--on the evening of which he had found Orrin so ill
+and helpless in the calf pen here on Sunnyside Farm!
+
+This was a good deal of a nut to crack--and it was a meaty nut when
+Hiram Strong had cracked it. However, both the man named Post and the
+lawyer had refused to give any details of why they were hunting the
+mysterious individual called "Theodore Chester." If he was a fugitive
+and a criminal why had they been so secretive?
+
+"I have the lawyer's card. Somehow I don't trust that fellow with the
+whiskers at all," muttered Hiram. "And I've know Orrin more than eight
+months, and know nothing but good of him."
+
+So he said nothing regarding the inquiry for Theodore Chester to either
+of his companions. As for Orrin, he did not appear again at the house
+until dark.
+
+For some reason hard to explain Hiram was willing to take a chance on
+Orrin.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIV
+
+                                SOCIETY
+
+
+Hiram knew that Lettie Bronson, after all, had her way with her father
+and that before the summer was over she had made him take her to one of
+the lake shore resorts where she met just the class of girls whom she
+had associated with at St. Beris. Since they had returned to Plympton,
+and during harvest and afterward, Miss Lettie had been to Sunnyside but
+seldom.
+
+Now that winter had come and Hiram Strong had some free hours, he
+began, as any other healthy and normal young fellow would, to long for
+some society besides that of his two comrades on the farm and Yancey
+Battick.
+
+Even Delia Pringle did not furnish all the "ladies' society" Hiram
+craved. And for some weeks about the only time he saw a girl was when
+he and Orrin hitched up Jerry and went to church on a Sunday morning.
+
+But he was not entirely forgotten by his employer's daughter. That fact
+became apparent the very day after the bewhiskered farmer and the
+lawyer searching for "Theodore Chester" had stopped at Sunnyside Farm.
+The postman brought Hiram a dainty envelope in which was an equally
+dainty missive in Lettie's rigid, upright handwriting.
+
+It was a warm little note--not at all the ordinary staid invitation to
+an evening party--and for a long time Hiram kept it in the bottom of
+his handkerchief box where some scent lay.
+
+Sister's letters, which now came with fortnightly regularity, he kept
+too. But he did not hide them under the flowered silk lining of his
+handkerchief box.
+
+The party at the Bronson house was to be--as Hiram supposed--rather
+a dressy affair. He had already prepared for it. He had sent his
+measurements as the advertised instructions directed to a catalogue
+house in Chicago and from there in due season arrived a "full tailored"
+dress suit. It fitted fairly well; but of course it was a block pattern
+garment, fitted with the tailor's "goose" rather than to Hiram's
+measurements. It fairly shrieked "ready made!"
+
+"You'll knock their eye out, Mr. Strong," declared Jim Larry, as Hiram
+appeared dressed for the revel, kid gloves and all.
+
+Hiram hoped he looked as good as Jim's enthusiasm suggested; but
+somehow he had his doubts. Besides Orrin, who had harnessed Jerry to
+the run-about for him and handed Hiram the reins after he got in the
+carriage, only said:
+
+"Hope you have a good time, Strong. My regards to the Bronsons."
+
+Orrin did not say a word about how fine Hiram looked in his new
+plumage. The young fellow began to feel a trifle anxious. He knew he
+felt uncomfortable. If by any chance he looked as bad as he felt--
+
+He drove down to Plympton in rather high fettle, however, arriving at
+the Bronson house at the edge of town just as it was getting dark. The
+place was not lit up and there seemed to be few arrivals. First he
+wondered if he had mistaken the evening. Then he wondered if anything
+had happened--anything serious to Lettie or her father--and the party
+had been postponed.
+
+He drove in by the side lane to the broad yard at the back. One of the
+stablemen came out with a lantern and recognized Jerry.
+
+"Oh! Hullo! You're from Sunnyside, aren't you? Come down to help us?"
+
+"Help you do what?" Hiram asked climbing down from the carriage rather
+stiffly, for it was a cold night.
+
+"Help us look after the teams and show 'em where to park their
+jitneys," said the man carelessly.
+
+"Not to-night," Hiram replied soberly. "I've been invited to the party."
+
+"Whew! All right, me lord!" chuckled the stableman. "But there's
+nothing doing in the party line for an hour or more yet. Did you come
+so early because you were afraid they'd eat up all the cake and drink
+all the grapejuice on you?"
+
+Hiram did not answer this gibe. He walked around the cold streets for
+two hours before he ventured back to the Bronson house.
+
+Then he found that the company had arrived with a rush. He was directed
+to the men's coat room on the second floor. It was filled with men and
+most of them--at least those who appeared quite grown-up--were in dress
+suits. A glance assured the observant Hiram his own garments were not
+altogether in the mode.
+
+These fellows' coats fitted them as sleek as a cat's hide! Hiram knew
+that his garments wrinkled or bagged. After having his overcoat on so
+long and sitting in the carriage, his new dress suit needed pressing.
+The tailor's goose might have helped some at this juncture.
+
+He saw more than one curious glance cast in his direction. But he was
+in for it, and Hiram Strong had suffered a searing of his pride before.
+He knew how to stand the gaff.
+
+At the wide entrance to the drawing room Lettie was standing with her
+father to greet the guests. She carried an immense bouquet of hothouse
+flowers.
+
+"Hiram! How glad I am to see you," she said, very kindly.
+
+But at once the young farmer realized that she seemed looking over his
+shoulder as though in search of somebody else. Hiram stood aside, but
+there was nobody in the doorway. Lettie asked:
+
+"Isn't he with you?"
+
+"Who?" Hiram queried.
+
+"Mr. Post--Orrin Post. Didn't he come?"
+
+"Why Lettie! I didn't know he was invited. You didn't expect me to
+bring Orrin?"
+
+"I thought he would come with you, Hiram. I invited him."
+
+Hiram felt momentarily relieved. He shook his head, however, saying:
+
+"I surely did not know anything about that. Orrin did not mention it to
+me. Are you sure--?"
+
+"I sent him an invitation," Lettie said, pouting. "He is such a nice
+dancer. I am disappointed, Hiram."
+
+"And he did not reply to you at all?"
+
+She shook her head firmly. She was very pretty in her party dress and
+with her hair "done up" for almost the first time that Hiram had seen
+it so. Lettie seemed quite grown up indeed.
+
+"It must be that Orrin did not receive your invitation. He surely would
+have mentioned it. We talked about this party a good deal," said Hiram
+smiling.
+
+Lettie had been looking Hiram over, and now she was smiling a little,
+too. The young farm manager wondered if her amusement was not aroused
+by his ill-fitting suit. His gloves were uncomfortable, too. One of
+them had begun to split!
+
+"How did you send the invitation to him?" Hiram asked hurriedly, trying
+to cover his own embarrassment.
+
+"By mail. Just as I did yours."
+
+"It is strange, then," Hiram said. "I am sorry, and I am sure Orrin
+would have loved to come. Are there any other folks on our R. F. D.
+route named Post?"
+
+"I just directed it to him at Pringleton. I didn't even put 'Sunnyside
+Farm' on the letter. I didn't address yours any differently, Hiram."
+
+"No. But the mail carrier knows me all right. I--I don't believe Orrin
+has received or written a letter since he has been with me."
+
+"Oh! Doesn't he have any friends at all?"
+
+"Doesn't seem to," replied Hiram, making room for another arrival then.
+
+Mr. Bronson welcomed him warmly; but of course he gave his time mostly
+to the older people who came to the party. Hiram found himself alone
+for the most part. He knew very few people here in Plympton, and almost
+none of the younger set.
+
+He found himself with a group of older men who largely talked farming
+or politics. It looked as if he would have a dull evening, and Hiram
+wished more than once during the first hour that he had not come.
+
+He wondered if Orrin had received an invitation but had been wise
+enough to remain away from the Bronsons' party. It was queer!
+
+Then Lettie was kind enough to hunt Hiram out and give him a dance on
+her list. The dance was informal and there were no cards, and the girls
+seemed just as likely to ask the young men for a dance as _vice versa_.
+
+No other girl gave Hiram the opportunity to dance, however, having
+seen him on the floor with Lettie. That awkwardly fitting dress suit
+certainly made a show of him.
+
+Hiram apprehended more than one giggling comment as he turned about the
+room with Lettie. She offered to dance with him again later, but he
+told her he thought he should go home early--it was such a long drive
+back to Sunnyside Farm.
+
+This was rather cowardly on his part. Yet he felt that he could not let
+the girl, out of the kindness of her heart, make a further exhibition
+on the floor of herself with him.
+
+The young farm manager kept out of Lettie's way as much as possible for
+the rest of the evening. And he did go home early.
+
+"I hope you enjoyed yourself, Hi," said Mr. Bronson, when the boy bade
+him good-bye. "Seems to me I didn't see you dancing much. Don't you
+care for it? Too sensible, I bet!"
+
+His employer's cordiality was not to be doubted. Lettie seemed just as
+sweet to him as she could be. Yet Hiram was glad when he was jogging
+back to the farm behind Jerry. Society was not a condition in which
+Hiram Strong could shine.
+
+The next time he had occasion to drive to Pringleton the young manager
+of Sunnyside Farm went to the post office for a special purpose.
+
+"Is there any letter here for Mr. Orrin Post?" he asked the young woman
+who presided over the local mail.
+
+"Why, Mr. Strong!" she exclaimed, "you don't take the Posts' mail."
+
+"Why don't I take Orrin Post's letters--if he has any?"
+
+"Because Orrin Post lives clear down at the other end of Number Three
+route--almost fifteen miles east of the town. And you don't look
+anything like Orrin Post," she added, smiling.
+
+"Don't I?"
+
+"He has heaps and heaps of whiskers," laughed the young woman. "And
+there is no other Orrin Post that I know of."
+
+"There is a man working for me by that name," Hiram said seriously.
+
+"Then you must tell him to be sure to have his correspondents put
+'Sunnyside Farm' on their envelopes addressed to him," was the advice
+of the postmistress.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXV
+
+                          A VISIT AND A PEST
+
+
+In spite of the disappointment Hiram Strong experienced regarding the
+party at the Bronson house in Plympton, the winter did not pass without
+some entertainment--and of a kind which he really enjoyed better than
+he had Lettie's party.
+
+The Christmas holidays ushered in a series of barn dances, surprise
+parties, straw rides and other country social functions organized in
+the Pringleton district and mostly of a nature that assured a pleasant
+time and plenty of clean fun.
+
+Hiram and Orrin and Jim Larry attended most of these entertainments.
+But Hiram hid away his dress suit and never wore it again. After a
+while his comrades on Sunnyside Farm ceased to gibe at him about the
+garments.
+
+Hiram had never asked Orrin about the invitation he might have received
+to the Bronsons' party. He shrank from arousing any suspicions in
+Orrin's mind that he, Hiram, was suspicious of him.
+
+But the young farm manager believed Lettie Bronson's note to the young
+man they both knew as "Orrin Post" had gone to the real Orrin Post--the
+bewhiskered farmer who had driven through the neighborhood with Eben
+Craddock, the lawyer from Cincinnati, looking for the mysterious
+"Theodore Chester."
+
+Was Hiram's assistant here at Sunnyside the individual that had run
+away from Post, the farmer, who lived fifteen miles east of Pringleton?
+If so, why had the young fellow given Hiram his former employer's name
+as his own?
+
+And then, searching his mind for the details of that long-past
+incident, Hiram remembered that the sick young fellow when Hiram found
+him in the calf shed had been delirious. He had given his name as
+"Orrin Post" without realizing, perhaps, what he was doing or saying.
+He had uttered the first name that had come into his mind--the name of
+the farmer who had treated him so harshly by driving him out of his
+house when he was taken ill.
+
+Hiram was quite convinced that there was no criminal charge against the
+young man he knew as Orrin Post. It was surely no misdemeanor for a man
+twenty-three years old to run away from his employer! It was evident
+that neither the bewhiskered man nor the lawyer were willing to accuse
+the man they called "Theodore Chester" of any particular wrongdoing.
+The circumstances remained a mystery.
+
+Whenever Miss Delia Pringle had anything to do with getting up a party
+that winter Hiram, Orrin and Jim Larry were of course invited. Indeed
+they were practically her right hand men.
+
+Miss Pringle frankly admired Orrin, treated Hiram as though she had
+known him all his life, and could not keep from hugging the fresh-faced
+and grinning Jim if he chanced to sit next to her on a straw ride or in
+any other free-and-easy assembly.
+
+Yancey Battick once remarked to Hiram, and with vast disapproval: "They
+can't come too young for Delia. She'd rob the cradle, she would!"
+
+"You're unfair to Miss Pringle, Mr. Battick," Hiram told him. "She is
+the best-hearted girl around here."
+
+"_Girl!_" snorted Battick, with emphasis.
+
+It was in January that something happened to Yancey Battick that
+was bound to change that misanthrope's attitude toward most of the
+world, and should have changed it particularly toward Miss Pringle.
+All through the winter up to that time, Battick could have been seen
+frequently walking about the lower end of the wheat field where his new
+seed was planted. That he apprehended trouble at almost any time he
+frankly admitted to Hiram.
+
+Sometimes in the middle of the night, or when the boys came home late
+after some party, or very early in the morning when they got up for
+some special purpose at Sunnyside Farm, they would see the spark of a
+wandering lantern down at that end of the twenty-acre lot. Battick was
+roaming about on the lookout for trouble.
+
+Just what the man expected to happen to the dormant wheat plants, in
+mid-winter, Hiram could not imagine. But it was a fact that going out
+at all hours of the night and in all kinds of weather brought its own
+punishment.
+
+Battick lived so much like a hermit anyway that had it not been for
+Hiram's interest in him, the man might never have seen spring again
+and the revival of his wonderful wheat. One day the young farm manager
+suddenly remembered that he had not seen or heard from Battick for at
+least three days.
+
+The thought somewhat startled him; yet he started along the county road
+toward the old Pringle place with no real fear that Battick was in
+trouble. When he mounted the low steps to the rickety front porch where
+he had taken refuge from the rain the first night he had come to this
+neighborhood, Hiram was startled by hearing a faint cry from inside the
+house.
+
+"Hi!" he shouted. "That you, Mr. Battick?"
+
+There followed another murmuring cry. Hiram put his hand on the knob of
+the door and rattled it. The door, of course, was locked. But he heard
+the pleading call again. This was no time for etiquette. Nor did he
+worry about Battick's gun.
+
+"It's I, Mr. Battick! Hiram Strong!" he shouted, and then threw his
+shoulder against the door. The frail bar to his entrance gave way
+immediately. He was almost catapulted into the room.
+
+"What's up?" he cried seeing nobody in the living room of the house.
+
+"I'm down, Mr. Strong," croaked Battick's voice from the bedroom.
+
+"For pity's sake! what is the matter?" demanded the boy, and hurried to
+see.
+
+Battick was stretched upon his bed, covered in his blankets and shaking
+with a chill. He could scarcely speak above a whisper and his face was
+fiery-red with fever.
+
+Hiram was deft in attending the sick. He had shown that at the time
+Orrin Post had first come to Sunnyside. He made Battick as comfortable
+as possible, leaving drinking water beside him, and then hurried back
+up the hill. His first thought was to hitch up Jerry and go for a
+doctor. He believed the man was in a bad way.
+
+Then he remembered that Miss Pringle had a telephone. In addition, the
+spinster was famous as a nurse. Hiram knew that Yancey Battick was in
+need of nursing as well as of medical attention.
+
+"I expect he will give me fits when he gets well for letting Miss
+Pringle into his house, he hates her so," thought Hiram. "But if I was
+to be sick that way myself, and could not get Mother Atterson to nurse
+me, I'd be mighty glad to get Miss Pringle as the next best nurse."
+
+So he did not stop at Sunnyside but went on to Miss Pringle's and told
+his story. Almost immediately the spinster was at the telephone and
+calling up Doctor Marble. Abigail Wentworth scurried around to pack a
+basket with the things Delia thought she might need.
+
+"You won't be let in. You'll be put out like you were before," declared
+Abigail in her sputtering way. "That Yance Battick will work some magic
+on you--"
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Pringle.
+
+"Yance Battick has got the evil eye," declared Abigail with confidence.
+
+"He's got pneumonia, I shouldn't wonder," snapped Miss Pringle. "I'll
+be glad when Doctor Marble comes. Are you going back with me, Hiram?"
+
+"I certainly am, Delia," said the young farm manager. "And if he tries
+to send you home, I won't let him."
+
+But when they got down to the old Pringle homestead Battick was too
+deep in delirium to recognize Miss Pringle. When Dr. Marble arrived
+he declared that Hiram had found the man and given the alarm none too
+soon, if he was to be saved.
+
+It was a fight to keep Battick from slipping over the Border. Hiram,
+or Orrin, or Jim Larry was at the house all the time. Miss Pringle
+remained night and day. Other neighbors showed an interest in the queer
+man and Mr. Bronson sent up everything that might be needed and which
+Battick and his neighbors might not possess when he became convalescent.
+
+Mr. Bronson had been over-urged again by Lettie, and they were going to
+Florida for the season.
+
+"Of course, if anything happens to Battick--if he dies--let me know by
+telegraph," Mr. Bronson told Hiram. "Being his partner in that wheat
+growing deal gives me a personal interest in the poor fellow."
+
+"And me, too," agreed Hiram. "I will look out for him--and for the
+wheat too."
+
+Battick did not wholly forget his precious wheat, and the day after
+Hiram had found him so ill he recognized the young farmer and earnestly
+begged him to bring the remaining seed of the new wheat into his
+bedroom and hang it in a bag above the foot of the bed where Battick
+could see it.
+
+"If anything should happen to that in the ground," the sick man
+whispered, "I'd still have a chance."
+
+But the wheat in the ground--not only Yancey Battick's but all the
+wheat on Sunnyside, gave promise of good growth when the spring should
+open. There was some snow for a cover during the coldest weather; but
+most of the storms were of rain and wind. Hiram was growing hungry for
+the spring. He watched anxiously for the earliest moment when he could
+get the plow into the ground for oats.
+
+Battick was convalescing when this first plowing began. Miss Pringle
+had ministered to him so faithfully that, crank though he was, the
+hermit could but speak well of her at last. Yet--
+
+"She is a nuisance to have around--all women are," he grumbled to
+Hiram. "She's cleaned and scoured this room--even my workbench--till
+I know I can't find half my things. There isn't anything in its right
+place. But she has nursed me faithfully and won't take a cent's pay--"
+
+"Great goodness, man! you didn't offer her money?" Hiram gasped.
+
+"Well, she did not take it," muttered Battick.
+
+"No wonder I met her just now going up the road crying. Is that all
+the sense you have? Or gratitude? Or _anything_?" completed Hiram with
+great disgust.
+
+"Hoity-toity, young man!" Battick said weakly. "Do you realize that I
+am much older than you are?"
+
+"You don't act so," snapped the young farm manager. "I can't respect
+anybody who throws away the very heart of the nut and eats the husk.
+You are determined, it seems, to make all your neighbors dislike you.
+If I were Delia Pringle I'd never step inside your house again!"
+
+"Well, I don't know that I shall ask her," muttered Battick.
+
+At that Hiram marched out himself. He knew very well that the man did
+not mean what he said; he was still sick and weak enough to quarrel
+with everybody--even his best friends.
+
+Hiram was too busy just then to give the crotchety man much attention;
+and thereafter he knew that Miss Pringle sent a neighbor's boy down to
+Battick's with the dainties she cooked for him. She did not go near the
+old homestead.
+
+Another team of Percherons and a double plow came to Sunnyside to help
+in the plowing and oat sowing. They got on the land just as soon as
+the horses would not mire. But there was much of even the higher fields
+that Hiram wished might be tiled properly to make the soil more friable.
+
+They drilled the oats and then went about the other spring
+work--cleaning the stables and calf pens and drawing out all the
+fertilizer the cattle had made to the early corn land. There was now
+more than sixty head of young stock on the farm and Hiram intended to
+grain a dozen or more for market.
+
+But the silo was empty and most of the corn fodder had been picked over
+and trampled in the cattle yards. What hay he had left Hiram needed for
+the horses. It was still three months and a half till haying time, and
+Sunnyside did not yield any too much hay, in any case.
+
+The promise of the crimson clover was encouraging, however; and it
+would make the earliest of pasture. Therefore he turned the cattle into
+a ten-acre piece below the barns and let them graze there before the
+regular pasture at the far end of the farm was grown.
+
+The stock went pretty nearly crazy over the first few mouthfuls of
+clover, bawling and running about rather than settling down to eating.
+But after a few hours they spread out and went quietly to grazing.
+
+Until mid-May they found plenty to do on this patch of fast-growing
+clover; but of course Hiram could not cut that for hay. He put the plow
+into it as soon as the cattle were driven to the regular pasture. They
+had enriched it considerably and the roots and stubble of the clover
+held plenty of nitrogen. He knew the soil was in good condition now for
+corn.
+
+The fields that had lain fallow over winter were already plowed and
+planted. This year Hiram was following the local custom and planting
+in the row and would use the large horse-hoes for cultivating. The
+early cornfields had received during the winter a heavy dressing of
+manure and all the other cornfields--save those that now had growing
+wheat upon them--would either have clover sod to turn under or an
+eighteen-inch growth of cowpeas.
+
+Hiram claimed that his cornfields this year would be well enriched in
+one way or another.
+
+Mr. Bronson had returned with Lettie from Florida. He brought Lettie up
+to Sunnyside in his car on several occasions; but although the girl was
+chatty and kind, both to Hiram and Orrin Post, to the mind of the first
+named there was something lacking in her manner. She seemed bored and
+dissatisfied. In her usual frank fashion Miss Pringle commented upon
+the change in Lettie since she had first met her.
+
+"Land's sake, Hiram! that girl is certainly getting her nose in the
+air. Not that I mean she's spoiled, but she ain't the same as she was.
+This taking her around from one flashy place to another is making her a
+regular flibbertigibbet."
+
+"Whatever that is," laughed Hiram.
+
+But he recognized the truth of Delia's homely statement. Since Yancey
+Battick's illness Hiram and the spinster had become even firmer friends
+than before. Miss Pringle was shrewd enough to see that Hiram was
+enamored of Lettie Bronson. But there were other interests Hiram had
+that Miss Pringle knew about.
+
+Long before this time she had not only heard all about Sister, but she
+had begun a correspondence with the little girl back in Scoville and
+with Mother Atterson. She could tell those loved ones "back home" more
+about Hiram and his affairs than the youth himself would have been
+willing to write about.
+
+Hiram was too busy again to send very long letters to Scoville,
+although during the winter he had been faithful in writing to Sister.
+
+Oat harvest came and the Sunnyside Farm crop was all that Hiram had any
+right to hope for. They stacked the oats ready for the thrashing and
+then put both big plow-teams to work, turning under the stubble, raking
+and rolling the land. Jerry and two mates (the first trio-hitch Hiram
+had driven on Sunnyside), followed behind the land rollers with the
+drill, sowing cowpeas.
+
+Haying and wheat harvest was right ahead of them when Miss Pringle
+drove past Sunnyside behind her dappled pony one day, bound for
+Pringleton.
+
+"Where are you going to be when I come back, Hiram?" she called to the
+young farmer.
+
+"Right here, or hereabout," he replied. "What do you want, Delia?"
+
+"I am going to have something to show you," she said, and drove on.
+
+It was two hours later that Hiram chanced to walk down the county road
+toward Battick's, intending to take a careful look at the green wheat
+at that end of this roadside field--the wheat in which he, as well as
+Battick and Mr. Bronson, placed such hopes.
+
+Although he did not apprehend that the same danger menaced the new
+wheat which Yancey Battick did, Hiram seldom allowed two days to go by
+without a scrutiny of the field.
+
+By this time the new wheat proved itself, to the most casual eye, to be
+a different variety from that growing in the remainder of the field. It
+was a foot taller, the bearded heads were beginning to fill out, and,
+as Battick had promised, the plants had spread so in growing that the
+grain stood quite as thick as in any other part of the twenty acres.
+
+Hiram saw a figure moving at the edge of the field at the far corner
+next to Yancey Battick's land, and he knew it to be Battick himself.
+These warm days the man was getting around quite briskly and was
+feeling much like his old self.
+
+Before Hiram could cross the ditch and start around the lower end of
+the wheat field, as he intended, he saw the dappled pony coming up the
+hill. There was somebody beside Miss Pringle on the seat of the buggy.
+
+"Hey, Hiram! Wait!" called the spinster. "I want you to see who I have
+here."
+
+Hiram had already given a second glance. He saw a slim, prettily
+dressed figure with a flower-like face under a shade hat. For a half
+minute or so the boy had no idea who this person could be. He only
+realized that she was a very pretty girl.
+
+And then Miss Pringle's companion smiled. Hiram fairly jumped.
+
+"Sister!" he shouted, and strode down the hill to meet the dappled pony.
+
+At that moment he heard a wild yell from Yancey Battick. The man came
+running along the lower edge of the field. He bore high above his head
+a handful of the grain which he had torn up by the roots. His lean
+face was actually pale.
+
+"Strong! Look here! They've got us!" he cried.
+
+"Who has got us? What is the matter?" demanded Hiram, startled into
+forgetting Sister and her wonderful appearance for the moment. "What's
+turned that wheat in your hand yellow so early?"
+
+"Do you see it? Do you see it?" shouted the excited Battick. "It's
+being eaten alive! Little green bugs--not the Hessian fly. It is a pest
+I never saw before. It wasn't there the other day. I tell you, they've
+got us!" concluded the man in a hopeless tone of voice.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVI
+
+                        THE FIGHT FOR THE WHEAT
+
+
+"What's the matter now, Hiram Strong?" demanded Miss Pringle, urging
+her pony nearer. "For the land's sake! is that Battick man completely
+crazy?"
+
+"Oh, Hiram! what has happened?" called Sister.
+
+She jumped over the wheel and ran to greet the young farmer. A year
+previous Hiram would certainly have met Sister with a hug and a kiss!
+But this tall, pretty, almost grown-up girl was an entirely different
+person from the child he had known and first remembered as the
+boarding-house slavey in Crawberry. She was almost a stranger to him.
+
+"Sister! What a surprise! How nice you look!" he cried, seizing both
+her hands and gazing into her glowing eyes with fully as much delight
+as she herself displayed. "What a surprise!" he repeated.
+
+"Oh, Hiram, I'm so glad you're glad to see me!"
+
+"Of course I am! And Mother Atterson?"
+
+"She is fine. And so is Mr. Camp. And Henry Pollock. And everybody!"
+
+"How did you ever come out here without letting me know?"
+
+"Miss Pringle did it all. I am going to stay with her. You'll have to
+thank her if you are glad to see me, Hiram."
+
+"I should say I am! Delia, you are a darling!" cried Hiram, laughing up
+into the good but homely face of the spinster.
+
+At this juncture the almost breathless Battick reached the roadside.
+
+"Here! What's the matter with you, Strong?" he demanded, shaking the
+handful of wheatstraw at the young farm manager. "Do you hear what I
+say--or have you gone crazy over those women? That wheat is being eaten
+alive."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Sister looking wonderingly at the excited Yancey
+Battick.
+
+Miss Pringle scrambled down from the carriage. They gathered about the
+young farmer while he examined the affected heads of wheat.
+
+These heads were now about half developed. The straw was already three
+feet and a half tall, and the bearded, three-sided heads had been most
+promising only a day or two before.
+
+Now the tiny green bugs (and occasionally a long fly into which the
+insect develops) were evidently sucking the life of the plant. The
+presence of both the louse-like insect and the adult fly on the same
+staff of wheat proved to Hiram's mind at once that the creatures were
+of a single species and that their growth and development was very
+rapid--like that of hard-shell from soft-shell potato beetles.
+
+"What do you call those things?" demanded Miss Pringle looking askance
+at the green insects.
+
+"It is the English grain louse," Hiram announced with conviction.
+"I have been reading about the pest this winter. The louse did
+considerable damage in grain last year in New Jersey and other parts of
+the East. But how did it get into our wheat?"
+
+"Ah-h!" groaned Yancey Battick. "You can easily answer that. It was put
+here by those that mean to ruin our crop. And between two days, too."
+
+"Do you really think that possible?" Hiram said. "And yet, what I have
+read about this pest suggests that it does not come suddenly into a new
+field of wheat in this way, unless it has already been a scourge in
+some near-by patch of grain the winter before. In such an open winter
+as we have had it might have hybernated on the plants. Then, in April,
+it begins really to reproduce. But we have watched this wheat so
+closely--"
+
+"I tell you the lice have been brought here," Battick cried almost
+wildly. "It did not just _happen_."
+
+"You'd surely think so," Delia Pringle said. "I never saw those things
+before. But I heard the other day that some pest had attacked wheat
+fields over back of the hill--to the north of us."
+
+"Which farms?" Hiram asked quickly.
+
+"Seems to me they said Wilson Banks' wheat was the worst affected."
+
+"Adam's father?"
+
+"Ah-h!" ejaculated Yancey Battick. "What did I tell you?"
+
+Of course, this gossip proved nothing, and Hiram very well knew it. But
+both Battick and Miss Pringle seemed so sure!
+
+"Let's go and look at the affected patch," Hiram said slowly, and, of
+course, Sister trailed along with him to the far corner of the field.
+She clung to his arm and chattered away at a great rate, giving Hiram
+all the news of Scoville and the Atterson farm neighborhood. Naturally
+this forced Miss Pringle and Battick into each other's company for the
+walk. They did not make a very friendly looking pair, however, for
+Battick's gaze was fixed on the ground while Miss Pringle had her head
+in the air and did not vouchsafe him a glance!
+
+The party came to the corner of the field where Battick had found the
+specimens of the grain louse. A patch several yards square was turning
+yellow.
+
+"These lice," Hiram observed thoughtfully, "feed on the leaves of the
+wheat plant until the grain commences to head. Then they assemble
+on the heads among the ripening kernels. When the grain ripens they
+migrate to various grasses, the book says, and manage to live until
+fall when the new wheat is sown and appears. But we had nothing like
+them here on Sunnyside last year."
+
+"Nor did I see any on my patch," muttered Battick. "I tell you they
+were sown here recently."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed the sharp-eyed girl from Scoville. "What is this?"
+
+She sprang forward and picked out of the tall and robust wheat several
+withered wheat-straws that were about half developed. She gave them to
+Hiram.
+
+"Did you pull up any plants besides those you brought to me, Mr.
+Battick?" asked the young farm manager, curiously examining the wilted
+plants.
+
+"No. And, say, those are not my wheat! Don't you see, Strong? The
+straw is entirely different, nor is it as well developed as the straw
+standing on this piece."
+
+"That is what I saw," Sister said softly. "It is not the same plant as
+this handsome wheat."
+
+"You've got sharp eyes, Sister Cheltenham," declared Miss Pringle.
+"Hasn't she, Hiram?"
+
+"Never mind all that!" snapped Battick, interrupting crossly. "What do
+you think about this, Strong? Somebody brought those straws with the
+living insects on them and tossed them in among this wheat."
+
+"It would seem so," Hiram admitted.
+
+"The villains! It is no more than what I have expected all along. And
+you and Bronson would not believe me. Now what do you think?"
+
+"I think somebody has it in for us," Hiram frankly said. "This was
+deliberately a malicious act."
+
+"If it was any of those Bankses they ought to be horsewhipped!"
+declared Miss Pringle.
+
+"Has Adam been home of late?" asked Hiram.
+
+"I don't know," replied the spinster. "But I bet he has."
+
+"We shall have to watch this field night and day now till the grain is
+ripe," Battick declared moodily.
+
+"But first of all we must get rid of this pest."
+
+"Can you do that?" asked Sister.
+
+"Never was anything so bad that it could not be worse," declared the
+young manager of Sunnyside Farm sententiously. "These flies have only
+just begun their nefarious work. There must be some way of stopping
+them."
+
+"How will you do that, Hiram?" Miss Pringle demanded. "When the striped
+bugs get on my melon vines they're gone, and that's all there is to it!"
+
+"Every blade and ear on which the louse has fastened itself must be
+destroyed. We must be ruthless in rooting the plague out."
+
+Battick groaned aloud. He hated to think of losing a single grain of
+the new wheat. "How are you going to do it?" he asked.
+
+"It must be pulled up and burned. And this may not be the only spot
+where the pest was thrown."
+
+"I'll look all around the field," Battick said eagerly. "You don't see
+any place where the scoundrel has walked into the wheat to spread the
+pest, do you?"
+
+"No. He probably did nothing to trample down the wheat and so reveal to
+us where he had worked.
+
+"I would make sure how wide the area of affection is before pulling up
+any wheat, Mr. Battick," said Hiram. "I'll bring the boys down here and
+we'll burn a wide enough area to surely put the louse out of business
+in this field. No use cutting off the dog's tail half an inch at a
+time."
+
+Battick understood this homely saying, and only groaned again.
+
+Hiram and the girls returned to the road, and Miss Pringle and Sister
+climbed into the buggy. Hiram walked beside the vehicle to the Pringle
+cottage, and remained there for supper.
+
+The change in Sister in the time since Hiram had last seen her seemed
+marvelous. Not having seen a picture of her in all that time, the
+surprise Hiram felt was even greater that it otherwise would have been.
+Sister positively had become a pretty girl.
+
+Battick came up to report after supper. He had found but that one place
+where the grain louse was at work. Hiram took Orrin and Jim Larry and
+one of the new men and went down with Battick to burn the affected
+wheat.
+
+He slashed into that corner with a scythe and cut out almost a quarter
+of an acre of the wheat. Meanwhile the other boys had been smearing
+oily sacks over the condemned patch, and when the fire was put to it
+even in its green state, the grain blazed up hotly. They forked what
+Hiram had cut down on to the fire and made sure of burning every spear
+of wheat that could possibly be affected.
+
+It was furthermore arranged that a night watch should be kept upon
+this end of the twenty acre wheat field. Hiram, as well as Yancey
+Battick, was confident that the pest had not come here by chance. An
+enemy that would try such a despicable trick once, might try to repeat
+it.
+
+"I tell you I have felt all along that we shall have to fight to get a
+decent harvest of this wheat," said Battick.
+
+"Then we'll fight!" returned Hiram grimly. "Go ahead, Mr. Battick, and
+get your gun and watch here until midnight. Then either Orrin or I will
+come down and relieve you. I don't mean to let our enemies beat us, no
+matter who they may be."
+
+The young farm manager had an interest in the success of this new wheat
+matched only by Yancey Battick's own.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVII
+
+                              DAY DREAMS
+
+
+There was an uncertainty in the atmosphere of Sunnyside Farm and an
+expectancy of trouble in all their minds. What would happen next? Would
+the enemy strike again, having been thwarted in one attempt to destroy
+the new wheat?
+
+The fact that the soil had been well enriched and that the forcing
+effect of nitrate made the crop grow so fast was really the salvation
+of Yancey Battick's new grain. The pest could not work fast enough to
+overcome the rapidity of the wheat's growth.
+
+Hiram had a multitude of things just now to take up his time; yet he
+made a pilgrimage to each farm in the vicinity to discover which wheat
+fields, if any besides that on Sunnyside, were affected by the new
+pest. The English grain louse had not been seen in this part of the
+country he was sure, previous to a few months before.
+
+"It bred on Banks's land," Mr. Turner told Hiram Strong. "When I first
+saw the critter during the winter--Banks called me over to show it to
+me--I told him I'd plow up that wheat as soon as I could, if I was him,
+and plant something else--spring wheat, or oats, or something. It was a
+puling kind of crop anyway. And it's a sight now!"
+
+"I presume his land is poor?"
+
+"You presume just right. And he's shiftless. Don't raise more than half
+a crop of anything. Don't keep cattle--they are too much trouble, he
+says--and his farm is getting poorer and poorer."
+
+"I've seen his kind of farmer before."
+
+"You bet you have! I've often thought, Mr. Strong, that a shiftless
+neighbor is worse than a dishonest one. You are on the watch for a
+thief; but a shiftless or lazy man will make more trouble than forty
+thieves, I do believe."
+
+Hiram considered that Mr. Turner was about right. He went far enough
+with the old man to look at the Banks' wheat. It was completely
+blighted by the pest and to Hiram's mind would scarcely be worth
+thrashing. Besides, when the binder went through the field he knew very
+well that the pest would lodge on the weeds and grass that bordered
+the grain, and would thus exist--a serious menace--until the new wheat
+appeared in the fall.
+
+"Do you know what I would do if I had money, Mr. Turner, and owned a
+farm next to this one?" the young farmer said.
+
+"What would you do?" asked the old man suspiciously.
+
+"I'd offer Banks a price for his standing grain and then burn it."
+
+"Hey! You surely would have money to burn," grumbled Turner.
+
+"Get the other neighbors to go into the deal with you. It will save
+your crops in the end. First you know, you'll have to give up raising
+grain to starve out the pest. And maybe that won't do it."
+
+"'A fool and his money are soon parted,'" said Turner.
+
+"Maybe," Hiram rejoined slyly. "But how about a fool and his wheat?"
+
+"Huh!" was Turner's only comment.
+
+Meanwhile, Hiram learned that Adam Banks had been at home over Sunday
+and on that occasion could easily have brought the specimens of the
+grain pest to the fields on Sunnyside. He would never have a chance to
+repeat the trick, however--if he was guilty--for there was a guard at
+the wheat field every night, and by day some of the workmen were always
+in sight of the piece of seed-wheat.
+
+Hiram Strong enjoyed Sister's visit immensely. The girl seemed just
+like a bit of home--the only real home Hiram had known since he was a
+child. Had she been really his sister he could have thought no more of
+her.
+
+And she was still a healthy, wholesome girl. She was not growing up too
+fast, as he sometimes thought Lettie Bronson was.
+
+Sister, in a gingham frock and one of Miss Pringle's sunbonnets,
+was out with Hiram all over the big farm. She knew enough about
+agricultural pursuits now, and loved nature enough, to enjoy thoroughly
+Sunnyside and all it meant to Hiram. The latter, too, found in Sister a
+confidante such as he had never had before.
+
+She could help, too. The clover crop ripened suddenly because of a
+dry spell. The brilliant crimson blossoms which gave to the fields a
+blush such as no other flower gives, began to turn brown at their base
+petals. The mower had to be brought into use at once--in fact, two of
+them.
+
+Sister rode the tedder and managed to stir the clover well behind
+both mowing machines. In spite of the dry spell it was a heavy crop
+of clover hay, and the odor of it ascended in the noonday heat as the
+incense must have ascended from the altars to the Sun God in ancient
+times.
+
+The two teams of Percherons were at work six days a week. As soon as
+the clover was made and drawn to the mows, the big plows were put
+in to turn over the clover sod. This was raked lightly, rolled, and
+then the corn was drilled. The early corn was already up and under the
+second or third cultivation. Everything at Sunnyside was on the rush.
+
+The cattle were on regular pasture. Twelve of the sleekest and
+oldest were held in the pens for fattening. They would be the first
+"commercial crop" since Hiram had come to Sunnyside sold off the farm,
+save a part of the previous year's wheat.
+
+Following the plowing of the clover sod, the areas where oats had been
+and the cowpeas put in for a soilage crop were turned under, and corn
+was planted on that land. Hiram was planning for a real corn crop this
+year, and for the most part he used the seed corn he had raised from
+that of Daniel Brown. Another corn crib was built at this time to be
+ready for the expected harvest.
+
+As soon as the corn was planted where the peas were turned under for
+manure, the regular haying came on. Such hay as there was on Sunnyside
+had to be harvested in a hurry. It was a thin crop, for it had been
+seeded to timothy and red top several years before. Hiram decided to
+plow most of this meadow land for wheat in the fall and seed some of
+the present wheat- and corn-land for meadow. He turned the cattle into
+the mowing fields, therefore, as soon as the hay was out of the way.
+
+No further menace had attacked the wheat. The fields of grain on
+Sunnyside were a beautiful sight--now turning a golden yellow and with
+the heavy heads nodding to the harvest. Battick's new variety was at
+least a foot taller than that in any other field on the farm.
+
+The man had watched the special wheat as a mother cares for her
+new-born babe. Night and day he hung about the edges of the field. He
+even crept over the patch that had been burned seeking for any of the
+insects that might not have been destroyed by the fire.
+
+"I think that man must be more than half crazy, as Jim says he is,"
+Sister said to Hiram in commenting upon Battick.
+
+"Why does Jim--and you--think Battick is insane?" Hiram asked her,
+smiling.
+
+"Why, he makes such a fuss over that new wheat."
+
+"His whole heart is set upon developing this Staff of Life Wheat," the
+young farm manager said thoughtfully. "And so is mine, Sister."
+
+"What do you mean, Hi?"
+
+"I guess I am crazy, too," the young fellow said. "I believe my
+fortune, as well as Battick's, is wrapped up in that wheat. Somehow,
+from the very first time I saw the seed in his house, the night I
+arrived in this neighborhood, I have felt that the new wheat meant much
+to me."
+
+Sister looked at him, puzzled.
+
+"I really wish you would say right out what you mean, Hi Strong!" she
+exclaimed.
+
+"I am day dreaming, I suppose," he told her. "But when I look over this
+billowing field I can see thousands of acres of the same grain, all in
+one mowing, and a crop that will fill vast granaries with wheat. There
+would be a fortune in a single crop of such size."
+
+"Oh, Hiram, you are thinking of the wheat fields of the great
+Northwest," Sister said in a low tone. "Are you dreaming of going so
+far away from us all?"
+
+"Sister," said the young farmer seriously, "I set out to farm Mrs.
+Atterson's Eighty with the idea of making that a stepping-stone for
+something bigger. I have got the bigger thing; but it is not big
+enough. I am still working for another man. I want to work for myself."
+
+"But--but it takes so much capital to run one of those great wheat
+ranches."
+
+"I know. I couldn't expect to begin at the top. If I begin for myself
+it must be at the bottom. But I have more than a thousand dollars
+saved, and I have a quarter interest in Battick's new wheat. Before
+this time next year, Sister, I ought to have at least five thousand in
+cash!
+
+"When I have that much money I am going to strike out for myself--on
+my own hook. Whether it will be in the Northwest or not I don't know.
+But Hiram Strong, Sister, is going to be his own man before he gets
+through, not another fellow's hired hand!"
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+                         CORN AND COMPARISONS
+
+
+Hiram and Sister (who had as yet not discovered her first name) often
+discussed her personal mystery. The lawyer who had finally searched her
+out at the Atterson farm, having traced her through the records of the
+orphanage in which she had spent so many unhappy years, had neglected
+to tell her the name with which she had been christened.
+
+"Nor do I know my little brother's name. Poor boy! To think of his
+having been sent to a reform school! I often cry about him, Hiram. How
+awful it is for him to be wandering about the world, maybe ill-used,
+beaten, hungry--perhaps growing up _wicked_! He perhaps will not find
+anybody like Mother Atterson--or you--or Mr. Lem Camp."
+
+"I don't know that you had much to congratulate yourself about until we
+all left Crawberry and got out on Mother Atterson's farm," said Hiram.
+
+"Well, it seems to me now that I was pretty lucky," the girl said
+soberly. "But poor little Claude couldn't possibly have found such good
+friends."
+
+"'Claude'!" repeated Hiram in surprise. "How do you know his name is
+Claude?"
+
+"I don't--really. Sometimes I call him 'Marvin.' I like both names,"
+replied Sister. "It doesn't really matter what I call him till I know
+what his really, truly name is, does it?"
+
+"Well, for goodness' sake! don't call him 'Claude.' If he is a real
+boy, that will make him sick! And how do you know he is so much younger
+than you?"
+
+"Why--"
+
+"Did the lawyer say so?"
+
+"No, he didn't. He didn't say how old--er--Marvin was. But, of course,
+he must be only a little boy to run away and get lost."
+
+"Pshaw! He may be older than you are."
+
+"Why, how you talk! Of course he isn't, Hi Strong. How could my little
+brother be older than I am? Why, that is ridiculous!"
+
+"You have a mighty hazy idea of your brother, I do believe," Hiram
+chuckled. "If he was arrested and sent to the reform school--"
+
+"Hiram! How can you? My brother arrested?"
+
+"How do you suppose he got into the reform school?" demanded her
+friend.
+
+"Oh! Do they have to be bad to get to reform schools?"
+
+"He'd have to be sent by the Court to such an institution. He must have
+been old enough to be arrested for doing something, Sister. It needn't
+have been anything very bad--swiping apples, or throwing stones, or
+something like that."
+
+"But, Hiram!" murmured Sister, almost in tears.
+
+"I know it sounds hard. Sometimes a committing magistrate is pretty
+harsh. They don't have Children's Courts everywhere. And sometimes
+there isn't any other place to send kids but to the reform school."
+
+"Oh, my dear, you make my heart ache," declared Sister, sighing.
+
+"Well, he was some size to have been sent to such an institution
+instead of to an orphanage, as you were."
+
+"I--I suppose so."
+
+"How long was he in the reform school before he broke out?" Hiram asked.
+
+"That lawyer did not tell us."
+
+"Then, when did he run away?"
+
+"I guess it was some time ago, come to think of it," the girl admitted.
+
+"Seems to me you and Mother Atterson didn't ask many questions of that
+man," said Hiram.
+
+"We were so stirred up!" cried Sister. "And he was only at the house a
+few minutes. He told me to be sure and let him know if I went anywhere
+else. I wrote to him when I was coming out here. But he never replied."
+
+"I'd like to ask him a few things," muttered Hiram thoughtfully. Then:
+"So you have no idea when your brother ran away?"
+
+"It must have been some time before the lawyer found me last year. He
+said he had been hunting for both of us, and he wanted to make sure of
+me, so that I would not run away and make trouble. For the property my
+Grandmother Cheltenham left us cannot be divided till both heirs are
+found. That is just the way he put it."
+
+"Humph! A nice way to fix it, I must say. Your grandmother must have
+been a pretty cranky old tea-party."
+
+"I don't know, Hiram. Maybe she did what she thought was best. But I do
+hope that I take after my mother's side of the family."
+
+"Which can't be any worse than the Cheltenhams in any case, eh?"
+chuckled Hiram. "Nice name--'Cheltenham.' Sounds as though you ought to
+be related to the King of England, or some of the nobility."
+
+"Now, you're laughing at me, Hiram! I'd just as lief my name was
+something short and nice sounding--like 'Strong,' or 'Post,' or--"
+
+"Maybe Orrin's name isn't so short and sweet." Hiram said suddenly.
+"You know, as I wrote you, there is a mystery as to what Orrin's name
+really is."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Sister thoughtfully. "And Orrin is such a nice
+young man. I asked him the other day, Hi, what he supposed might have
+become of my little brother after he ran away from the reform school."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"Why, he seemed real interested. He said maybe Claude--I mean,
+Marvin--was wise to run away. Orrin said sometimes they hire boys out
+from those schools to farmers who make them work like slaves. He seemed
+to know all about such things."
+
+"He did?"
+
+"I believe Orrin must have been in one of those schools himself when he
+was a boy."
+
+"Lucky if he wasn't in a worse place," thought Hiram.
+
+But he did not go any deeper into a discussion of Orrin's affairs at
+this time. The mystery of who and what Orrin Post really was seemed
+quite as far from being solved as the whereabouts of Sister's brother.
+
+The wheat was now nodding heavy heads for the harvest. The binders and
+extra harvest hands came to Sunnyside Farm after reaping Mr. Bronson's
+other wheat fields. Everybody about the place--even Sister--worked in
+the wheat fields, standing up the golden shocks, from early morning
+until nightfall.
+
+[Illustration: Everybody about the place--even Sister--worked in the
+wheat fields.]
+
+Close on the heels of the harvesting the great tractor drawing the
+threshing machine rumbled up to Sunnyside. The regular threshing crew
+came with it so that the work at Sunnyside went much more rapidly this
+time than it had the year before, although the yield of grain was far
+greater.
+
+But how everyone did toil at it! Threshing under the very best
+conditions is the hardest farm work there is. It is not such tedious
+work as the making of the crop--the plowing and raking, rolling and
+seeding, and the cultivation of it, or of the mowing and binding; but
+for out and out bone-breaking labor, and in the hottest part of the
+year, threshing takes the palm. It must be hurried, too, for there is
+always another grain ranch to go to. And the season, too, is that when
+other work on the farm is urgent.
+
+Mr. Bronson came himself to Sunnyside to watch Hiram's wheat and oats
+threshed. Besides, he was particularly interested in the yield of
+Battick's new wheat.
+
+Lettie came up with him from Plympton and remained over night at Miss
+Pringle's, with Sister. She seemed unfeignedly glad to see Sister
+again, and the two girls raced about together all day, watching the
+toiling threshing crew, and riding the empty wagons back to the field.
+
+"One seemed," Orrin said to Hiram Strong, "as big a kid as the other."
+
+In the evening, however, after the boys had eaten supper and washed at
+the bunkhouse, they strolled over to Miss Pringle's, and the girls met
+them with their most grown-up manner. Indeed, Lettie flirted with Orrin
+in a way that actually amazed Hiram. He was glad that Sister was not
+addicted to such manners. And yet, of course, Lettie meant no harm and
+Orrin Post seemed to understand. Hiram wondered if he had been used to
+the kind of society in which Lettie had learned to behave in this way.
+
+Of course, Orrin was quite "grown-up." Lettie looked upon him as
+fair game, without doubt. She would not have considered for a moment
+treating Hiram in this way.
+
+Sister did not attempt to copy the more sophisticated Lettie. Yet she
+seemed to approve fully of the daughter of the owner of Sunnyside Farm.
+
+"Lettie is so much nicer than I used to think her," Sister said gently
+to Hiram. "She is so kind."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"She wants me to go back to Plympton with her and stay a while before I
+go home."
+
+"Yes?" questioned Hiram again.
+
+"Would you?"
+
+"I--don't--know," said Hiram slowly.
+
+He remembered the sort of young people he had met at the Bronson house
+the night of the party. He had never been able to make up his mind
+whether he had been invited on that occasion out of sheer kindness,
+or not. Hiram's perceptions were keen. Would Sister be comfortable in
+their society? Would they, young and gay and careless and more or less
+intimate friends from childhood, make her feel a little as though she
+were outside of all their fun and friendships? Sister was sweet and
+lively, true and likable, but could she, after all, adjust herself
+to surroundings which were very different from those she had been
+accustomed to?
+
+"I'd like you to advise me, Hiram," said Sister softly.
+
+"What does Delia say?" exclaimed Hiram suddenly.
+
+"She says go if I want to, and if I don't like it to come back here
+any time. She says I can hire a flivver there to bring me back for a
+couple of dollars--if I am in a hurry."
+
+"There!" exclaimed Hiram with relief. "I always did think Delia Pringle
+was a mighty sensible person. I agree with her, Sister."
+
+"After all," thought Hiram, "Sister is likable and attractive, and,
+moreover, pretty well able to look out for herself. And then, Lettie
+is kind and sweet-natured and thoughtful, and why should I take it for
+granted that her friends are not the same sort?"
+
+Orrin only laughed about Lettie when the boys went back to Sunnyside at
+ten o'clock.
+
+"You needn't be jealous, Strong," he said. "She is only practising on
+me. She thinks you are not ripe for such nonsense yet."
+
+"Humph!" thought Hiram. "Do I appear to be such an awful kid?"
+
+Comparisons are odious, however. Hiram did not propose to judge Lettie
+by the same standard by which he judged Sister. They were two very
+different girls.
+
+The work of threshing went on apace. Hiram had arranged his wagons as
+he had the year before in harvesting the ensilage for the silo--putting
+the small wheels in the rear and the big wheels in front. They thus
+brought enormous loads of the golden sheaves on the racks to the
+threshing machine, merely dumping the load. Men stood on both sides
+of the heap and forked the sheaves into the chute. This was a modern
+threshing machine which automatically cut the bands as the sheaves were
+fed into the maw of the roaring monster.
+
+The straw was blown into a huge pile at one side of the barn, later to
+be baled; for good wheat straw is valuable. The straw from the oats
+Hiram used for bedding.
+
+Mr. Bronson or Hiram stood by the men bagging the grain, keeping
+tally. The ordinary wheat averaged thirty-two and a half bushels to
+the acre--almost twice the average of the year before, and better by
+several bushels than the average on the neighboring farms. Still, this
+was no great yield.
+
+The threshing machine was then run in between the oat stacks and the
+bundles of oats were pitched by crews of four men into the chute. The
+oats yielded a fair average--nothing great. But, then, they had been
+raised more as a preparatory crop than anything else. All the oat land
+had grown a heavy crop of cowpeas for soiling, and now the corn stood
+rank, black, and knee high upon all those oat fields.
+
+The oats were run through the threshing machine before the new wheat
+was brought up from the lower end of the twenty-acre piece which lay
+along the road. The oats had swept every kernel of the ordinary wheat
+out of the machine. The Staff of Life Wheat, as Hiram had dubbed it,
+was the handsomest grain anybody working on the threshing crew had ever
+seen.
+
+And how it did yield! It was a marvel considering how thinly the seed
+had been sowed. Still, Battick was not satisfied, and almost wept
+whenever he thought of the quarter acre that had been burned. From the
+remaining three-and-three-quarters acres was threshed a hundred and
+sixty-eight bushels and a peck of grain--the biggest yield that had
+ever been known in the neighborhood of Sunnyside within the memory of
+the oldest living farmers.
+
+Hiram, flushed and excited, felt like shouting in his happiness,
+self-contained though he usually was.
+
+"Even when this land was all virgin prairie, I do not believe they got
+greater yields of wheat," Mr. Bronson declared.
+
+"And yet," Hiram said thoughtfully, "a forty-five bushel average is an
+ordinary harvest in Kansas and Nebraska. And further north the yield is
+even greater. This, Mr. Bronson, is not wheat land."
+
+"Well, it is good enough for me," declared his employer, warmly. "Those
+fellows out there in the Northwest are under greater expense than I am
+for tractors, machinery, and wages. I am pretty well satisfied. If you
+do as well for me with the corn--"
+
+"Oh, when it comes to corn, this is just the land for it!" cried Hiram.
+
+"And with tractors instead of horses--"
+
+Hiram shook his head.
+
+"I've been figuring that out, Mr. Bronson," the young farmer said.
+"Nothing less than three hundred acres of corn--and as much of it in
+one piece as possible--would pay under tractor cultivation. Sunnyside
+could never be a tractor farm. The fields are too much cut up."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIX
+
+                         EXPLOITING THE WHEAT
+
+
+The wheat threshing was past. The plows were going again, and following
+the raking and smoothing of the fields Hiram Strong put in either
+ensilage corn and peas, or a mixture of grass seeds for new mowing.
+
+There were more than a hundred head of young stock on Sunnyside
+by midsummer, for Mr. Bronson was continually adding to the herd.
+Sunnyside was bound to wax fat in another year with all this kine to
+enrich the acres. Whoever Mr. Bronson sold the farm to would get, after
+all, one of the most productive farms in the Pringleton district.
+
+Orrin Post (Hiram always thought of him by that name, whether it was
+rightfully his or not) was fairly in love with the place. He often said
+to Hiram:
+
+"Strong, it would be the height of my ambition to own this place. I
+could settle down here in happiness for life."
+
+"And marry Miss Pringle?" suggested Hiram chuckling.
+
+"Delia has her cap set for another fellow," returned Orrin, grinning
+widely. "Believe me, she will get him, too."
+
+"What are you talking about?" snapped Hiram, thinking the tables were
+being turned upon him and not liking it after all.
+
+"Nothing personal. You are not the fellow, Strong," said Orrin.
+
+"It must be Jim Larry, then, that she is after," sniffed the farm
+manager. "But if you like it, Orrin, I should say Sunnyside would make
+a mighty nice homestead. But, I tell you truly, Mr. Bronson isn't
+writing anything much on the credit side of the ledger yet. It takes
+time to bring back an abused farm like this to a paying basis. This new
+wheat of Battick's will put Mr. Bronson ahead of the game. Yet that
+ought not to be charged to the profits of the farm, for it was entirely
+a side issue."
+
+The prospect for a bountiful corn harvest was, however, plain. When the
+corn was in the cribs they might easily count a clean slate, at least,
+without referring to the Staff of Life Wheat.
+
+Hiram was elated when he went through the fields of early corn and
+examined the ears now rapidly filling out. He was confident that nobody
+ever grew a better corn crop on Sunnyside Farm than he was making.
+
+Sister made her visit to Lettie Bronson and came back to Miss
+Pringle's fairly radiant. She had learned to put up her hair in a more
+attractive fashion and had bought a new summer dress under Lettie's
+tutelage which she said made her other clothes look "countrified" in
+comparison.
+
+"Lettie Bronson is so hospitable and nice, Hiram," Sister said. "I
+let her introduce me as 'Cecilia Cheltenham.' It sounds stylish, and
+I could see it impressed Lettie's friends. Do you think it is wrong,
+Hiram? Maybe 'Cecilia' is my name."
+
+"Just as good as any other, I guess, Sister," Hiram said kindly. "But
+don't for pity's sake name your brother some name that he won't like."
+
+"Oh! 'Marvin'?"
+
+"He can stand that better than 'Claude' or 'Percy.' Do give the kid a
+chance."
+
+Hiram had come to consider the lost boy as a little fellow, too,
+although Sister had no particular warrant for that belief.
+
+Sister's visit came to a close. She knew Mother Atterson and Lem Camp
+missed her sorely. She had now been at Miss Pringle's all of two months.
+
+Everybody about the place thought a deal of Sister. Delia Pringle
+declared she was the nicest girl she had ever known. Orrin could not
+do too much for her and treated her with a brotherly affection that
+Hiram thought might breed some confidences on his part. But Orrin
+never touched upon his personal affairs save on one occasion, and then
+lightly enough.
+
+"Didn't you have any brothers and sisters in all your life, Orrin?"
+Sister asked, pointblank, in Hiram's hearing.
+
+"I had a sister," Orrin replied shortly.
+
+"Oh! Didn't you love her, Orrin?"
+
+"Very much indeed." He spoke in a low voice and turned away his head so
+that she might not read the expression in his face. "I never talk about
+her," he added in a tone that precluded further questioning on the
+girl's part.
+
+This single reference to his past life was practically all Hiram had
+ever heard Orrin make. Sometimes curiosity burned so hotly in Hiram's
+thoughts that he was tempted to demand of Orrin who he was and what his
+real name was. Was he the "Theodore Chester" the bewhiskered farmer
+from the other side of Pringleton and the lawyer, Eben Craddock, were
+searching for back there in the winter?
+
+There was one thing Hiram did not want to do, however; he did not wish
+to say or do anything to offend Orrin, so that the latter would leave
+him. More and more had the young farm manager come to depend on this
+helper who had been with him so long. He was paying Orrin bigger
+wages than anybody else on the place. But, as he told Mr. Bronson, if
+anything happened, he could depend upon Orrin to go ahead with the
+work and carry out the plans already formulated for the improvement of
+Sunnyside.
+
+Nothing did happen--of any unlucky nature, at least--not even to Yancey
+Battick's wheat. Battick had watched the grain from the threshing with
+quite as keen apprehension as before.
+
+However, if Adam Banks--or any other ill-disposed person--wished to
+ruin the yield of seed wheat, he did not succeed in such plans. The
+new wheat was spread upon the floor of the attic of the new house at
+Sunnyside, and that dwelling had been built mouse and rat proof!
+
+Samples sent to various experimental farmers and agricultural stations
+with the well-written claims for the new wheat prepared by Yancey
+Battick attracted wide attention. Photographs of the growing wheat
+which Mr. Bronson had had taken were reproduced and printed in some of
+the farm papers. Every wheat grower who saw the grain and heard of its
+development was enthusiastic.
+
+But the partners in the Staff of Life Wheat determined to sell none
+of the surplus of this present crop in large lots. Battick got up a
+catchy advertisement headed: "Grow it in Your Garden," showing how any
+farmer might develop seed enough from one fifty-cent packet to plant
+an acre of the new wheat in a year's time and so, in two years, gain a
+forty-acre crop.
+
+The advertisement brought almost immediate returns, and the orders grew
+in number daily. At this packet rate the partners were getting for the
+seed wheat a hundred and twenty-eight dollars per bushel!
+
+"Oh, no! there is no money in the seed business is there?" said Mr.
+Bronson, widely smiling.
+
+And they were giving something of value for the fifty-cent orders that
+came in with a rush. With care any gardener could raise seed enough for
+an acre of grain, just as their advertisement said. The Staff of Life
+Wheat was a really wonderful variety.
+
+Of course, the advertising cost a good deal and the exploitation of the
+wheat in this way entailed much work. But the profit was enticing.
+
+The Rural Free Delivery mail carrier began to object to handling
+the traffic of Sunnyside Farm, and Battick was obliged to drive to
+Pringleton three times a week to mail packets of seed and get the
+money orders cashed. Mr. Bronson banked the money in a special account
+at the Plympton National Bank, and the seed selling business grew in
+importance.
+
+Miss Pringle had learned to use a typewriter, and Battick had to hire
+her to help with the correspondence. This pleased Hiram immensely, for
+it put Yancey Battick in a position where he had to associate with the
+good-hearted spinster. The man did not have much show to continue a
+woman hater when he was associated daily with Delia Pringle!
+
+"I told you," chuckled Orrin, "that Delia had set her cap for a
+particular person in this vicinity. And it is not you or me or Jimmy
+Larry. Yancey Battick is in much more danger right now from Delia, than
+his wheat ever was from the plottings of Adam Banks, believe me!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXX
+
+                               KING CORN
+
+
+Hiram Strong had grown taller corn with bigger ears on it in the East
+than any of the now ripening crop on Sunnyside Farm. But in bulk of
+shelled corn he knew he had never equaled this present crop.
+
+One small field he had prepared especially for his seed corn. By this
+time he had come strongly to believe in the yellow-red strain of corn
+he had originally obtained from Daniel Brown, and this special field
+had been planted to that variety exclusively.
+
+Hiram had from the very start prepared this field in a particular way.
+It had been a fallow piece on which had been thrown with the manure
+spreader during the winter about ten tons of fertilizer to the acre.
+
+As soon as he could get on the field with his heavy horses he disked
+the piece both ways. This enabled him to plow at least eight inches
+deep, and he put three of the Percherons on the plow.
+
+Hiram disked the field again after plowing, and harrowed it twice,
+making the soil as loose in the end as a garden plot. With this
+preparation, the bottom of the seed bed was as loose as the top and the
+plant roots when they got to growing, found plenty of room to develop.
+
+Hiram did not put this corn in until the first of May. He planted it
+one grain to the hill, sixteen inches apart in the row, and the seed
+had been so carefully selected that he had an almost perfect stand all
+over the field. Hiram was no friend to replanting in any case.
+
+At the time he put the corn in he sowed in the row fifty pounds
+of commercial fertilizer to the acre. When the corn was up a few
+inches and the root system began to develop, the young manager of
+Sunnyside Farm sowed a hundred pounds to the acre of a special forcing
+fertilizer--straddling the row with the cornplanter and sowing this
+special fertilizer in rows down the middle.
+
+One day, about the time the bulk of Hiram's crop was hardening, Mr.
+Brown drove along and Hiram hailed him and asked him to walk with him
+through this field of seed corn. The grizzled old fellow noted the
+strong stalks, the wide blades, and the heavy ears with brightening
+visage. He loved corn! On Hiram's invitation to do so, he tore the
+husk away from several ears.
+
+"By gum!" exclaimed the old man, "I thought I raised good corn. I
+always have raised good corn--the best in this county, if I say it who
+shouldn't. But you've got me beat, Mr. Strong--you've got me beat.
+
+"This variety here, wherever you got it, is better than my best, and
+how even it runs! I never saw the like before. Where'd you get it? I
+thought you were raising corn from seed you bought of me?"
+
+"I am," Hiram told him with a smile.
+
+"Where'd you get it? I'd like to compare this new variety with my kind
+of corn," went on the farmer, not heeding Hiram's assurance.
+
+"This is your corn you've got hold of, Mr. Brown," Hiram said.
+
+"You don't tell me!"
+
+"I certainly do. I consider it the best corn for this soil that I
+could find. It is only better than yours because I take more pains in
+selecting and testing the seed than you do."
+
+"By gum! I can't believe it."
+
+"Every hill of this corn, and the main part of my crop, came from the
+two baskets of corn I bought of you a year ago last March. Half of that
+I discarded. Probably two-thirds of this whole field I shall feed to
+the cattle. Out of the rest I will sell you what you may need for six
+dollars a basket, Mr. Brown."
+
+"By gum! I want it," exclaimed the old fellow. "Some of it, anyway."
+
+"It takes but about fourteen ears of corn, you know, to plant an acre.
+I'll sell you the same quantity I bought of you, if you like, at the
+price stated. I think it is worth that to raise seed like this, don't
+you, Mr. Brown?"
+
+"Boy, if what you tell me is true--if this is my corn--then I don't
+know much about corn growing, after all."
+
+"I guess you know about all there is to know about corn growing to
+date," laughed Hiram. "But you certainly do not know how to select and
+test your seed. And then, as I told you back there when I bought of
+you, you were too good to the rats and the mice. Many a kernel of corn
+is planted the germ of which the sharp little teeth of the rodents have
+emasculated."
+
+Daniel Brown was not the only enthusiastic spectator of Hiram's corn.
+And the harvest bore out the promise, in spite of a heavy wind-storm
+that knocked down some of it. This that was blown down had glazed and
+was well matured. Hiram harvested it at once and sold it to fatten hogs
+at the market price.
+
+This was a small loss compared to the value of the entire crop. This
+year Sunnyside followed the methods of big corn growers, and most
+of the corn was husked on the standing stalk, the eager cattle being
+turned in to graze on the fodder.
+
+Fifty head of cattle marched off the farm that fall, stuffed with the
+cheapest kind of foods, and brought just as good a price as they would
+had they been winter-fattened with corn.
+
+It was agreed that only the new wheat should be raised on Sunnyside
+the coming year. The partnership in the Staff of Life Wheat still
+continued, and they expected to sell the crop for seed as high as ten
+dollars a bushel to the big wheat growers. Hiram's share of the profits
+of the first crop had been a little over four thousand dollars. He felt
+that he was actually a wealthy man!
+
+But he was thinking larger, and his mental view was much wider than
+when he had arrived at Sunnyside Farm. He wrote Sister that no small
+contract would ever satisfy him again. He heard of and saw farmers all
+through this corn belt making thirty and forty thousand dollars on a
+single crop.
+
+At the County Fair he met and talked with a young man no older than
+Orrin Post who had cleared that season more than ten thousand dollars
+from raising corn on shares!
+
+    "If a man can get hold of a thousand acres, work it with tractors
+    and have ordinary good luck, in one season he can pay for his
+    land," Hiram wrote to his friends in the East. "It sounds big. It
+    almost staggers one to think of it. It is a gamble!
+
+    "But I feel that I have in me the pluck to take that gambler's
+    chance. I am going to bide my time, but have my money ready. The
+    money is in the great wheat fields of the Northwest. America must
+    feed the world, and I want to do my part. Ten years of raising
+    wheat in a big way will enable me to retire, if I wish to.
+
+    "My father worked for other men all his life. I am going to be my
+    own man before I get through. To this I set my hand and seal,
+
+                                                        "Hiram Strong."
+
+There was a wee note of anxiety, if not sorrow, in the return letter
+which Sister wrote. Those on the Atterson Eighty feared that Hiram
+Strong was getting altogether too far away from them.
+
+But there was something else in Sister's letter that struck Hiram much
+more sharply. It suggested a possibility that startled him, to say
+the least, and roused in his mind again much suspicion regarding the
+bewhiskered farmer, whose name, he believed, was "Orrin Post," and his
+own Orrin's connection with this man.
+
+Sister wrote:
+
+    "What do you think, Hiram? My lawyer wrote me from Boston that
+    perhaps I might have been near to my dear little lost brother
+    when I was out there to see you and Miss Pringle. He writes
+    that he traced poor little Marvin (or whatever his name may be)
+    to the Middle West, and that a correspondent of his, whom he put
+    on the case, writes that he believes the boy has been in your
+    neighborhood. The western lawyer is named Eben Craddock."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXI
+
+                       WHO IS THEODORE CHESTER?
+
+
+By this time the great corn crop was in the cribs and Sunnyside Farm
+was down to a winter basis. The crop had averaged sixty-five bushels
+of shelled corn to the acre, and only one other farm belonging to Mr.
+Bronson--and that a very well tilled one indeed--had done better, or as
+well.
+
+Hiram's success with corn (which was, indeed, the principal reason for
+his having been put in charge of the farm by Mr. Bronson) was all the
+more to be commended because of the conditions under which the young
+fellow had undertaken this present contract. Hiram had been obliged to
+change radically the methods of corn growing he had followed in the
+East.
+
+Just as the old-time farmer who hand-hoed his cornfield learned to
+throw away the hoe and use the cultivator, horse-hoe, and fluke-harrow,
+so these big corn growers had developed a method of cultivation quite
+at variance with that of the small farmer cultivating but a few acres.
+
+Hiram had discovered that by rotation of crops which kept down the
+weeds corn could be cultivated with a riding harrow drawn by two
+or three Percherons that could do twice the work in a day of three
+ordinary horses worked to single cultivators, and with the saving of
+two men's time.
+
+In addition to learning and following these new methods and in some
+cases improving on them, Hiram had kept more than a rough farm account.
+He knew his overhead charges against each crop. It cost him more per
+acre, for instance, to prepare his field for the seed corn he had shown
+Daniel Brown; but that particular field paid him in increased yield. It
+ran ten bushels per acre over the remainder of the farm.
+
+The cribs were bursting with corn. Mr. Bronson had long since got over
+his first objection to the red ear and the occasional mottled one.
+This corn would ship to any distance after it was well dried and lose
+practically no weight in the journey.
+
+He proposed to hold Hiram's crop this year until mid-winter, or later,
+when the price would certainly advance.
+
+"I am satisfied that your methods have made me money, Hiram," said his
+employer, on one occasion. "You don't know everything. Nobody does. But
+there is one very good thing about you. You are not too old to learn!"
+and Mr. Bronson laughed.
+
+However, all this occurred before that letter came from Sister which
+so excited Hiram's curiosity. That the same Cincinnati lawyer should
+have to do with the search for the lost Cheltenham boy and for the
+mysterious Theodore Chester, was a coincidence that, Hiram decided,
+must needs be looked into.
+
+"Strayed boys are not so common as all that," he thought.
+
+He sat down and wrote to Mr. Eben Craddock at the address the lawyer
+had given him, asking if he had found Theodore Chester, just who that
+mysterious individual was, and if the lost Cheltenham boy--first name
+unknown--had any connection with Mr. Craddock's former inquiry at
+Sunnyside Farm.
+
+As it chanced, another matter came up before Hiram received any reply
+from Craddock, which proved to be a very surprising incident and one
+that for the time being quite drove thought of his letter to Craddock
+out of Hiram's mind.
+
+Mr. Bronson was buying young stock--calves and yearlings--all the time
+to swell the number of the herd Hiram was feeding, and with which he
+was so successfully enriching Sunnyside. Sometimes the farm's owner, or
+one of his men, brought the new live stock to Hiram. At other times
+the former owners of the calves delivered them.
+
+It was on a day early in December that a big farm wagon with a
+cattle-rack in it was driven into the yard. The boys were living again
+in the house, and had the furnace fire going, for Mr. Bronson had just
+had the house decorated and wished it to be kept well heated. Hiram
+left his comfortable seat before the dining room register, and went out
+to meet the wagon. Orrin and Jim were both down at the cattle sheds.
+
+The moment Hiram drew near the wagon in which the calves bawled he
+recognized the driver and the latter knew him.
+
+"Well, well!" exclaimed the bewhiskered man whom Hiram believed to have
+been the employer of his assistant whom he knew as "Orrin Post." "Are
+you still here?"
+
+"I am on the job still," answered Hiram smiling.
+
+"I was told to ask for Mr. Strong."
+
+"That is my name."
+
+"Then you do run this here Sunnyside Farm?"
+
+"You are correctly informed, sir."
+
+"And they tell me you've grown the biggest crop of corn and the
+heaviest wheat ever seen on this land," said the bearded man from
+beyond Pringleton.
+
+"We've done right well here this year."
+
+"Well, well! Well, I've got six calves here, Mr. Stephen Bronson bought
+and told me to deliver to you."
+
+"All right. Drive down that road beside the barn, if you will. We will
+unload them at the calf pens."
+
+He jumped upon the wagon at the rear to look at the calves and ride
+down to the place indicated. All the time he was wondering what would
+happen if the bewhiskered man should spy Orrin--if the real Orrin Post
+should confront the young man who claimed that name.
+
+Ought he to have prepared his friend for this meeting? Should he
+inquire of the farmer what the mystery was all about, anyway?
+
+Hiram remembered how Orrin had slipped out of the house and kept away
+when this farmer and the lawyer had appeared at Sunnyside the previous
+winter. What would he do now?
+
+And just then the teamster turned the trotting horses into the paddock
+and brought them to a standstill with a flourish.
+
+"Whoa, there!" he shouted. "Where do you want these calves put, Mr.
+Strong? Here, you--By crippity! how the deuce did you come here, Ted
+Chester?"
+
+Hiram jumped off the rear of the wagon and ran around. Leaning on a
+fork the young man he knew as Orrin Post confronted the farmer.
+
+"So it is you, is it, Mr. Post?" the younger man said.
+
+"You mean to say you've been here all this time? And that lawyer and me
+have been right here and asked--"
+
+Suddenly he swung to look at Hiram. He shook a finger at him.
+
+"What did you mean by telling me and that lawyer you didn't know this
+fellow?"
+
+"I did not. You did not make me understand that this was the man you
+were looking for," declared Hiram without looking at his friend.
+
+"You were holding out on us," said the farmer. "You made me lose a
+fifty-dollar note."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"That lawyer promised it to me if we found Ted, here. And now I don't
+suppose he'll give a cent."
+
+"Anybody would be mighty foolish to give fifty dollars for me," broke
+in the man who appeared to be the missing Theodore Chester.
+
+"What do they want you for, anyway?" Hiram demanded.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Do you know?" Hiram asked the original Orrin Post.
+
+"That lawyer did not tell me. But if this fellow, Ted Chester, hadn't
+left me flat--"
+
+"If you hadn't put me out when I was taken sick, I suppose you would
+have got the reward," said the accused.
+
+"But why should anybody offer a reward for you?" Hiram asked him again.
+
+"Because they want me, I suppose."
+
+"What do they want you for? And who wants you?"
+
+"Humph! I'm not going to tell everybody that," said the other, with a
+side glance at the bearded man, indicating that Post was the person he
+did not care to confide in.
+
+"Well, is your name Theodore Chester?" Hiram asked in some desperation.
+
+"I suppose it is. At least, that is what I have always called myself."
+
+"Now you know, Ted, I always treated you right," began the bearded man.
+
+But Hiram stopped him. He waved a commanding hand.
+
+"Get those calves into that pen. If Ted wants to talk to you, he can
+do so afterward. But it doesn't seem to me as though it was any of our
+business whether he is Ted Chester or somebody else."
+
+"Well, I tell you right now," growled the farmer. "I ain't going to
+lose that fifty if I can help it."
+
+When the calves were unloaded and the real Orrin Post had driven away
+grumbling, Ted Chester--if that was his name--turned to look at Hiram
+in rather a sheepish fashion.
+
+"I suppose you think it's up to me to explain, Strong?" he asked.
+
+"Well, I am curious," admitted Hiram.
+
+"Of course, you, thinking my name was Orrin Post until now--"
+
+"No. I might as well tell you that I suspected you had been known as
+Ted Chester about a year ago," interrupted Hiram, and he told him how
+he had come to that belief.
+
+"Well, it is a fact. That was Orrin Post. I worked for him. He is
+the man who chased me when I was sick. I don't know how I came to
+give you his name, unless it was because he was on my mind. And in my
+opinion--then, at least--one name was as good as another."
+
+"Was there any reason why you were afraid to use this one of Chester?"
+
+"Only that I did not want to be traced."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"By anybody."
+
+"Then you knew," said Hiram thoughtfully, "that somebody was after you?"
+
+"I was told so."
+
+"Who does that lawyer represent?"
+
+"Hang it all, Hiram!" exclaimed the other, "I have been in a reform
+school. Back East. I ran away. I never had any bringing up--much. Only
+for a couple of years I lived with nice people. Then I got into trouble
+and was arrested. I stayed in the reform school some time."
+
+"This must have happened a good while ago," guessed Hiram shrewdly.
+
+"I was only nineteen when I ran away from the institution."
+
+"The authorities cannot be searching for you through that lawyer,"
+declared Hiram. "It must be for something else you are wanted."
+
+"I--I never thought of that," murmured his friend.
+
+"Who were your people?"
+
+"I don't know. First I remember I was in an orphanage."
+
+"Just like Sister."
+
+"I suppose so," said the other.
+
+"How do you know 'Theodore Chester' is your name?" demanded Hiram.
+
+"Why, that is what they called me. No! Not altogether," he added. "I
+saw the books once and I know they had me down as 'Ted C.' They always
+called me Ted. I named myself Chester."
+
+"Just as Sister names her brother--and herself for that matter,"
+muttered Hiram. "Say, Orrin--I mean, Ted! Suppose your name should be
+the same as Sister's?"
+
+"What do you mean, Strong?" cried the other.
+
+"Suppose your real name is 'Cheltenham,' too?" propounded Hiram Strong
+shrewdly. "Stranger things have happened, don't you think?"
+
+"Me? You mean that I may be Sister's brother?" demanded Ted. "What
+nonsense! Why, she told me her brother was a little boy--younger than
+she is."
+
+"Lots she knows about it!" rejoined Hiram excitedly. "She doesn't
+know anything more about her brother than you know about yourself.
+Orrin--Ted--whatever your name is. This matter has got to be looked
+into! Right away, too!"
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXII
+
+                             LOOKING AHEAD
+
+
+Later the reticent Ted opened his heart to his friend and told him of
+all his checkered life previous to his coming to Sunnyside Farm.
+
+It was by no means a strange story; except that he was forced to live
+in a public institution, the management of which chanced to be in
+rather hard, unsympathetic hands.
+
+Theodore could remember a little of what had happened to him before he
+was incarcerated in that first institution with its stone walls and
+strict discipline, and a government scarcely paternal.
+
+He could remember that he had had a little sister, too, whom he loved
+very much and whom he looked after and carried about in his arms. But
+they had taken her from him in the orphanage and he had become "Ted C."
+He never was allowed to see his little sister again.
+
+At twelve years old he was taken by a family who treated him well and
+who sent him to school and taught him for a few short years what the
+"worth while" things in life were. Then illness and death in the family
+cost the boy his home, and he had to struggle for himself. He was soon
+picked up by the police and the magistrate sent him to the reform
+school, as there was nobody to speak for him.
+
+How Ted had kept a clean heart during these troubled years was a
+mystery. There was something, Hiram believed, innately good in the
+fellow. Like Sister, he possessed traits of character that disposed him
+toward good rather than toward evil.
+
+But his experiences made him reticent and suspicious. After he ran away
+from the reform school he never wholly trusted people he met. In the
+city he was always in fear of the police, as well as of his associates
+in the reform school who likewise had got out. He was afraid they would
+get him into further trouble. So he went out into the country and
+worked his way west from farm to farm.
+
+That he really was Theodore Cheltenham was soon established through
+letters from the Eastern lawyer who had the matter in charge. At
+Christmas time both he and Hiram were relieved from duty, and they went
+to Scoville to spend the holidays at the Atterson farm and to settle
+with the lawyer about the legacy left to Ted and his sister.
+
+Sister's name, by the way, was Mary, but she always called herself
+"Mary Cecilia."
+
+"Now I've got money and a brother, both," Sister said to Hiram, "I am
+somebody. I wish Mr. Fred Crackit and Mr. Peebles and all those others
+at the boarding house in Crawberry knew about it--and that boy who used
+to pull my pigtails so.
+
+"Dear me, Hiram Strong, what a lucky girl I am."
+
+She would have been glad to keep her brother with her in the East, for
+she was very fond of him already. But Theodore's thoughts were set on
+Sunnyside. He had immediately written to Mr. Bronson, making an offer
+for the farm, having money enough as his share of his grandmother's
+legacy to make a first payment on the place. And, in time, Sunnyside
+Farm became Ted Cheltenham's property.
+
+The two young fellows returned to Pringleton after New Year's to take
+up their work. Hiram's contract with Mr. Bronson had still some months
+to run, and it was arranged that he should put in the corn crop and
+continue a personal oversight of the farm until after wheat harvest.
+For Hiram had a stake in that wheat crop; and while he was making
+arrangements for his own great venture, the particulars of which will
+be related in "Hiram in the Great Northwest," he intended to keep a
+sharp eye on Yancey Battick's famous wheat.
+
+That winter, whenever it was open weather, both Hiram and Battick
+searched the fields for the pest that had attacked the Staff of Life
+Wheat during the previous season. Some of the farmers around the Banks
+place had their grain well-nigh eaten up by the pest, but none appeared
+again on Sunnyside. There was no danger of Adam Banks spreading the
+grain louse to other fields, if he had been guilty of it before, for
+Banks had finally come to the attention of the police and had been put
+in jail.
+
+"And the right place for him," declared Miss Pringle. "He has made
+trouble enough about here."
+
+Miss Pringle's own interest in the new wheat was abiding since she had
+helped in its sale during the summer. And by this time she showed an
+inordinate interest in everything belonging to Yancey Battick.
+
+The latter had "spruced up," as Hiram called it, a good deal of late.
+He was no longer playing the hermit. His success with the Staff of Life
+Wheat made him forget his failure with the Mortgage Lifter Oats, and
+really made a new man of Yancey Battick.
+
+"And mark my words," Ted Cheltenham said, laughing, when Hiram said
+this, "that new man is looking for a new woman. I can't go over to
+Delia's in the evening without finding Yancey Battick occupying her
+best rocker. I don't know but Abigail will leave Miss Pringle flat. She
+still believes Battick has the evil eye."
+
+This winter did not pass without Hiram being invited to one of Lettie
+Bronson's parties. This time the young girl saw to it that Ted was
+asked too, for she rode up to Sunnyside herself to deliver the
+invitation to the social function by word of mouth.
+
+Of course they agreed to go. Hiram would not have hurt Lettie's
+feelings for anything, and she was much in earnest. As for Ted, he
+seemed to have prepared for this very occasion while he was East.
+
+At least, he displayed a handsome suit of evening clothes and asked
+Hiram if he was not going to wear his own dress suit. Hiram hauled the
+suit in question out of his trunk and carefully examined it. In his
+eyes the clothes looked just the same as they had when he laid them
+away.
+
+"Here, Jim," he said to Larry. "You and I are about of a size. I make
+you a free-will offering of these--pants, coat and vest! Somehow, I
+don't fancy my appearance in the 'soup to nuts.' My figure is not built
+right for such garments. I am sure no tailor could make Hiram Strong
+look as though he belonged in a suit of this kind."
+
+Perhaps he was right. At least, nobody considered him out of place when
+he arrived at the Bronson house and appeared as one of the few men who
+were not in evening dress.
+
+In another matter Hiram showed wisdom on this occasion. Lettie was just
+as kind to him as she always had been. He might have had three or four
+dances with her. He accepted two, and sat them out with her in a corner
+of the conservatory, although Ted Cheltenham danced with every girl he
+could find--and danced well.
+
+"You are a funny boy, Hiram Strong," said Lettie, looking at him
+curiously.
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Why, preferring to sit here rather than to getting out on that
+beautifully waxed floor," she said.
+
+"I would be 'funnier' there than I look here," he replied grimly. "I
+know my failings better than I used to, Lettie."
+
+"Why, Hiram!"
+
+"Sure I do. I am only going to tackle in the future what I have a fair
+chance to accomplish."
+
+"I cannot imagine you as a failure in anything, Hiram," she, told him
+very prettily.
+
+"No? I can imagine myself failing in lots of things."
+
+"But not in this new venture you are making? Father says you have
+wonderful pluck to attempt to go out into that strange country and risk
+your last cent on a wheat ranch."
+
+"I suppose it does look like a gamble," admitted Hiram.
+
+"And father says he would be glad to help you get started here, as
+Orrin--I mean, Theodore--is starting."
+
+"It is kind of your father, I know," agreed Hiram. "But I guess I am
+in a hurry. I may be glad to come back and take a job with your father
+again. But it will only be after I have spent every cent I own on this
+new venture."
+
+"And you have made good here, Hiram," she said, with some wistfulness
+in her voice and her look. "Don't you think you would better stay?"
+
+"Couldn't think of it, Lettie. My plans are all made."
+
+"Not--not if all your friends here asked you to?" she ventured.
+
+"Why, I am sure," Hiram laughed, but remembering in secret how Sister
+had finally wished him Godspeed, "that none of my real friends would
+want to keep me back from this thing, when I am so set on it and have
+been so long planning for it."
+
+"Well, perhaps not," she sighed. "Here comes Theodore, looking for me,
+Hiram. I have promised him the next dance."
+
+She arose, and Hiram watched her float away in the arms of his friend.
+For a moment he felt a stab of--was it jealousy? Or was it just a
+feeling of homesickness as he contemplated so soon leaving everybody
+he knew and cared for, to lose himself in the vast wheat fields of the
+Great Northwest?
+
+
+                                THE END
+
+    [Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation left as printed.]
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75408 ***
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+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75408 ***</div>
+
+<div class="titlepage">
+
+<h1>HIRAM IN THE MIDDLE WEST</h1>
+
+<p>OR</p>
+
+<h2><i>A YOUNG FARMER'S UPWARD STRUGGLE</i></h2>
+
+<p class="ph1">BY BURBANK L. TODD</p>
+
+<p>AUTHOR OF "HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER."</p>
+
+<p><i>ILLUSTRATED</i></p>
+
+<p>NEW YORK<br>
+GEORGE SULLY &amp; COMPANY</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1920, By</span><br>
+GEORGE SULLY &amp; COMPANY</p>
+
+<p>PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<p class="ph3">BACK TO THE SOIL SERIES</p>
+
+<p class="ph3">By BURBANK L. TODD</p>
+
+<p class="ph3"><i>12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.</i></p>
+
+<p class="ph3">HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER<br>
+Or, Making the Soil Pay</p>
+
+<p class="ph3">HIRAM IN THE MIDDLE WEST<br>
+Or, A Young Fanner's Upward Struggle</p>
+
+<p class="ph3">(Other Volumes in Preparation)</p>
+
+<p class="ph3"><span class="smcap">George Sully &amp; Company, New York</span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table>
+<tr><td class="tdr">I.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><span class="smcap">The Man Who Was Afraid of Rats</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">II.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><span class="smcap">A Kernel of Wheat</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">III.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><span class="smcap">Inventor's Luck</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">IV.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><span class="smcap">Sunnyside</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">V.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><span class="smcap">The Terrible Miss Pringle</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">VI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><span class="smcap">Farming and Furbelows</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">VII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><span class="smcap">Seed Testing</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">VIII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><span class="smcap">The Bluebird</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">IX.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><span class="smcap">Orrin Post</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">X.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><span class="smcap">A Friend Indeed</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><span class="smcap">Friction</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><span class="smcap">Work Begins</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XIII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><span class="smcap">Wheat</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XIV.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><span class="smcap">Yancey Battick's Story</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XV.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><span class="smcap">The Country Dance</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XVI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><span class="smcap">Trouble With Turner's Bull</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XVII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><span class="smcap">Wheat Harvest</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XVIII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><span class="smcap">The Baby Tornado</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XIX.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><span class="smcap">Disaster Threatens</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XX.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><span class="smcap">A Bargain</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XXI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><span class="smcap">A Partnership Is Formed</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XXII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><span class="smcap">A Stranger Appears</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XXIII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><span class="smcap">An Inquiry</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XXIV.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><span class="smcap">Society</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XXV.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><span class="smcap">A Visit and a Pest</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XXVI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><span class="smcap">The Fight for the Wheat</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XXVII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"><span class="smcap">Day Dreams</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XXVIII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"><span class="smcap">Corn and Comparisons</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XXIX.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX"><span class="smcap">Exploiting the Wheat</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XXX.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX"><span class="smcap">King Corn</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XXXI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI"><span class="smcap">Who Is Theodore Chester?</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XXXII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII"><span class="smcap">Looking Ahead</span></a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+
+<table>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#illus1">The two teams cleaned up the Sunnyside cornpatch in a week.</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#illus2">Orrin ... flung the cape over the bull's head</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#illus3">Two of his helpers had to hold the ladder steady while the other handed
+him the end of the wire cable</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#illus4">Everybody about the place—even Sister—worked in the wheat fields</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+
+<h2>HIRAM IN THE MIDDLE WEST</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">THE MAN WHO WAS AFRAID OF RATS</p>
+
+
+<p>For an hour before the accommodation train stopped at Pringleton the
+rain had etched zigzag lines upon the windowpane beside Hiram Strong's
+seat; so to find the platform aglitter with puddles in the dull lamp
+light and the water dripping drearily from the station eaves did not
+surprise him. What was rather astonishing was to find Pringleton such a
+very lonely place.</p>
+
+<p>As far as he could see, when he had walked around the bungalow-built
+station the light in the stationmaster's ticket office was the only
+light visible save the switch-targets and the disappearing green lamps
+on the end of the train. Hiram, with his heavy bag, was the only
+passenger who had got off the evening train.</p>
+
+<p>When he came around to the front of the station again he saw the
+stationmaster humped over his desk in the bay window, with a pen stuck
+over his ear, looking for all the world like a secretary bird. He
+peered out of the window at Hiram curiously, and finally pushed up the
+sash.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know whether you know it or not, young fellow," the
+stationmaster said, "but the company charges mileage if you use this
+platform for a walking track. And you'll make trouble for me if you
+keep going around, for I never have found out how many laps make a
+mile, and I sha'n't know what to charge you."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram Strong smiled his approval of this brand of humor, yet his
+question put in reply was quite serious:</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen anybody around here, sir, from a place called Sunnyside
+Farm?"</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't anybody at Sunnyside Farm, as far as I know," said the
+stationmaster; "and there hasn't been since the house burned down last
+year."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know," Hiram said quickly. "But I rather expected Mr. Bronson
+would have somebody over here to meet me."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Stephen Bronson?" asked the man. "Him that's just bought the
+Sunnyside place?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It's quite a walk to the farm, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is the longest two miles you ever walked, son," declared the
+stationmaster. "Were you thinking to walk it to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"As there is nobody here to meet me, I guess I'll have to," replied the
+youth cheerfully. "Which way do I head? You'll have to start me right,
+or else I may wear out your platform walking around and around on it
+all night."</p>
+
+<p>The stationmaster chuckled. "Well, young fellow," he observed, "it is
+evidently to my advantage to put you on your way. Turn around, pick
+up your bag, go right down those steps to the road and walk straight
+ahead. You are now facing west. When you get into the road you will
+find it not so dark as it seems."</p>
+
+<p>"Dark enough, I guess," muttered Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't miss the road even on a dark night, for there is no fork in
+it till after you pass Sunnyside."</p>
+
+<p>"But," asked the youth, "is there anybody up that way who will lodge me
+for the night, as the Sunnyside house is burned?"</p>
+
+<p>"You may get taken in at Miss Delia Pringle's, just beyond
+Sunnyside—first house after you pass the ruins of the burned
+farmhouse. This station is named after her folks. Don't make the
+mistake of going to the first house this side of Sunnyside."</p>
+
+<p>He said this last so curiously that Hiram asked him: "Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because that is Yancey Battick's place. He'll likely blow a charge
+of rock salt into you from his shotgun and then ask what you want
+afterward."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what's his idea?" asked Hiram much amazed.</p>
+
+<p>"Says he's afraid of rats—that's all," declared the stationmaster, and
+immediately slammed down the window to shut out the searching February
+wind.</p>
+
+<p>The youth hesitated for only a moment longer. He rather thought the
+stationmaster of Pringleton was quite as odd as the man he called
+Yancey Battick, who met all visitors with a salt-loaded shotgun and was
+afraid of rats.</p>
+
+<p>"And this isn't really a night fit for a rat to be out," Hiram
+muttered, after he had walked for some time along the muddy road
+leading west from the station.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally while he was still near the railroad he passed a dwelling;
+but it was just about supper time, and nearly all the lights were at
+the backs of the houses. Hardly a ray of cheerful lamp light reached
+the road.</p>
+
+<p>The houses were situated farther apart as he continued his march. The
+fine rain was penetrating in the extreme. Hiram desired shelter more
+than he ever had before, it seemed to him.</p>
+
+<p>And just when it appeared as though nothing about his situation could
+be worse, the heavens opened. It had been doing this, off and on, all
+day. But this water fall seemed heavier than any of those that had
+preceded it.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram Strong saw a light ahead and a little to one side of the road.
+It was not a very bright light (perhaps it was drowned by the curtain
+of falling rain) but it must be in a house, he thought. At a time like
+this, it was any port in a storm.</p>
+
+<p>He set out at a heavy run toward the light. He found a sagging gate in
+a decrepit fence. Plunging up a muddy path, he reached a tiny porch
+which might have offered some shelter had not the roof leaked like a
+sieve.</p>
+
+<p>"Hard luck!" muttered the youth. "If they won't let me in—"</p>
+
+<p>His feet pounding on the rickety steps and the thump of his heavy bag
+on the porch aroused somebody within. Hiram heard a firm step at the
+other side of the door.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the door opened with an abruptness which was startling. The
+door opened on a chain, and through the aperture of about eight inches
+was thrust the brown muzzle of a double-barreled shotgun that, at
+the moment, looked as big as a cannon to the youth. He stepped back
+promptly, and a cascade off the roof of the porch went down the back of
+his neck.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you after?" demanded a harsh voice.</p>
+
+<p>Above the slanted gun-barrel appeared a ferocious black moustache which
+completely hid the wearer's mouth, a beak-like nose, and a pair of blue
+eyes that glittered half wildly. Altogether the householder was of
+most forbidding aspect, and the youth at once identified him as Yancey
+Battick. He had evidently stopped at the wrong house after all!</p>
+
+<p>"I want nothing, Mr. Battick, but shelter till the rain holds up,"
+Hiram answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Who told you my name?" demanded the man. "I never saw you before,
+young fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"I guessed it," Hiram replied. "I'm a pretty good Yankee at guessing."</p>
+
+<p>"And you are a Yankee, I imagine," the man said. "You're from the East,
+aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," replied Hiram, and mentioned the locality from which he had
+just come in answer to Mr. Stephen Bronson's summons.</p>
+
+<p>The man still presented the gun, and although Hiram had stepped from
+under the cascade pouring down from the roof, he was anything but
+comfortable out there on the porch.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going?" asked Battick, scowling still.</p>
+
+<p>"To Sunnyside Farm."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, there's nobody there! The house is burned down."</p>
+
+<p>"I expect to work that place this year for Mr. Stephen Bronson. I
+want to find a place to lodge near the farm, and I was told to apply
+to—Miss Pringle, I believe the name is."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" gasped the man. "A young fellow like you? Who sent you unwarned
+into the clutches of that old maid?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why—is she so bad?" Hiram asked.</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't any male too young nor yet too old to be out of danger of
+that old maid. Come on in," added Mr. Battick, unchaining the door. "I
+wouldn't let any male creature get into that woman's clutches."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram stepped rather doubtfully into the house. Mr. Yancey Battick
+certainly was a very odd person. He had been warned that the man with
+the welcoming shotgun was afraid of rats; it appeared that he was
+likewise much afraid of spinsters.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">A KERNEL OF WHEAT</p>
+
+
+<p>"Hold on!" said Yancey Battick, halting Hiram just after he was inside
+the house and the door was closed. "Who sent you here?"</p>
+
+<p>He seemed a very suspicious man. His blue eyes searched the open
+countenance of the boy from the East, and his expression, with
+bristling moustache and all, was fierce indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you I was not sent here at all," Hiram explained rather
+wearily. "In fact, I was advised strongly against knocking at your
+door."</p>
+
+<p>"Who advised you?" demanded Battick quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"The stationmaster."</p>
+
+<p>"That old thimblerigger, Jason Oakley? Huh! Are you a friend of his?"</p>
+
+<p>It was evident that Mr. Battick was not on friendly terms with many of
+his neighbors. Hiram Strong did not lack common sense. He proposed to
+say nothing to cause the householder to turn him out into the downpour,
+which was now very severe.</p>
+
+<p>"I am just as much a friend of his, Mr. Battick, as I am of yours," the
+youth said.</p>
+
+<p>"Humph! Well! And I suppose Jason told you to try at Delia Pringle's?"</p>
+
+<p>"He did."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph!" Battick said again, and finally set the gun in a rack near the
+chimney corner.</p>
+
+<p>At last Hiram Strong felt as though he could look about the room.
+Heretofore his attention had been given to that gun. The door by which
+he had entered opened directly from the porch; there was no entry-way.
+The room seemed to be the entire width of the cottage with a wide
+fireplace facing the door, and evidently there was another room behind
+the chimney—perhaps two.</p>
+
+<p>This living room was sufficiently interesting—not to say
+surprising—to the visitor to hold his full attention for the time
+being. The two ends of the room, at the right and left of the doorway,
+first gained Hiram Strong's interest. At the right the wall was
+completely masked from floor to ceiling by bookshelves, and those
+shelves were filled with books, the nature of which he could not so
+easily learn, for the hanging lamp did not thoroughly illuminate the
+apartment.</p>
+
+<p>At the other end was a bench upon which were retorts, a
+mortar-and-pestle, an alcohol forge, and other implements and
+instruments which suggested chemical—and other—experiments. There
+were, too, racks of seed-boxes for testing. Hiram was thoroughly
+familiar with these shallow trays.</p>
+
+<p>But in the middle of the room was the object that most excited Hiram's
+interest. This was a high table—or so it seemed—its shape something
+like that of a coffin. At least, it was as long as a full length
+casket, about as wide, and was side-boarded like no table Hiram had
+ever seen before. But there was a tarpaulin spread over it. The four
+legs were of round, barked, straight logs four inches in diameter.</p>
+
+<p>After setting the gun in the rack Battick turned toward his visitor
+and, though not very graciously, invited him to be seated, pointing to
+a rustic armchair at the side of the hearth farthest from the gun-rack.</p>
+
+<p>"And take off your coat, stranger. What did you say your name was?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is Hiram Strong."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you say about working Sunnyside for Mr. Bronson?" continued
+the host. "I guess you mean you're going to chore around for him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope to run the farm for Mr. Bronson."</p>
+
+<p>"A boy like you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll never be any younger," Hiram laughed, for he was rather used to
+having people cast reflections upon his age. He had had, however, much
+greater experience in practical farming than many men on farms who were
+twice his age.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you know about farming?" asked Battick abruptly. "What
+experience have you had, Mr. Strong?"</p>
+
+<p>Hiram smiled slowly. He was by no means a handsome boy, but he was
+wholesome looking and his smile was disarming. Even the scowling visage
+of Yancey Battick began to smooth out as he watched his visitor. But it
+was plain to be seen that the man was a misanthrope.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," Hiram began, "my father was a very good farmer indeed,
+although he farmed for other men all his life. He read a great deal and
+studied farming methods, and I worked right along with him until I was
+fourteen. What he learned—at least, a good deal of it—I learned, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph!" sniffed Battick, "a boy of that immature age?"</p>
+
+<p>"Father made a friend of me. We were like brothers—chums," Hiram
+Strong continued. "Somehow, he was an easy man to learn from—he was
+patient."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," muttered Battick. "Well, I take it your father died?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. I had got it into my head that I did not want to be a tenant
+farmer, as he was all his life, and there was no money left. So I went
+to town thinking there would be more and better chances for a boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph! You were starting out young."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't have any folks," explained Hiram. "I got a job that barely
+paid my board and lodging. And I soon got sick of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Of the job or the city?" asked Battick, the ghost of a smile passing
+over his face as he listened to his involuntary guest and stared into
+the leaping flames on the hearth.</p>
+
+<p>"Of both," replied Hiram promptly. "The city is no place for a fellow
+who loves the country as I found I did. Mother Atterson, with whom I
+boarded, had eighty acres left her near the town of Scoville, and she
+and I made a dicker. I farmed it for her for two years, and when our
+contract ended at Christmas last, I had fixed things so that she could
+run it on a paying basis with the help of a friend of mine, Henry
+Pollock, and by the aid of Sister, whom Mother Atterson has adopted,
+and Lem Camp, who lives with them.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Stephen Bronson bought a place near Scoville—"</p>
+
+<p>"He's always buying farms," grumbled Battick. "Got more money than
+brains."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't say that," Hiram emphasized in disagreement. "I do not
+believe that Mr. Bronson ever invests in a farm without getting a
+good return for his outlay. He did on the old Fleigler place there in
+Scoville. And he only bought that place to live there for a part of
+each year while his daughter, Lettie, is going to school at St. Beris."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I've heard he has a daughter that just about leads him around by
+the nose," sniffed Battick.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram Strong laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"She's a girl that most any man would be willing to be led around by,
+by the nose or otherwise," he said. "Lettie Bronson is a mighty pretty
+girl. Anyhow, her father liked my work on the Atterson Eighty; so he
+has made me this offer to come out here to the Middle West and farm
+Sunnyside for a couple of years."</p>
+
+<p>In this brief way Hiram Strong had related the more important
+occurrences narrated in the first volume of this series, entitled
+"Hiram the Young Farmer; Or, Making the Soil Pay." His modest statement
+that "Mr. Bronson had liked my work on the Atterson Eighty" scarcely
+described the farm owner's enthusiasm, however, or explained why Mr.
+Bronson had sent for so young a fellow to run his new purchase here at
+Pringleton near the Ohio River.</p>
+
+<p>The rain continued to slap against the old clapboards of the house and
+the limbs of the huge buttonwood tree Hiram had seen in the front yard
+creaked loudly. A long and hard storm threatened, and the outlook for
+pushing on to Miss Pringle's was not a happy one. The woman would be in
+bed before Hiram reached her place.</p>
+
+<p>As Mr. Battick seemed to have fallen into a brown study and asked no
+further questions, Hiram felt free to examine the furniture of the
+living room again. The table—if it was a table—was an odd thing. The
+young man did not know what to make of it.</p>
+
+<p>The piece of tarpaulin that covered it was sunk in along the top, and
+he came to the conclusion that there was no real top to the table.
+Then, in leaning back in his low chair near the fire, he saw that the
+long frame was bottomed with heavy planks. It was a box on four legs
+rather than a table.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Battick spoke again, in his usual abrupt fashion:</p>
+
+<p>"Have you had your supper yet, young fellow?"</p>
+
+<p>The tone could not be called cordial.</p>
+
+<p>"I had something to eat on the train," replied Hiram indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>"On that old accommodation?" sniffed Battick. "Case-hardened
+sandwiches, I bet."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram laughed, but admitted the fact.</p>
+
+<p>"I know what it is to ride on that train," the man said. "In spite of
+what Jase Oakley told you about me, I wouldn't see a man starve—not
+right here in my own house," added this queer individual, though still
+gruffly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the stationmaster did not say anything about you except that you
+were afraid of rats," Hiram rejoined, watching Battick slyly, for he
+was very curious about the man.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what that old thimblerigger said about me, eh?" growled
+Battick. "Lucky he don't often come up this way. It might happen that
+I should take him for a rat."</p>
+
+<p>He said it so savagely that Hiram considered it best to say nothing
+more to excite his strange host. Battick brought eggs and bacon and
+half of a corn pone from a cupboard, preparing the meal deftly at the
+open fire.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Hiram's attention was caught by something on the floor just
+under the nearest corner of the odd table, or box, in the middle of the
+room. It was a tiny, cone-shaped heap of grain—wheat, he thought. It
+had dribbled through the bottom of that box by some tiny hole, it was
+plain, and had fallen unnoticed to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>There was something odd about this grain—something that immediately
+attracted Hiram's particular interest. When Battick's back was turned
+he stooped sideways from his chair and secured one of the kernels
+of wheat between his thumb and finger. He placed it in his palm and
+studied it minutely.</p>
+
+<p>The kernel of wheat was different from any grain he had ever seen.
+First of all, it was a very large, plump grain, perfectly formed, and
+upon one side was a tiny yet distinct red stripe.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Hiram looked up from the grain in his hand. Battick had made
+a strange move. He had set the skillet down on the hearth and was
+reaching for the shotgun. His eyes seemed to glow and a deep flush was
+diffused over the man's forbidding looking countenance.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram Strong was amazed and startled at his host's appearance.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter, Mr. Battick?" cried the visitor. "What are you
+doing with that gun?" for the man had seized it now.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" hissed Yancey Battick. "I think I see a rat!"</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">INVENTOR'S LUCK</p>
+
+
+<p>The thought had been impressed upon Hiram Strong's mind from the very
+first that there was something altogether wrong with Yancey Battick.
+His wild eyes and excited manner now convinced the visitor that this
+suspicion was correct. Battick was not altogether sane. And when he
+reached for that rock-salt loaded shotgun the visitor prepared to
+defend himself.</p>
+
+<p>The muzzle of the gun swung toward Hiram. The latter slid out of his
+chair and darted sideways just as Battick rose up with the butt of
+the gun at his shoulder. The muzzle seemed closely following Hiram's
+movements.</p>
+
+<p>Then the man's finger pressed the trigger and the gun roared. It seemed
+that the wind of the charge passed over Hiram's head.</p>
+
+<p>"What under the sun are you doing?" demanded the youth, leaping up and
+facing the householder.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you move for?" retorted Battick. "I might have got you
+instead of the rat."</p>
+
+<p>"The rat?" repeated Hiram in some doubt.</p>
+
+<p>Battick returned the smoking shotgun to its rack and crossed the room
+to the workbench. Under it, deep in the shadow of the corner, he found
+his game—a fat, gray rat, still kicking.</p>
+
+<p>"Great Scott!" murmured the boy from the East, "it really was a rat."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you think I would be shooting in this old house?" growled
+Battick. "It's rat-ridden. They give me no peace. They have cost me
+more—well, no use going into that," said the man, and so concluded.</p>
+
+<p>But Hiram Strong was now immensely interested in this strange
+individual. His fright because of Mr. Battick's reckless use of his
+shotgun was soon over. The rats about this ancient cottage certainly
+were very bold. But there must be—there was—a particular reason
+why the man was afraid of the rats. This fear of which Hiram had
+first heard from Jason Oakley, the stationmaster, was not merely some
+idiosyncrasy of Battick's.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you tried poison for the vermin?" Hiram demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I've tried everything," replied the man gruffly.</p>
+
+<p>"What makes them so bold?"</p>
+
+<p>"The place was overrun with them when I came on it four years ago. I
+can't keep anything in the barn. Why, they have eaten a good buggy
+harness on me! I have to keep my harnesses in my bedroom. I've got an
+alarm clock in there and it ticks so loud that it scares them off, I
+guess. And, then, I snore. That must keep the creatures on the move."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram did not know whether the man was all together in earnest, or not;
+but he had to laugh at this last statement.</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't no laughing matter," Yancey Battick said, wagging his head.
+"My old horse got a nail in his hoof and I greased it well. Hanged if
+the rascals didn't near eat him up in one night. If he hadn't kicked
+and snorted so and woke me up, I guess they would have had the most of
+him eaten before morning."</p>
+
+<p>"But what brings them into the house—and so bold? You must be on the
+watch for them continually."</p>
+
+<p>"I am. Jase Oakley is right. I am afraid of the things. I scarcely dare
+leave the house because of them—"</p>
+
+<p>He halted. Hiram knew instinctively that the man thought he had said
+too much. He had verged on some secret, the mystery of which the youth
+had felt to be in the very air of the house since he had entered it. He
+saw that Battick was eyeing him again in his suspicious, if not ugly,
+way, so he hastily asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Did you learn to shoot on the fly like that by shooting rats?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I knew how to use a gun before I came to Pringleton."</p>
+
+<p>"You've got good eyesight. I did not see that rat at all."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw the glint of his eyes under the bench." Battick was again
+giving his attention to the preparations for supper. "I've got so I am
+continually on the watch for the rascals."</p>
+
+<p>And he did not dare leave the house because of them! Then, decided
+Hiram Strong, there was something in the house that he feared the rats
+would destroy.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram looked under the odd box in the middle of the room at the little
+heap of grain that lay there. Wheat! A special kind of wheat! The
+seed-boxes on the bench told something. Hiram could guess more. But he
+said nothing at the moment. In fact Yancey Battick was scarcely a man
+to whom one would address a personal remark or ask a direct question
+about himself or his affairs.</p>
+
+<p>Yancey Battick brought a small stand from one corner of the room and
+set it before the fire. He spread a clean, if coarse, cloth upon it,
+and then the tableware, such as a camper would use. The smoking food,
+together with a pot of coffee, came on the table, and Battick beckoned
+Hiram to draw up his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"This is mighty good of you, Mr. Battick," the visitor said,
+"especially when I know you do not make a practice of harboring
+wayfarers."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I shall not be sorry for having befriended you," the man said
+gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>"I assure you—"</p>
+
+<p>"You couldn't assure me of anything," interrupted Battick. "I have had
+sufficient experience to make me a thorough pessimist. You look like a
+nice young fellow; but I shall not be surprised if I am, in the end,
+very sorry that I took you in."</p>
+
+<p>"Even to save me from the clutches of Miss Delia Pringle?" the visitor
+suggested slyly.</p>
+
+<p>There came a sudden twinkle into Yancey Battick's eye. Whether or not
+he was a monomaniac on some subject (and Hiram Strong was tempted to
+believe he was) it was evident that the man appreciated a joke. He
+nodded his appreciation of Hiram's words.</p>
+
+<p>"That woman is a pest!" Battick said with vigor. "But I guess she is
+honest—wouldn't steal anything but an unsophisticated and helpless
+man-critter, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>So it was stealing that he was afraid of! Rats are great thieves. Hiram
+guessed again—and believed he had hit the fundamental trouble with his
+odd host. Battick had originated, or developed, a new seed-wheat. He
+feared somebody would steal it from him, and the rats were doing so.</p>
+
+<p>The rats were so troublesome that he had to keep the wheat in his
+living room. This table-looking thing was a box full of wheat. And
+because the rats were so bold he dared not leave the house. Even with
+all these precautions the thieving creatures were getting some of the
+wheat, as note that little pile of grain under the box on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>The young fellow from Scoville was interested in more than one way.
+First of all, Battick himself aroused his curiosity. But that single
+kernel of wheat he had picked up interested Hiram Strong much more.</p>
+
+<p>He had examined many samples of seed-wheat, but nothing that had ever
+looked like this large, plump grain with the tiny crimson stripe upon
+it This was indeed a distinct variety, and if its culture was possible
+on all wheat lands, and it milled all right, Hiram knew the strange man
+had the basis of a fortune—if he could put it over.</p>
+
+<p>This section around Pringleton, as Hiram had learned from Mr. Bronson,
+was not particularly a wheat-growing country. And yet every farmer of
+any importance grew some wheat. If this box was full of grain the man
+had about eight bushels, if Hiram was any judge of bulk and measure.
+Sown carefully, this would be enough for five or six acres. Five or six
+acres of wheat is a very small wheat crop, but an excellent seed crop.</p>
+
+<p>If Battick really had a new and good wheat, the crop from this amount
+of seed would pay him a good penny, if he could sell it to an honest
+seedsman. There was thus reason why he should be so afraid of
+thieves—and especially of the rats.</p>
+
+<p>Under fortunate conditions, the increase of these few bushels of wheat
+would yield Battick a small fortune. Perhaps the man was by no means
+as crazy as he at first appeared. And it might be that he knew his
+neighbors, and had reason to suspect them of desiring to rob him of the
+fruits of his discovery.</p>
+
+<p>The two finished supper and pushed back from the table. There was a
+sink in one corner of the room, and at this Battick quickly washed the
+cooking utensils and tableware, while Hiram dried them. They spoke of
+inconsequential things while they did this work Then Battick said:</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't have the heart to turn you out on a night like this, even
+if it cleared off—which it isn't likely to do. I'll let you sleep in
+my bed and I'll bunk down here before the fire."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, Mr. Battick! I could not think of taking your bed," Hiram
+urged, but with a smile. "You have proved to me that you are a much
+better neighbor than you were quoted at; but there is no use in
+carrying the demonstration too far. I will sleep here before the fire
+and be very glad of the chance."</p>
+
+<p>Yancey Battick flashed him another of those hard, suspicious glances.
+It was not difficult to read the man's mind now that Hiram had
+discovered, as he thought, the key to the mystery. Battick was
+suspicious of him yet. He said gruffly:</p>
+
+<p>"If you remain here to-night, young man, you will sleep in my bed. And
+see that you do sleep, too, for although I snore, I'm easily roused,
+and I keep that gun right beside me."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram could not help being somewhat exasperated by all this suspicion.
+He was glad enough of the shelter; but he did not think he looked so
+dishonest that his host had to guard himself with a shotgun.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Mr. Battick," he said, rather tartly. "You're one of those
+cows that give a good pail of milk and then step in it. You give
+me supper and a bed, but distrust me. How do you know but you are
+entertaining an angel unawares?" and he ended by laughing a little to
+cover his vexation.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right, too," Battick replied. "I know all about those
+'angels unaware.' I've had my experience with them, and I've had to
+run 'em off the place with my shotgun. Besides, I don't see any wings
+sprouting on you, Mr. Strong. I'll treat you just as good as you treat
+me. But as I tell 'em all, when you come to my front gate, call out;
+and if I don't answer, keep off."</p>
+
+<p>"If you are a pessimist, Mr. Battick," Hiram said shortly, "I hope I'll
+never get to be one."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the man flashed him a more earnest glance than before. His
+countenance became suffused with red.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you never will, young man," Battick said. "And never be an
+inventor. Immediately a man starts out to help his fellows, everybody's
+hand is turned against him. He is pariah—and likewise the prey of all
+those with thieving instincts. Consider Goodyear, what he suffered; and
+Elias Howe, and a horde of others.</p>
+
+<p>"I came to Pringleton to escape people who wanted to rob me. Some of
+them had. But it seems people are the same in all localities. I have to
+watch, and threaten, and live like an outlaw to keep what is my own,
+Mr. Strong. You are young and have faith. Keep that faith in people
+if you can. But never be an inventor; for that is a crime that should
+be punished by being boiled in oil, or sawn asunder, or drawn and
+quartered, or some other middle-age device for making capital criminals
+suffer."</p>
+
+<p>"That is dreadful!" exclaimed Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"Sounds pretty rough, I admit," Battick said, in his usual tone. "But
+believe me, I know whereof I speak. Now, come this way, Mr. Strong. I
+think you will be comfortable."</p>
+
+<p>He lit a candle at the blaze on the hearth and led the way into his
+bedroom. It was a comfortable room, and Battick insisted upon putting
+clean sheets on the bed, which he aired before the fire, and left his
+guest finally with the word:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be frightened if you hear the gun in the night, Strong. I shall
+probably be only shooting at a rat."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram had never been entertained in just this way before. He peered
+through the crack of the door and saw Yancey Battick loading the barrel
+of the shotgun that had previously been emptied. The young fellow went
+to bed finally feeling that he was in the midst of alarms.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">SUNNYSIDE</p>
+
+
+<p>As so often happens after a hard storm, the weather cleared at daybreak
+and a patch of cold blue wintry sky met Hiram Strong's inquisitive gaze
+through the window as he rolled over in Yancey Battick's comfortable
+bed to look out.</p>
+
+<p>He judged immediately that it would be a race between Boreas and Jack
+Frost as to which would gain the most advantage by the stopping of the
+rain. The sturdy wind would try to dry up the saturated earth before
+Jack Frost could get his fetters on the puddles and plowed ground.</p>
+
+<p>From what he had read of conditions here about Pringleton, the winter
+had already been severe enough for all farming purposes. The grain was
+in good shape, the plowed ground had already been well frozen to the
+detriment of the bugs and worms, and the fruit trees were showing no
+signs of early sap-rising.</p>
+
+<p>Another month of cold weather, some snow for a wheat-cover, and some
+strong March winds, would put the land in ideal shape for corn.</p>
+
+<p>And Hiram Strong had been brought here to the Corn Belt of the Middle
+West for the express purpose of raising corn.</p>
+
+<p>He was enthusiastic over the prospect. He had worked hard and
+intelligently on the little Eastern farm, and now had come his chance,
+not only to work out his present theories on a larger scale, but to
+experiment further and with greater facilities for carrying his plans
+through to successful completion. Yes, it was with eager anticipation
+and high hopes that he looked forward to the advancing spring.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Stephen Bronson had been growing bumper crops on all his farms
+through the Middle West, and especially those in the vicinity of
+Pringleton. Without doubt the big farm owner, having seen what Hiram
+Strong had accomplished on the Atterson Eighty, determined to learn if
+such methods of cultivation would pay on a larger acreage and under
+somewhat different conditions of climate and with different tools.</p>
+
+<p>The young fellow quite realized that he was on trial only. He must make
+good within two years or he would be a failure in the eyes of such a
+sharp business man as Stephen Bronson.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram, however, had no intention of being a failure; he had come here
+to Pringleton to win, just as he had gone upon the old Jeptha Atterson
+farm to win.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram remained in bed on this morning until he heard a stir in the
+living room and the sizzling of bacon in the skillet. He had not been
+disturbed by Mr. Battick shooting at rats in the night (for which he
+was grateful), but he had not dared to venture into the outer room
+until he was sure his host was moving about.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram brought his bag out of the bedroom already packed. Battick only
+grunted a "good morning," and was evidently in no more cheerful mood
+than on the evening before. Had he been invited to do so, the youth
+from the East would not have wished to prolong his stay with the man.</p>
+
+<p>Battick, however, seemed still opposed to Hiram's getting into the
+clutches of Miss Delia Pringle. At breakfast he said:</p>
+
+<p>"If you can stand to 'bach it,' as I do, Mr. Strong, you can make
+yourself comfortable up there at Sunnyside, and no thanks to anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"But you say the house is burned down!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's right. The last fellow who was on the farm, however, went in
+strong for poultry. Believed in fowls—it was a religion with him. And
+I take it a man has got to make 'em his religion really to get anything
+out of them. I never had the patience myself."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe eighty per cent. of those who try hens for profit, fail; but
+the successful ones can easily enough point out the reasons for those
+failures," said Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, maybe. However, that Brandenburg who lived at Sunnyside last
+fixed up a pretty good hen plant. After the fire he went in a hurry.
+Feared he would be blamed, perhaps. And I guess that Pringle woman
+would have done something to him if she could have got the law on him."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Delia Pringle?" Hiram asked, with some curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Her folks owned pretty near all the land around here two or three
+generations ago. That's why it is called Pringleton. Sounds like a
+nursery rhyme. She sold Sunnyside to Stephen Bronson, same as she sold
+me this place."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed?"</p>
+
+<p>"This was the old Pringle homestead. Built before the Flood, or
+thereabout," said Battick. "That is why it is rat-ridden. The rodents
+had it to themselves for years, while the farm lay idle. It had not
+been cropped to death by tenants; that is why I bought it. You will
+find part of Sunnyside in worse shape than this old place was. Miss
+Pringle had one tenant after another on the big farm, each one worse
+than the previous incumbent. I hope Stephen Bronson got it cheap
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>"You intimated I might find some means of housekeeping up there, after
+all," said Hiram. "What did you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"That Brandenburg left his chicken plant just as it was. The end
+shed is tight and has a good stove in it and a bunk. He watched his
+incubators there. You get some bedclothes and some cooking utensils and
+you'll be fixed right," said Battick.</p>
+
+<p>"Anything rather than give me up to the teeth and claws of Miss
+Pringle, is it?" asked Hiram, with a quiet chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>"No laughing matter, young fellow," advised Battick, as the visitor
+prepared to depart. "I'll bet you she'll be over to see you before you
+are at Sunnyside twenty-four hours—unless she has a broken leg. Oh, I
+know her, Mr. Strong. I pretty near had to run her off this place with
+my gun."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not, Mr. Battick."</p>
+
+<p>"Fact," said the man in a perfectly serious way. "As I tell you, this
+was the old Pringle place. She claimed she liked to come down here for
+old time's sake and sit under that buttonwood tree out there. She'd
+bring her sewing and stay all the afternoon and I had to dress up and
+make believe I was going to town to get rid of her."</p>
+
+<p>"That was a good deal of a time-consumer," interrupted Hiram, his eyes
+dancing with his inward mirth.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," pursued the harassed man, "folks riding by began to ask me if
+we were going to be married soon and whether I'd continue to live down
+here or go up to Miss Pringle's new house to live with her. It got
+right embarrassing for a modest man, for a fact!</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," added Battick, "I didn't know but she was aiming to get me
+into court for breach of promise. Circumstantial evidence has hung many
+a man."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I shall have no similar trouble," Hiram replied, vastly amused.</p>
+
+<p>He believed Battick, in spite of all his moodiness, and his fear of
+rats—and dislike for visitors—was a wit and worth cultivating. At
+least, he determined to learn more about that new wheat that the man
+was guarding so religiously.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, Hiram had found a chance to pick up a pinch of the wheat corns
+from under the trough, and had the grain safely twisted up in a bit of
+paper in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>He knew better than to offer Mr. Battick anything like money in return
+for the queer hospitality the misanthrope had shown him. Hiram did,
+however, make one attempt to return something for the kindness.</p>
+
+<p>"I see you have seed wheat in this box, Mr. Battick," he said. "If you
+wish to keep the rats out of it, I believe I can show you a wrinkle."</p>
+
+<p>"You can?" rejoined Battick, watching him with keen suspicion again.</p>
+
+<p>"You have a couple of old milk pans there and two wash basins. Invert a
+basin or a pan over each leg of that box and no rat can run up the leg
+and over the side of the box, or gnaw into it."</p>
+
+<p>"I get you!" ejaculated Battick, seeing the point at once. "I believe
+that's a good idea, young fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it is," rejoined Hiram with confidence. "I built me a corncrib
+that way only last year. It surely gives Mr. Rat something new to think
+about."</p>
+
+<p>He picked up his bag, shook hands with his odd host, and went out. It
+was a keen wind he faced as he started up the hill to Sunnyside Farm.</p>
+
+<p>A jay winging its way from one wood to another, stopped upon a dead
+limb to stare curiously at the wayfarer. Then, with raucous cry, it
+disappeared in a piece of woodland that evidently belonged to the old
+farm that Yancey Battick had purchased from the terrible Miss Pringle.
+This windbreak divided the Battick place from Sunnyside.</p>
+
+<p>While he was yet at some distance Hiram saw the burned ruins of the
+farmhouse on the hill and the barns and other outbuildings. All the
+arable land of Sunnyside seemed to lie on the south side of the road;
+and the slope of the fields was toward that same point of the compass.</p>
+
+<p>The higher land on his right was heavily timbered clear to the summit
+of the hill. As he mounted the incline he obtained a pretty clear idea
+of what the acres he expected to farm looked like.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram Strong was deeply interested in his calling. Every young fellow
+must, if he would get on in the world and really amount to anything. As
+he had told Yancey Battick the evening before, Hiram's father had been
+a good farmer, and he had not only given his son knowledge, but had
+instilled into his mind the principle of thoroughness, as well.</p>
+
+<p>As Hiram looked, searching the fields to the far-distant line of the
+forest-bounded farm, he wondered what would be his fortune here. Would
+he be able to show a profit for Mr. Bronson on the ledger, as he had
+for Mother Atterson? As to his own contract, Hiram was on a straight
+salary, and whether he made little or much for his employer his own
+income would not be affected.</p>
+
+<p>But money was not the only thing that Hiram Strong saw in the bargain.
+He was after a reputation. Moreover, he desired to learn something from
+his experience—whatever it might be—here at Sunnyside.</p>
+
+<p>He reached the plain at the top of the rise at last. The outlook all
+about was promising, save in one direction where there was a piece of
+burned timber. The nearest house was a white painted cottage with green
+blinds on the other side of the road and a few rods beyond the burned
+timber lot.</p>
+
+<p>"That must be Miss Pringle's," Hiram thought, and on the heels of this
+mental decision he beheld to his surprise a woman with a shawl thrown
+hastily over her head running out of this small dwelling and out of the
+yard, approaching the main gate of the Sunnyside place, evidently in a
+state of exaggerated excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, young man!" she shouted while still some distance away, "I want
+to know why you've kept this whole neighborhood in a stir-up all this
+blessed night? Where have you been? And you as dry as a bone right
+now!"</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">THE TERRIBLE MISS PRINGLE</p>
+
+
+<p>The woman so excitedly approaching Sunnyside was a buxom person with
+every sign of an assertive and determined character. This first
+speech addressed to Hiram made him feel that he must somehow be in
+the wrong—that he had done something to shock Miss Pringle and the
+neighborhood in general.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram took off his hat as Miss Pringle came near. But he did not offer
+his hand, for he was not at all sure that her greeting was intended to
+be a friendly one.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you are Mr. Strong?" the woman gasped, rather out of breath
+when she arrived.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am," replied Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, for the land's sake, where have you been?"</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I don't understand you," he said. "Are you Miss Pringle?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's who I am," she declared with emphasis. "And I heard all about
+you from Mr. Bronson. You were comin' to stay at my house last night
+and you didn't come. Were you told to come to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly. I was advised to try at your house for lodging—"</p>
+
+<p>"Who by?" she flashed at him.</p>
+
+<p>"By the stationmaster."</p>
+
+<p>"That dumbhead! I might have known Jase Oakley would ball it all up.
+When Mr. Bronson 'phoned to me that he could not get over in the storm
+to meet you at the depot, I turned right around and 'phoned Jason to
+tell you that I would be on the lookout for you. Didn't he tell you
+that, Mr. Strong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in just that way," replied Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, for the land's sake, where did you stop? When you didn't come
+along at the proper time after the train got in last evening I began
+calling folks on the line. I called everybody that had a 'phone, and
+none of 'em had seen you. It was so rough a night—"</p>
+
+<p>Hiram saw at once that the terrible Miss Pringle was, after all,
+a kindly soul. It could not be for the mere possession of a "male
+creature," sight unseen, that she had taken all this trouble to locate
+him, a stranger in Pringleton.</p>
+
+<p>"You were most kind, Miss Pringle," he said quickly. "I am sorry to
+have caused you any disturbance of mind."</p>
+
+<p>"But where did you stay?" insisted the woman, eyeing Hiram with two
+very sharp brown eyes.</p>
+
+<p>It was evident that very little of importance went on in Miss Delia
+Pringle's neighborhood that she did not see. She was kindly of
+disposition as well as shrewd, Mr. Yancey Battick's opinion to the
+contrary notwithstanding. Hiram was not at all afraid of her when he
+looked into her plump and rosy face.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you," he said, smiling covertly, for he suspected from what the
+stationmaster had said how the majority of the neighbors looked upon
+Yancey Battick, "a heavy shower caught me and I made for the nearest
+house."</p>
+
+<p>"And whose was that, for the land's sake?" was the instant demand.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Battick's," Hiram said demurely.</p>
+
+<p>"Yancey Battick?" almost shrieked Miss Pringle. "Why, he's crazy!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't wonder if he is a little," admitted Hiram. "But I am sure
+he is harmless."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that," she demurred. "He's altogether too quick to
+use a gun. A poor tramp came past here last summer—he never would have
+stopped, I guess, only he was out of breath completely—and Battick had
+blown his coat-tails off with a charge of rock-salt just because the
+hobo had gone into the yard of the old house and around to the well.
+That's the coldest water anywhere in Pringleton; but nobody ever gets a
+drink of it but Yancey Battick now."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he's paid for it, Miss Pringle?" said Hiram quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that he has," was her quick reply. "At least, the
+neighbors blame me for selling the old place to such a man. They know
+I didn't need the money. And Yancey Battick certainly ain't what you
+can call with truth a good neighbor. We count on getting good neighbors
+into the Pringleton district if we can. That is why I was so glad to
+sell Sunnyside to Mr. Bronson.</p>
+
+<p>"And do you really mean to tell me that you spent the night with Mr.
+Battick?" she added.</p>
+
+<p>"And he did not eat me up," laughed Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"Well! All I've got to say, young man, is that you're a regular Daniel.
+You'd find it cozy and comfortable, I guess, in a lion's den. Never
+heard of anybody's even getting inside of the old house before since
+Battick got into it. He <i>did</i> let you inside, didn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't look as though I had stayed out on that leaky old porch of
+his, do I?" asked Hiram, still much amused.</p>
+
+<p>"You're as dry as a bone, as I said before."</p>
+
+<p>"Not only did he entertain me for supper and breakfast, but he gave me
+his own bed in which to sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"For the land's sake!" Miss Pringle shook her head in wonder. Then her
+brown eyes suddenly snapped. All the inquisitiveness in the woman's
+nature came to the surface; perhaps it was her single sin. "What's he
+got in that house he's so afraid the neighbors might see, Mr. Strong?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not see anything particularly mysterious—nothing at all," Hiram
+assured her.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a thing? Wasn't he trying to hide anything from you? Didn't he
+seem afraid of anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"He certainly has a great fear of rats," Hiram admitted, answering
+her second query but avoiding the first. "And he has good reason to.
+He shot a big fellow right there in the house while we sat before the
+fire."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say!"</p>
+
+<p>"If it was me I'd get me a weasel and turn him loose in the house and
+then pour cement and broken glass in the rat holes."</p>
+
+<p>"He knew the rats were there when he bought the old homestead,"
+declared Miss Pringle defensively.</p>
+
+<p>"And I guess he has a right to shoot them if he wishes to," laughed
+Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"But he is too promiscuous with his shotgun," declared the woman,
+shaking her head. "Well, now, Mr. Strong, I'm sorry you did not reach
+my house. I—and Abigail Wentworth who lives with me—would have been
+glad to put you up. But I am glad you made out as well as you did at
+Mr. Battick's. I'm glad to know he's not so bad as we all thought him."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps the neighbors haven't approached him just right," Hiram
+suggested. "He wishes to be let alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Then there is something wrong with him," Miss Pringle declared.
+"Something that he's ashamed of."</p>
+
+<p>"You are jumping at a conclusion there, that may not be correct," Hiram
+said. "At any rate I saw nothing really wrong with Mr. Battick. And I
+feel grateful for his hospitality."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, Mr. Strong," the woman said quickly, "you bring your bag
+right over to the house and stop with me till Mr. Bronson can make
+other arrangements for you."</p>
+
+<p>"You are more than kind," Hiram told her. "But I understand that I
+may be able to go to housekeeping on my own account in one of the
+sheds—where the former tenant of the farm ran his incubators and
+brooders."</p>
+
+<p>"That Jim Brandenburg! He made me a lot of trouble. But he did have
+ideas about hens. I suppose that shed could be made comfortable for you
+if Mr. Bronson wants you right on the place."</p>
+
+<p>"I will try 'baching it,' Miss Pringle," Hiram said with firmness.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, just as you say. But I want you to come over to-day to dinner.
+You ain't prepared to go right to housekeeping, I'm sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you; I will certainly come," Hiram assured her.</p>
+
+<p>"Do so," Miss Pringle said warmly, as she turned away. "Abigail will
+blow the horn when it's ready."</p>
+
+<p>He thanked her again. The terrible Miss Pringle did not prove to be so
+very formidable after all. It was evident that Battick had gained just
+as wrong an idea about his neighbors as the neighbors had about him.</p>
+
+<p>"I will keep on the blind side of both parties," Hiram Strong told
+himself. "It is well to have friends in both camps. One thing I surely
+want—that is, to keep on good terms with everybody about Sunnyside.
+I don't want to have any such difficulty here as I had with the
+Dickersons at first, back there at Scoville," he added, remembering
+very poignantly a neighborhood feud that had hampered him when he first
+went to work on the Atterson Eighty.</p>
+
+<p>When Miss Pringle had gone back to her neat little cottage across
+the road, Hiram began examining the buildings left standing on the
+Sunnyside premises. Nothing of importance but the dwelling itself had
+been destroyed by the fire.</p>
+
+<p>The barn had a basement with swinging stanchions for ten cows and
+stalls for several horses. The mows were filled with a good quality of
+hay, and some oats in the straw—a feed that Hiram did not much approve
+of. For a horse or mule has to be very hungry indeed to eat oat-straw,
+and fed in this way a large proportion of the grain is wasted and
+trampled underfoot with the roughage.</p>
+
+<p>"It looks to me," Hiram decided, after coming out of the barn, "that
+somebody tried to run a small dairy here without a silo. There are
+stacks of corn fodder, half of it winter-spoiled, and not a beast on
+the place to eat it up. It would pay Mr. Bronson to buy some young
+stock right now and turn it into the paddock back of the barn, and feed
+up all this roughage.</p>
+
+<p>"Even if there is little pasture on the farm, it would pay to do this,
+and if the stock is not fattened by May, hire pasture for them on
+neighboring farms. I hate to see fodder go to waste, for it is the most
+expensive feed a farmer can raise."</p>
+
+<p>Many an older farmer would have called in question the young fellow's
+statement. But Hiram was thinking no longer as a "one-horse farmer." He
+had got out of that class now. Here at Sunnyside, if he made a profit
+at all, it must be through much bigger agricultural activities than he
+had ever been able to compass before.</p>
+
+<p>He went on to the row of poultry houses and entered the first one. This
+was the incubator house of which Mr. Battick had told him. It was a
+well-built and comfortable place. There was a good-sized pot stove and
+a bunk to sleep in. There was a cupboard, too, and a table and a chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess I can make out here for a while, at any rate," he thought as he
+came out-of-doors again. "Of course, later I shan't have time to get
+my own meals; but at first—Ah! here comes an automobile. I wonder if
+this is not Mr. Bronson now?" and he started for the gate to meet the
+machine.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">FARMING AND FURBELOWS</p>
+
+
+<p>The motor-car that came swiftly along the ridge road to the gate of
+Sunnyside Farm was a big, seven-passenger touring car. Behind the wheel
+sat a big man in a fur coat. To tell the truth, however, it was not Mr.
+Bronson, his employer, at whom Hiram Strong first looked.</p>
+
+<p>He had caught sight of a veil trailing upon the wind from the tonneau.
+A girl sat there—a very winsome looking, bright-faced girl—and before
+the car stopped she had spied Hiram and waved a gloved hand at him,
+shouting:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Hiram Strong! isn't this a beautiful spot? How are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm all right, Miss Lettie," he said answering the second question
+first. "I guess it is pretty here at Sunnyside in summer. But look at
+those wheels and mudguards!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bronson began to chuckle, shutting off his engine.</p>
+
+<p>"Hiram's right, Lettie," he said to his daughter. "You'd better stay in
+the car and keep out of this mud. What do you think of the drainage
+hereabout, Hi?"</p>
+
+<p>He stepped out of the car himself and shook hands with Hiram, man to
+man. It was evident by his manner and look that Mr. Stephen Bronson
+both liked and respected Hiram Strong.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't had much time to look about, Mr. Bronson," replied the
+youth, "only got here an hour ago. But it does look as though that
+field yonder"—and he pointed to one at the east of the house lot that
+was covered with shallow puddles—"would be the better for some tiling."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet it is high and should be dry."</p>
+
+<p>"All high land isn't dry—that piece proves it. What's in it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wheat."</p>
+
+<p>"Thought so. It won't be much of a crop, I fear."</p>
+
+<p>"How much tiling would it need to drain that whole piece properly, do
+you think? I understand from the farmers about here that that twenty
+acres has never made heavy crops—neither of corn nor grain. It has
+been limed well, too."</p>
+
+<p>"The litmus paper test will prove or disprove that," said Hiram. "But
+it is high, almost level land, and right along the roadside. It ought
+to grow you a good crop to advertise the farm."</p>
+
+<p>"I presume that's so, Hiram," laughed Mr. Bronson. "But a carload of
+tiles, and dragged clear up here from the siding at Pringleton, would
+cost a heap of money."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," agreed the young farmer. "Perhaps you had better make the better
+fields pay in advance for the improvements on the poor ones."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, wait!" cried Lettie Bronson, with a pout. "You men have begun
+talking farming like a house afire—right at the start! I can't get
+a word in edgewise, and I've got news for Hiram. You know, Hiram, I
+only came on from St. Beris yesterday, just to remain at Plympton with
+father over Sunday."</p>
+
+<p>"And I only got here last night, Miss Lettie," the young fellow said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we might have traveled together just as well as not!" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess not," laughed her father. "You went to see that machinery we
+talked about, didn't you, Hi?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. I went all through the Comet Plow Factory and the big
+agricultural warehouse in Cincinnati."</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Lettie, he was several days coming here from Scoville."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care," Miss Lettie declared, "I want to tell him something he
+doesn't know."</p>
+
+<p>"There are a whole lot of things I guess you could tell me that I don't
+know, Miss Lettie," said Hiram rather ruefully, for he felt his lack
+of book knowledge most keenly.</p>
+
+<p>"It is about Sister. Cecilia, I suppose her real name is, Hiram?"</p>
+
+<p>"But rather stiff and formal for Sister," said the young fellow,
+dodging the query.</p>
+
+<p>"I chanced to ride past the Atterson place," pursued Lettie Bronson,
+"and Mrs. Atterson was on the porch and waved to me. I rode into the
+yard, and she was full of the news. It seems that Sister has not known
+just who her people were."</p>
+
+<p>"She was an orphan when Mother Atterson got her," admitted Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it seems that she really has some relatives, somewhere. And
+Mrs. Atterson says she thinks there will be some money coming to
+Sister—Cecilia. She had just received a letter from a lawyer who had
+been trying to find Cecilia for some time. It's quite a romance, isn't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am awfully glad for Sister's sake," the young farmer said. "But if
+she finds her folks I hope they will not take her away from Mother
+Atterson. She needs Sister."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not see Cecilia to speak to," Lettie said. Then to her father:
+"Now, Papa Bronson, I know you and Hiram want to tramp all over this
+farm, and you certainly shall not leave me here in the car to catch my
+death of cold. Let Hiram take me over to Miss Pringle's. She will give
+me shelter till you are ready to go home again."</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead and take the chatterbox over there, Hiram," said Mr. Bronson.
+"We'll have no peace until you do."</p>
+
+<p>It could not be said honestly that Hiram Strong found Lettie a
+nuisance, if her father did. He would have enjoyed talking to the
+pretty girl at any length. When Lettie hopped out of the automobile,
+too, resting one hand lightly in his, the young farmer saw that she
+was, as always, very becomingly dressed. Perhaps her outfit was more
+expensive and somewhat too "grown-up" for a girl of her age; but
+Hiram—nor Mr. Bronson—did not realize that defect in the motherless
+girl's garments. That Lettie was growing up too fast for her own good,
+perhaps, would not appeal to the masculine mind as it would to a
+thoughtful woman.</p>
+
+<p>Having been reminded of Sister, Hiram took mental note that the
+girl whom he had first known as the boarding house slavey in Mother
+Atterson's kitchen had never in her life dressed anything like Lettie
+Bronson. Fine feathers do not always make fine birds; but the feathers
+help!</p>
+
+<p>Lettie chattered as Hiram helped her over the muddy spots in the road
+to the cottage where Miss Pringle lived. The woman welcomed Lettie
+vociferously. To Hiram she said, with a smirk:</p>
+
+<p>"Now, don't forget, Mr. Strong, to come over to dinner when Abigail
+blows the horn."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram saw Lettie's dancing eyes and he could not keep from blushing
+when Miss Pringle was so urgent and significant in both look and speech.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess Yancey Battick isn't so far out of the way, after all," the
+young fellow muttered as he went to rejoin Mr. Bronson. "Miss Pringle
+does rather work on a modest fellow. Lettie Bronson's got the laugh on
+me, all right."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bronson had been going through the poultry houses and Hiram caught
+him at the house in which he thought to set up housekeeping.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps that is a good idea, Hiram," said the gentleman thoughtfully.
+"I haven't told you what I intend to do here, have I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only that you intend to farm it," the boy replied with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You are to do that, my boy, for me," rejoined Mr. Bronson. "I expect
+you to bring this farm into such a state of fertility in a few years
+that I can sell it at a big profit."</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds like a big contract, Mr. Bronson," said Hiram, shaking his
+head thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"You're equal to it, my boy!" declared Bronson, confidently. "Now, is
+this the hut you think you can camp in?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can make myself comfortable here for a while—until the spring work
+really opens, at any rate."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. That suits me. We'll run down to the store at the Forks
+before I go back to Plympton and buy provisions, bedding and cooking
+utensils for you."</p>
+
+<p>"No need to go to any great expense," put in Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"The things I buy will all come in handy later. And that brings me
+around to what I started to say before, Hiram. It does not pay me to
+farm this place so far from my headquarters. My other farms are right
+around Plympton. I can move my tractor and my reapers and my thrashing
+machine and hay-balers from farm to farm in my Plympton string of
+places. But Sunnyside is too far away from headquarters to send over
+many of the machines, unless it is the thrasher. That is why I had you
+look at the farm machinery on your way out here."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram merely nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"My idea," pursued the man, "is to put Sunnyside Farm in good shape
+and then sell it at a profit to some man who wants a 'gentleman's
+farm'—you know, catch one of these city men who wants to retire to the
+country; the kind the farmers say have more money than brains."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," chuckled Hiram, remembering what Battick had said about Mr.
+Stephen Bronson himself. "Sometimes those gentlemen farmers show the
+old timers a thing or two."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. They can afford to experiment and try out new things. However,
+that is not just what we were getting at. If I sell this farm for a
+good price I must have a good house on it. I mean to build on the site
+of the old house that was burned. I shall have to bring workmen here
+and lodge and feed them. As there are no neighbors who make a practice
+of taking boarders, other than their own farm help, I shall have to put
+up a shack, hire a cook, and feed the gang for three months at least."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said Hiram. "And I can get my meals with them."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. That is my idea. So if you can get along alone for a while—"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I can, Mr. Bronson."</p>
+
+<p>"I will have a shack built and a kitchen and bunks established just
+as soon as the weather is warm enough. Meanwhile my trucks, when not
+otherwise in use, can be hauling the frame and lumber for the new
+house."</p>
+
+<p>"One word, Mr. Bronson," said Hiram Strong quickly. "As long as you
+must build a shed, why not build one that will afterward house these
+new tools you propose to buy for my use? I see there is no storage room
+for such things save on the barn floor, and in time they will be in the
+way there."</p>
+
+<p>A gleam of approval flashed into Mr. Bronson's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Good idea, Hiram! And you are as full of good ideas as an egg is
+of meat," said Mr. Bronson with enthusiasm. "Have you thought of
+any particular way in which this farm should be run—for the biggest
+profit, I mean?" and the man smiled at Hiram curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what struck me right off the reel, Mr. Bronson," said
+the youth thoughtfully. "But it is only a thought."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's have it," urged Mr. Bronson.</p>
+
+<p>"This land has been worked by tenants only for some years. Tenant
+farmers usually supply commercial fertilizer to some extent, but not
+enough humus. The land needs humus—and that in the form of stable
+manure. Especially the manure from cattle—from cows—if you want to
+raise bumper crops of corn."</p>
+
+<p>"I presume that is so, Hiram."</p>
+
+<p>"The barn yonder is arranged for the keeping of cattle. You should at
+least drive some young stock up here right away to eat up the roughage
+that is going to waste. We want to make all the fertilizer possible and
+spread it on the land as fast as it can be made and carted out of the
+barn basement."</p>
+
+<p>"But we can't handle milch cows here, Hiram, before we have a house in
+which to put a family to look after the cows and the milk."</p>
+
+<p>"That is why I say buy some young stock for the present. I can attend
+to them myself. They can be fattening at practically no expense. And
+all the time they will be making fertilizer for the place."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Hiram, what is going to happen," asked Mr. Bronson, quizzically,
+"when we give up farming with horses and mules entirely and use only
+tractors?"</p>
+
+<p>"A hundred tractors won't put back into the soil the fertility that one
+horse will," the young farmer said. "That is sure. Soiling crops are
+all right. But in the end, the only farms run by tractor power that
+are not going to be injured beyond repair are the dairy farms. And I
+believe the easiest and quickest way to get this half run-down farm
+into shape is by putting cattle on it."</p>
+
+<p>"Young stock—yes. I agree with you that can be done at once. In fact,"
+said Mr. Bronson, "I should not be surprised if I could pick up a score
+of head of stock to send up here within the week from my other farms."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! That will be a beginning. But two score will be better. Pasture
+them later if the pasture is any good here."</p>
+
+<p>"There is good pasture and the fences are in good condition. I looked
+them over before I bought the place."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, sir. You agree with me, then, that we should aim in the end
+to make Sunnyside a dairy farm?"</p>
+
+<p>"That seems to be the idea, Hiram. I fancy you are right."</p>
+
+<p>"That being the case, Mr. Bronson, there is one thing you must do.
+There is only one really profitable way to feed dairy cattle. That is
+from the silo."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Oh! Hiram, you hurt!" exclaimed his employer, and his smile was
+very rueful. "Do you realize that any kind of silo runs into money?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. But it will cost you less to put up a silo now, while you
+have workmen on the place building your house, than at a later time. If
+you are going to make Sunnyside fertile, you must have cattle; if you
+are going to feed cattle cheaply you must cut your corn green and shred
+it and blow it into the silo. It is the safest and the cheapest way."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I have got to admit all you say as true. But your
+suggestions, are all expensive. The first outlay will be enormous. Here
+you want to tile that twenty acres of upland. And goodness knows what
+you may want to do with some of the lowland."</p>
+
+<p>"Make it grow good crops—bumper crops if possible—that is all," said
+Hiram smiling. "And about that twenty acres along the county road that
+is now in wheat—"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've an idea about underdraining that! but I won't tell you what it is
+until I have looked over the ground a little. I am convinced that that
+particular piece should be as fertile as any acreage around here."</p>
+
+<p>"It never has been, they tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"That is no reason why we shouldn't make it the best, is it?" and the
+young farmer laughed again.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">SEED TESTING</p>
+
+
+<p>By evening of his first day on Sunnyside Farm Hiram Strong was
+comfortably established in the incubator shed and prepared to keep
+house after a fashion. Mr. Bronson supplied him with the requisites for
+a home on the limited plan Hiram intended to follow. The young farmer
+believed, however, that Miss Delia Pringle really would have taken him
+to board had he not been so firm in his stand for independence.</p>
+
+<p>It could not be denied that Miss Pringle was a very friendly neighbor;
+but Hiram saw that Yancey Battick had some right on his side when he
+stated that he was afraid of the spinster. During those first few days
+that Hiram was at Sunnyside he, too, thought it the part of wisdom to
+dodge her as much as possible.</p>
+
+<p>Not that there was any harm in Miss Pringle. She was merely silly, or
+seemed to be, about men; but Lettie Bronson had teased Hiram all the
+way to the store in the automobile and back again that first day about
+the conquest the youth had made of his nearest neighbor at Sunnyside.</p>
+
+<p>This had made Hiram self-conscious and had served to exaggerate in his
+mind Miss Pringle's already too pronounced attentions.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not be lonely at all, Mr. Strong," the rougish girl told him,
+immensely pleased by the situation. "Delia Pringle is going to make
+life there at Sunnyside for you one grand sweet song! You see if she
+doesn't."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope she will not insist upon being too kind to me," sighed Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"She told me that she thinks you are very manly for your age," giggled
+Lettie, who enjoyed making the youth feel uncomfortable. "And I am sure
+she thinks your age is just right."</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on, Lettie!" advised her father. "I've heard you praise Hiram
+yourself on occasion. At least, I never heard you run him down much
+when talking about him."</p>
+
+<p>This statement closed the girl's lips immediately and gave Hiram peace.
+But he did not wish Lettie to think for a moment that he considered
+Miss Pringle's interest in him really earnest. However, during his
+first week or ten days at Sunnyside Farm Hiram Strong was about as busy
+as one could be; so he did not have to invent many excuses to escape
+Miss Pringle's rather pressing attentions.</p>
+
+<p>Farming is an exacting occupation. One cannot let loose ends lie and
+be successful. Before the actual plowing and planting begins there are
+innumerable details to be gone into and many matters to be settled, for
+when the spring work once opens there is time for nothing else. And
+to Hiram, this first year of his work in this strange section of the
+country, came more than the ordinary number of affairs to be looked
+into.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bronson sent him over a dependable road horse and a run-about, so
+that he could get about the neighborhood on such errands as he might
+find necessary. And one of his first errands was to hunt up the best
+corn growers in that section and buy seed corn of them.</p>
+
+<p>He believed, as he had shown in farming the Atterson Eighty, that
+raising such corn as was already being grown in the locality was the
+wiser course. Corn becomes acclimated, and men who have raised the crop
+year after year in one neighborhood must know more about the proper
+seed to use than a stranger.</p>
+
+<p>Methods of raising the crop was another matter. Hiram had certain
+methods he wished to try out to improve and increase the yield of
+corn that had nothing to do with locality, climate, or soil. These
+experiments he would try in any case.</p>
+
+<p>He found one man whose cribs were full of a small-cobbed corn of a
+yellow dent variety, but with many red kernels interspersed among the
+yellow on most ears. It might not have been what the judges at a corn
+show would have called true to type, nor was it a handsome corn. But
+it was as hard as a rock, well rooted on the cob, and, furthermore, it
+ground into the finest kind of meal.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you select your seed for this, Mr. Brown?" Hiram asked the
+farmer.</p>
+
+<p>"I just throw aside what look to me like good ears as the boys bring
+the corn up from the fields and I count the baskets. I don't try to
+select ears in the field as I hear they do on the agricultural college
+farm. That's all flapdoodle," said the old fellow, with evident
+confidence in his own opinion.</p>
+
+<p>"When I'm ready to get my seed, Mr. Strong, just before planting time,
+I go over the ears I've saved, and what the rats have left me—"</p>
+
+<p>"So you are a friend of the rats, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"What d'you mean—a friend of the rats? I feel about as friendly to
+them as I do to potato bugs or polecats. Not any!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you feed them—and, what's worse, on your seed corn."</p>
+
+<p>"Like to see you keep rats out of anything that you have to keep corn
+in," said Daniel Brown energetically. "Not any!"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll take that up at some future time," Hiram said seriously. "I
+don't believe in letting rats or mice have the run of my seed corn. I
+think too much of it. Besides, they often nibble the germ of the corn
+and that particular grain never comes up."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I count on the planter dropping enough in the hill to overcome
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"And then you have to go tediously over the field and pull up the
+superfluous sprouts, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who don't?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hate to," confessed Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"Lots of things about farming, young man, that we hate to do. And
+you'll find it out as you get older."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt it. I'm learning things—both good and bad—every day.
+Don't you test your corn, Mr. Brown?"</p>
+
+<p>"What d'you mean? In the silly little boxes they tell about at the
+agriculturoolarulal college?" chuckled the old hard-shell farmer. "Not
+any! And I raise the very best corn in this section."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you believe in scientific farming?"</p>
+
+<p>"Science is all right for city folks that need it when they come
+out on to the land and mess around, raising crops," declared the old
+man in good natured disgust. "But experience counts for more than
+book-learning, and don't you forget it."</p>
+
+<p>"But just think what you might do, Mr. Brown, with all your experience
+and just a little science."</p>
+
+<p>"Rats!" chuckled the old man.</p>
+
+<p>"That is much to the point," Hiram said gravely. "'Rats.' A little
+science properly applied would free your cribs of rats. I am going to
+send you a Government pamphlet on that matter."</p>
+
+<p>"I usually roll them into pipe-spills, young man," replied Brown. "I
+ain't never cultivated a taste for fiction."</p>
+
+<p>But from the looks of the farms, the outbuildings, and the well rolled
+fields and machine sheds he passed in driving through the country,
+Hiram did not believe that there were many farmers in the vicinity as
+stubborn as Mr. Brown. However, he had obtained two baskets of Mr.
+Brown's seed corn, paying two dollars for it, and he was sure he had
+the foundation for a good crop.</p>
+
+<p>He did not intend to plant the corn haphazard, as Brown himself did. He
+stopped at the store just beyond the Pringleton station and bought some
+yards of canton flannel.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram drove back to Sunnyside Farm. Just as he reached the gate the
+rural delivery mail wagon stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you the new man on Sunnyside Farm?" the postman asked Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Your name's Strong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hiram Strong," he admitted, going closer to the wagon.</p>
+
+<p>"Here you are, then."</p>
+
+<p>The postman thrust out a letter and Hiram accepted it. Instantly he
+knew it was from home—for Scoville was still "home" to Hiram Strong.
+The letter was from Mother Atterson, and as soon as the postman had
+gone his way Hiram tore open the envelope and read its contents:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>"Dear Hiram:</p>
+
+<p>"We got your letter that you had arrived at that Sunnyside place and
+was sleeping in the henhouse and cooking your own meals. That is
+pretty hard going, I do allow; but Mr. Bronson is paying you big wages
+(I wish I could afford to pay you as well and had kept you here on the
+Atterson place) so you can put up with some inconvenience. For money
+is a good thing and that brings me to the great news about Sister.
+That child certainly has got money coming to her. We have heard from
+a lawyer that says her grandmother, who must have been a pretty harsh
+old lady, on her father's side, named Cheltenham, has died and left
+a lot of money to be divided between Sister and—What do you know
+about Sister having a brother? Ain't it surprising? But it seems the
+children were parted when they was small, one going one way and the
+other the other, and the boy has to be found according to the terms of
+Mrs. Cheltenham's will before the money can be divided. It is going to
+cost something to find the boy who ran away from a reform school and
+ain't been heard of since. And that's got to be paid out of the money
+the lawyer says. But he seems like an honest man and Mr. Strickland
+says he knows him. And I am glad for Sister's sake for now she's got
+folks and knows who they are."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mother Atterson's letter continued in this strain and to great length.
+But Hiram was very glad to hear the particulars of Sister's good
+fortune. For there would always be in Hiram Strong's heart a very
+tender place devoted to Sister. The little slavey of the boarding house
+was developing now into an intelligent and attractive girl.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, Hiram told himself, she would never be like Lettie Bronson
+or the other girls who attended St. Beris, for instance. But there
+was something very sweet about Sister's character that Hiram felt and
+liked. She was almost like a real sister, and more.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram went on to his living quarters and made his seed testing boxes,
+using the canton flannel instead of earth in which to germinate the
+corn selected from the ears he had bought of Daniel Brown. He made his
+boxes two inches deep and about thirteen inches wide, allowing for the
+width of the flannel, which was twenty-seven inches, folded once and
+taking into consideration the slight shrinkage of the cloth.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram considered the flannel better in the seed boxes than either sand,
+soil, or sawdust. Three or four thicknesses of cloth in the bottom of
+the box and two thicknesses over the seed, all well dampened, makes the
+ideal seed testing bed.</p>
+
+<p>He washed the new cloth thoroughly and after it was dried and folded
+in the box as a bed, he marked it off into checkers of two inches each
+with an indelible pencil. He then soaked the cloth and replaced it in
+the box.</p>
+
+<p>Shelling off and discarding the small and irregular grains from the
+tips and butts of the ears he intended to test, he selected the kernels
+to be germinated and placed those from ear number one in the first
+square on the canton flannel, germ side up, from ear number two in the
+second square, and so on. Wetting the other strip of flannel he covered
+the corn, and on top of the box laid a pane of glass that fitted
+tightly.</p>
+
+<p>This method of testing seed enables one to examine the seed at any time
+without injury to it; the amount of water condensed upon the under
+side of the glass will usually show whether the cloths are drying out
+or not.</p>
+
+<p>The numbered ears Hiram stacked upon a hanging shelf in one of the
+laying houses, confident that neither rats nor mice would reach the
+seed corn in that place.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">THE BLUEBIRD</p>
+
+
+<p>Lettie Bronson did not come to Sunnyside again that spring, but her
+father, of course, came frequently during the first weeks of Hiram's
+incumbency as superintendent of the hillside farm.</p>
+
+<p>It had been finally agreed that the shed to be built to house the
+gang of workmen should be a permanent shelter for certain new farm
+implements that Hiram and his employer had decided upon. And, in
+addition, a silo was to be built.</p>
+
+<p>"But go easy on the first cost, Hiram," Mr. Bronson continued. "This
+farm is for sale. An expensive silo will not help sell it any quicker
+than an old-fashioned silo."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that. It is altogether according to the man who
+buys. But I am not opposed to the old-fashioned stave silo, only it
+soon rots out."</p>
+
+<p>"It will stand five years."</p>
+
+<p>"And maybe for twenty," agreed Hiram quickly. "Just according."</p>
+
+<p>"How about these new all metal ones?"</p>
+
+<p>"They have not been tried out long enough for the reports of their
+usefulness to be verified."</p>
+
+<p>"My gang of carpenters can put up the stave silo," Mr. Bronson said.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, sir. But buy iron hoops for supports, Mr. Bronson, and use
+wire stays or one of these big winds they tell about around here will
+blow your silo over—especially before it is filled."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, we'll do that, of course."</p>
+
+<p>The lumber began to arrive, truck load after truck load. The first
+drivers to arrive at Sunnyside were very curious about the identity of
+the boy from the East.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's the boss, son?" Hiram was asked again and again as he met
+strangers.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you will have to get along with me as boss," he was wont to
+say quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean it! Bronson hasn't hired you to run this farm?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I'm going to try to run it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I always did say that Bronson was crazy," was one frank
+statement. "More money than brains—more money than brains! Ridiculous
+to give a boy like you such a job!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is to be seen," Hiram said coolly. "It does not always take frost
+on the hair to ripen brains."</p>
+
+<p>At this the man grinned and replied:</p>
+
+<p>"You've got a tongue, at any rate, young fellow."</p>
+
+<p>One incident did not pass off so pleasantly. A hulking young fellow
+turned in at the gateway of Sunnyside and hailed Hiram:</p>
+
+<p>"Where's your dad?"</p>
+
+<p>"Unfortunately he has been dead for some years," Hiram told him. "Won't
+I do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Huh! Where's Mr. Bronson?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll find him at his home in Plympton."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, when's he here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I could not say for sure when he is to be here. Hadn't you better tell
+me your business?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hear he wants to hire men for work here; but I want to do my
+business with the boss."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you can talk with me, for anybody who works on this farm will
+have to look upon me as the boss," Hiram told him, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"You ain't got charge of this farm?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Mr. Bronson has hired me in that capacity."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll be switched!"</p>
+
+<p>"I want some men to ditch and for other heavy work for a few weeks,"
+Hiram said calmly. "After that I shall need plowmen at better pay. You
+are a farmer, I presume?"</p>
+
+<p>"I presume I am," said the fellow scornfully. "But I don't want to hire
+out to any kid. I want a man for a boss."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I would not suit you then," sighed Hiram, with perfect
+gravity. "Come around in a couple of years, when I am older, and
+perhaps we can make a dicker."</p>
+
+<p>The fellow went away muttering. Later Hiram chanced to pass the Pringle
+cottage and the owner came to the gate to hail him.</p>
+
+<p>"Did Adam Banks come to see you, Mr. Strong?"</p>
+
+<p>"The big fellow with the mop of yellow hair? Yes, Miss Pringle; he said
+he was looking for a job. But I doubt if he loses his eyesight looking
+for it."</p>
+
+<p>"You said something," declared Miss Pringle. "And he just said to me
+he wouldn't be caught working at Sunnyside if you were going to run the
+farm."</p>
+
+<p>"No?"</p>
+
+<p>"He said he should think Mr. Bronson could find enough men in the
+neighborhood to do his work without sending off for a—a——"</p>
+
+<p>"For a boy?" laughed Hiram. "If I can't make good in my job there will
+soon be a chance for somebody else to take my place."</p>
+
+<p>"For the land's sake! I do hope you will stop here, Mr. Strong. I
+shouldn't want to see Mr. Bronson put a fellow like Ad Banks in charge
+at Sunnyside. He'd be worse than that Jim Brandenburg that made me so
+much trouble—burning everything all up."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope your house that was burned was insured, Miss Pringle," Hiram
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, 'twas, Mr. Strong. But that piece of pine timber across the road
+wasn't. The sparks flew from the house and caught that, and you can see
+quite a patch of it was burned—completely ruined for any purpose, even
+firewood. Who wants to handle wood that smuts you all up? I had a log
+or two dragged up to the house and sawed and split; but Abigail can't
+abide it. Says she won't have it in her kitchen. And I can't blame her."</p>
+
+<p>"So you have no use for that burned timber?" asked Hiram thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"No more'n a cat has for two tails."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you just going to let it stand there and be blown down by the
+wind?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've told some folks that haven't much firewood that they can have it
+for the cutting and hauling."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that Mr. Bronson would be willing to have me make just
+that kind of a bargain," said Hiram smiling. "But I can make use of
+some of those dead trees."</p>
+
+<p>"You can? Remember they are fire-killed, Mr. Strong."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give you ten cents apiece for them, and I will have them cut and
+hauled, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"For the land's sake!" ejaculated Miss Pringle, her bargaining
+instincts coming immediately to the fore, "I think that is an awful
+small price."</p>
+
+<p>The young fellow laughed. "That is just ten cents apiece more than you
+had any expectation of getting for the burned trees, Miss Pringle."</p>
+
+<p>"That may very well be," she argued. "But this is a bargain now. Money
+is money. If you think the trees are worth ten cents apiece to you,
+like enough they are worth a quarter each. I don't like to feel I've
+done myself in any deal."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid you will own the timber a long while at that price."</p>
+
+<p>"For the land's sake, you can raise me a little, can't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how I can," replied Hiram gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard that you Down East Yankees are as sharp at bargaining as
+can be. It does seem as though I ought to get fifteen cents apiece."</p>
+
+<p>"The longer those blackened trees stand on your land, the longer the
+land will be worth just nothing to you, Miss Pringle."</p>
+
+<p>"Land isn't worth much to a lone woman like me, Mr. Strong," she
+simpered. "Unless a body's got a man—"</p>
+
+<p>When Miss Pringle got on this tack Hiram always felt embarrassed. He
+started to break off negotiations at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, never mind. It was just an idea I had. Nothing much in it, I
+guess."</p>
+
+<p>He started on, but she got hold of his sleeve and held him tightly.
+Hiram blushed, and he was sorry he had spoken about the timber. At any
+rate he was very glad that Lettie Bronson did not see him now!</p>
+
+<p>"For the land's sake!" cried Miss Pringle, "you're so sudden, Mr.
+Strong. Won't you split the difference and give me twelve and a half
+cents?"</p>
+
+<p>A bargain was a bargain, and it was up to Hiram to do the best he could
+for his employer. Besides, the use of the half-charred tree trunks was
+at best an experiment.</p>
+
+<p>"Ten cents is my best offer, Miss Pringle. I can use a hundred of the
+burned trees; maybe two hundred."</p>
+
+<p>"And only the charred ones, Mr. Strong?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can keep tally on them," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Seeing it is you, Mr. Strong," she concluded, her head on
+one side and looking languishingly at him. "We're such friends, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram groaned inwardly. But he went in with her then and there and
+wrote out the agreement in duplicate, both signing the papers.</p>
+
+<p>"Seems like a lot of folderol for ten or twenty dollars, Hiram," Miss
+Pringle whispered. "But, of course, I understand you have to have
+everything in writing to show Mr. Bronson. Mr. Bronson is a widower,
+and they do say widowers are awful strict and stern."</p>
+
+<p>But Hiram did not immediately tell Mr. Bronson of the bargain he had
+made with Miss Pringle for the half-charred timber. However, he planned
+to start certain activities at Sunnyside the very next day, and he
+drove down to Pringleton to see if Mr. Oakley, the stationmaster, knew
+of any laborers in the neighborhood who wished work.</p>
+
+<p>Coming back, he saw Mr. Yancey Battick leaning upon his sagging front
+gate. He had not seen the odd man to more than hail him since the time
+he had sojourned with him over night.</p>
+
+<p>"Looks like spring now, doesn't it, Mr. Battick?" Hiram suggested,
+stopping his horse.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess. And there's the first harbinger—a bluebird," and Battick
+pointed up the road.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that? Bluebird?" Then Hiram laughed, seeing the individual to
+whom Battick referred. "The first tramp of the season?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And full as a tick, if I'm any judge," Battick said, with disgust.</p>
+
+<p>The fellow up ahead was staggering as he walked, and there was reason
+for thinking that he was intoxicated.</p>
+
+<p>"He won't get far in that shape," Hiram said.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll get far enough, perhaps," muttered Battick, turning away. "Look
+out he doesn't get into your barn, Mr. Strong, and set the mow on fire."</p>
+
+<p>The two chatted a few moments longer about the weather and neighborhood
+affairs, and then Hiram started his horse and drove on toward Sunnyside
+Farm.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">ORRIN POST</p>
+
+
+<p>This was the fifth day since Hiram had started his test boxes, and he
+was so much interested in this matter on his arrival at Sunnyside that
+he did not think again of Mr. Battick's first "bluebird," or harbinger
+of spring. In fact, he had not seen the fellow along the road and
+presumed the tramp had crept into a thicket somewhere to sleep off his
+intoxication.</p>
+
+<p>He bedded down Jerry, the horse, and fed him, for it was early
+twilight. He locked the barn and went up to the incubator shed where
+he lodged. He always kept a fire here, and the temperature of the seed
+boxes had never fallen below 65°, and he usually managed to keep the
+heat at about 70°. He knew that a drop below 55° would seriously affect
+the germination of the corn, and at night Hiram wrapped bags about the
+boxes and covered them well.</p>
+
+<p>The conditions under which he had made his tests of Mr. Brown's corn
+had been ideal. When he uncovered the boxes he saw at once that all
+the ears he had selected kernels from were not strong and vigorous. Any
+kernel of corn that does not send out vigorous sprouts of both root and
+stem within four or five days is too weak to germinate properly under
+ordinary field conditions.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram discarded promptly all of twenty ears in this lot—feeding some
+of the discarded ones to Jerry the next morning for his breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"They look all right," Hiram observed to himself. "But looks are
+sometimes deceiving. I have an idea that Mr. Brown plants a whole lot
+of seed that either does not come up at all, or does not improve his
+general crop. I wonder if I am going to beat him at his own game and
+with his own corn."</p>
+
+<p>He immediately selected more of the Brown corn for testing and filled
+the squares of the seed boxes again. Later he proposed to test some of
+the seed corn he had bought from other farmers.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the seed boxes were in far from a good condition, and the young
+farmer spent the best part of half an hour in fixing them. A smile of
+satisfaction crossed his features as he surveyed his work.</p>
+
+<p>"They can't say that I haven't tried to do this right," he thought to
+himself. Then he gave a long stretch. "My! but there's a lot to this
+farm work," he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>By the time the work on the boxes had been completed Hiram felt
+hungry. It was growing dark, and he concluded that he had better get
+something to eat before doing anything else.</p>
+
+<p>There was a dishful of cold potatoes on the shelf, and these he sliced
+for frying. Then he brought out what was left of some cold meat; he
+next prepared to make himself something hot to drink.</p>
+
+<p>The young farmer was working around the stove when he heard an unusual
+noise outside. He listened for a few seconds, and then went to the door
+and threw it open.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a soul in sight," he murmured to himself. "That's queer. I thought
+I heard somebody coming. I wonder if it can be some stray animal?"</p>
+
+<p>He walked outside and gave another look around. Neither man nor beast
+was in sight, and, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, he returned to the
+shed.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram cooked his supper and then lit a lantern to make his usual turn
+about the premises before going to bed. The barn doors were padlocked,
+but there were small sheds into which wayfarers might crawl and, as
+Yancey Battick had suggested, the tramp who smokes is the farmer's
+deadly enemy.</p>
+
+<p>It was a dark night and a chill wind was whining through the burned
+pines across the road. Hiram's custom was to go around the barn, try
+all the doors, and flash his lantern into the calf-pens and the old
+wagon shed. It was when he got down the slant beside the barn to the
+door which he had recently locked in putting Jerry in his stall, that
+he got a whiff of tobacco smoke.</p>
+
+<p>"That bluebird!" muttered Hiram. "Where is the scamp?"</p>
+
+<p>It was but a faint odor Hiram smelled—the sickish-sweet odor of a dead
+pipe; it led to the nearest calf-shelter.</p>
+
+<p>He had been getting the pens ready for the young stock Mr. Bronson
+would send up to Sunnyside in a day or two. He had torn one of the
+fodder stacks to pieces, and scattered the broken and half-rotted
+bundles of fodder over the floor of the shed and pen to dry out and to
+be picked over and trampled by the cattle.</p>
+
+<p>There had been nobody on the place this day to his knowledge—certainly
+not before he had driven to Pringleton. And what would bring any proper
+visitor down here to the sheds? But the tobacco smell was stronger as
+he approached the arched opening. A whiff of it was blown directly into
+his nostrils.</p>
+
+<p>He reached up to the beam inside the opening and ran his hand along
+it—the very place an habitual smoker would be likely to place his pipe
+on entering the shed, sober or otherwise. Habit is strong.</p>
+
+<p>There it was. Although it was cold, Hiram was sure it had not long been
+so. He held up his lantern the better to see it. There was a "heel" of
+half-burned tobacco in the pipe. That was what he had smelled.</p>
+
+<p>The wabbly ray of the lantern flashed across the shed. Hiram, suddenly
+startled, saw a huddled form lying on the fodder-strewn floor.</p>
+
+<p>The young farmer did not fancy handling any individual who was half
+intoxicated, as this person probably was. He was no friend to the
+drunkard in any case.</p>
+
+<p>But the fellow might have matches in his pocket. In his drunken state
+he might do some damage with them. Besides, it was blowing up cold,
+and Hiram felt that he could not sleep warm himself if he knew this
+fellow-creature lay here with so little shelter.</p>
+
+<p>He crossed the shed and stooped over the stranger. He placed a
+tentative hand on the shoulder nearest him. The touch elicited nothing
+but a groan.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty far gone," muttered Hiram. "Well, nothing to do but to roll him
+over more comfortably and bring one of Jerry's blankets—"</p>
+
+<p>Fitting the deed to the words, he moved the man slightly. There was an
+impatient exclamation from the stranger; then, for an instant, his face
+came into the radiance of the lantern as he arose upon his elbow.</p>
+
+<p>It was a wild looking and much flushed face. The eyes, seemingly
+half-filmed with sleep, rolled about but fastened their gaze neither on
+Hiram nor on anything else. It was a delirious look.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey! Wake up!" urged the young farmer. "What are you doing here? Who
+are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Orrin Post—that's me! Orrin Post," said the stranger, loudly and
+promptly. Then he sank back upon the fodder again, and his mind seemed
+to sink, too. He only muttered impatiently when Hiram touched him again.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's a pretty kettle of fish!" gasped Hiram. "What shall I do with
+Orrin Post? That is what I should like to be told."</p>
+
+<p>He had suddenly made another discovery. There was no smell of liquor
+about the fellow. His breath was feverish, but not alcoholic. The man
+most certainly was not drunk.</p>
+
+<p>This was no case of leaving the man covered up in the calf shed to
+"sleep it off." Whatever was the matter, Hiram was quite sure the
+stranger needed more attention than that. If this was the fellow Yancey
+Battick had pointed out to him staggering along the road to Sunnyside
+Farm, he should have had help right then and there—a doctor, perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>First of all, Hiram decided, the sick man must be removed to the
+nearest comfortable place; and that place was the incubator house where
+he had made himself so much at home. He rolled the stranger over again
+and stretched out his limbs. He was quite as tall as Hiram, if not
+taller; but there was little flesh on his frame, and the young farmer
+was positive the man weighed considerably less than he did.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram knelt down and lifted the sick man across his shoulder, holding
+both wrists as he again staggered to his feet. He picked up the lantern
+and started up the path beside the barn. The stranger seemed sunk in
+complete unconsciousness, only muttering a word now and then.</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes the young farmer had brought his burden to the shack
+which he had made his home since coming to Sunnyside. He laid Orrin
+Post—if that was his name—in the bunk and began removing his shoes
+and outer clothing. His garments were shabby, but of fair quality, and
+his underclothes were clean. He was evidently a fellow who respected
+himself. Perhaps he was not a tramp at all.</p>
+
+<p>However, it was not so much who he was as what he was. Hiram, stripping
+off the man's clothing, made a discovery that startled him—then
+actually frightened him.</p>
+
+<p>The fellow's body was burning up with fever—face, hands, chest. What
+was this? His hand, lightly touching the chest of the victim, revealed
+an eruption under the skin. It felt almost like small shot—the
+beginnings of deep-seated postules, perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram Strong was staggered by the discovery. For a moment he fell back
+from the bunk. He even turned his gaze on the door, and it is true that
+he thought of escape.</p>
+
+<p>The highly inflammatory fever; the eruption on the chest. That it was a
+malignant disease of some kind he knew, and he believed he recognized
+the symptoms as those of the most deadly of all diseases that ever
+becomes epidemic in a temperate climate.</p>
+
+<p>"Smallpox!" the young farmer muttered. "This fellow's got it sure
+enough, and I have exposed myself to it."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">A FRIEND INDEED</p>
+
+
+<p>Hiram Strong was not likely to forget the experiences of that night. He
+did not feel that he was braver than anyone else in remaining with the
+delirious man and doing what he could for him. Merely, he did not see
+how he could ever respect himself again if he deserted the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>And to desert the sick man was to desert, as well, Sunnyside Farm and
+his employment. Hiram could not do that. But he realized that, if this
+was a case of smallpox as it seemed to be, he had made a pesthouse
+of the shed in which he had camped for these few weeks, and none of
+the expected workmen would remain on the place while the case was
+developing.</p>
+
+<p>However, he plucked up sufficient courage to go back at once to the
+sick man and complete his preparations for bed. He had already exposed
+himself to infection, and if he, too, was doomed to the disease, he
+believed he could do nothing now to prevent it.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, there was something extremely dreadful to him in the
+thought of smallpox—mainly, perhaps, because of the possible scars to
+be left on the body.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram neglected the unfortunate man not at all, however. Distasteful as
+the thought of handling him was, the youth that night did all in his
+power for the stranger's comfort.</p>
+
+<p>He kept water at boiling temperature on the stove, and made a wash
+with soda with which he bathed the sick man several times to reduce
+the fever. The purple face, the puffed eyelids, the drooling lips,
+altogether made the victim a most unpleasant looking object.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Hiram thought that, in his right mind and free of fever, this
+fellow who called himself Orrin Post might be a very good looking man
+indeed. And he judged his age to be not far along in the twenties.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram got no sleep at all. The patient began to thrash about toward
+morning and was more delirious than before. Occasionally he seemed to
+be taken with a slight chill, and his nurse kept the temperature of the
+little room much higher than 70°.</p>
+
+<p>"This might be good for that corn test," Hiram once thought.</p>
+
+<p>But he was not giving much attention to anything but his care of Orrin
+Post. He harked back to Mother Atterson's recipes for caring for
+persons who were ill. He found a stone bottle and filled that with hot
+water and put it to the patient's feet to counteract the chills. He
+wished he had some medicine to give him. Hiram wondered how he could
+send for a doctor in the morning. Whom could he get to go? And would a
+doctor come to attend a smallpox patient—any doctor but the physician
+for the county's poor?</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally he examined that eruption. It was spreading over the man's
+chest. If it <i>was</i> smallpox—</p>
+
+<p>What a night that was! At daybreak—a chill and darksome dawn—Hiram
+went to the door, looked out, and finally stepped out and closed the
+door behind him. His eyelids were swollen for lack of sleep. He was
+tired to the bone!</p>
+
+<p>The pale light in the sky grew slowly. Something stirred in the
+road—toward the Pringle cottage. Miss Pringle and Abigail were always
+early risers. And here came one of them along the road!</p>
+
+<p>"Hiram Strong! is that you? For the land's sake what have you been
+havin' a light in your window for the whole live-long night?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no mistaking the energetic voice of his neighbor. She hurried
+in at the gate, her head and arms wrapped in a shawl.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sick, or what is it?" pursued Miss Pringle. "I said to
+Abigail, 'I'm going to find out what that light means if it's the last
+act of my life—and before I have my breakfast, too!' I declare I waked
+up a dozen times during the night and saw your light winkin' at me just
+like a star. What is the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't come any nearer, please, Miss Pringle," Hiram broke in. "You
+mustn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Mustn't what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come any nearer to me."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with you, Hiram Strong? You ain't going to explode
+like dynamite, are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's worse than dynamite."</p>
+
+<p>"For the land's sake! what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is smallpox," said Hiram, his voice on the point of breaking.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" gasped the woman. "Smallpox? You haven't got such a
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not—not yet," Hiram said. Then he told her about his visitor
+and how he had found Orrin Post in the calf pen.</p>
+
+<p>"And you've been tending him all night, Hiram! You poor fellow!"
+exclaimed Miss Pringle, bustling forward again.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! But you must not come here!" cried Hiram. "You find somebody to
+send to fetch a doctor. I'll stay and look after the fellow now I've
+begun the job."</p>
+
+<p>"And you don't really know it's smallpox. I'd took nice getting Dr.
+Marble up here, tellin' him it was smallpox, and then having it turn
+out to be nothing of the kind. He'd never let me hear the last of it.
+Let me see this Orrin Post."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Miss Pringle, you must not!"</p>
+
+<p>"Go along! Do you think I'm afraid, Hiram Strong? I guess I'm just as
+brave as you are."</p>
+
+<p>She pushed right by him and went into the house. The air was warm and
+close, and she sniffed it energetically.</p>
+
+<p>"If smallpox was much developed you could smell it, Hiram," she
+declared. "No mistake about that. The poor fellow! How red he is! Looks
+more like scarlet fever, if you ask me."</p>
+
+<p>She went to the bunk and placed her soft, cool palm on the patient's
+forehead. Almost instantly his head stopped weaving from side to side
+on the pillow. He sighed and murmured, asking for water.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram caught up the pitcher and went out to the pump. When he returned
+Miss Pringle had been examining the sick man's chest. She straightened
+up and looked back over her shoulder at Hiram. The grin with which she
+favored him was the most beautiful smile the young fellow had ever
+beheld.</p>
+
+<p>"Men certainly are helpless creatures," she said, breaking into a
+chuckle. "Though I will say you're better than most, Hiram Strong. Put
+out that lamp. Don't let it shine in his eyes. He wants to be in the
+dark as much as possible. He's developing as fine a case of measles as
+I ever saw and that's a fact!"</p>
+
+<p>Relieved? Hiram Strong could have readily and heartily given three
+cheers.</p>
+
+<p>"I—I've had the measles, Miss Pringle," he said warmly. "How glad I am
+you came over. I'm not afraid of measles."</p>
+
+<p>"I should hope not! Though I guess this fellow's got 'em pretty hard.
+It is sometimes serious with folks as old as he is. But we'll pull him
+through, Hiram—you and me together," she added with her old-time smirk.</p>
+
+<p>But she could not disturb Hiram's equanimity now.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a friend in need, Miss Pringle," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I should hope so! Those are the only friends to have—especially in
+the country. We all need to help each other out here on the farms."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll get a doctor for him," said Hiram, promptly. "I'll pay the fee."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll spend your money in no such foolish way," declared Miss
+Pringle, energetically. "I'd be ashamed to have the neighbors know I
+sent for Dr. Marble for a case of measles.</p>
+
+<p>"You've treated this poor fellow all right, Hiram, as far as you've
+gone. After breakfast I'll come back with some medicine I've got to
+reduce his fever. You'll have enough to do around here daytimes tending
+to your work. I'll do the nursing for the poor fellow during the day if
+you'll look after him at night."</p>
+
+<p>"My goodness!" said Hiram, with fervor, "I'll do all I can. It is a
+relief to know it isn't smallpox."</p>
+
+<p>"You musn't neglect your work," Miss Pringle said, as they both came
+out of the house again. "You've got some men coming, haven't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"In a day or two."</p>
+
+<p>"That Ad Banks was around yesterday, wasn't he? I guess he's after a
+job with you, after all, even if you are a mite young for a boss," and
+she chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not see him."</p>
+
+<p>"That so? I saw him hanging about the barn and smoking that old pipe of
+his."</p>
+
+<p>"He can't get into the barn very easily. The doors are all locked,"
+said Hiram. Then, suddenly remembering the pipe he had found, he drew
+it from his pocket. "Could this be Adam Banks' pipe?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess it could—and it is," said Miss Pringle promptly, sniffing at
+the odorous pipe. "I'd know that old thing anywhere. It's Ad Banks'.
+Where'd you find it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where it had no business to be. Inside one of the sheds. Funny it
+should have been down there, too. I thought it belonged to this Orrin
+Post. I wonder what that Banks fellow was doing down there?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Pringle bustled away and Hiram set about getting his own
+breakfast. The sick man murmured for water occasionally, but otherwise
+needed little attention until Miss Pringle came back.</p>
+
+<p>"Yancey Battick is all wrong about Delia Pringle," thought Hiram. "She
+may have her peculiarities, but she has a heart of gold."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">FRICTION</p>
+
+
+<p>The first truck to arrive that day at Sunnyside instead of bringing
+lumber, bricks, or other building material, brought ten yearling steers
+that Mr. Bronson had picked up from his other farms; and Hiram turned
+the blatting, frisky creatures into the pen and shed in which he had
+found Orrin Post the evening before.</p>
+
+<p>One of the young cattle had a frayed bit of rope about its neck, and
+Hiram went into the pen to get it off. The yearling ran into the far
+corner of the shed and while he struggled to remove the rope, the young
+farmer's eye caught the glint of something on the beams where he had
+found the pipe that Miss Pringle declared was Adam Banks' property.</p>
+
+<p>He had already looked about the shed for anything the sick man might
+have dropped. There had been absolutely nothing in his clothes but a
+little change and a pocketknife—no letter, or paper, or keepsake of
+any kind. Nor had Hiram seen anything in the fodder where Orrin Post
+had lain.</p>
+
+<p>He reached up to this beam and out of the far corner, where a thin ray
+of sunshine entered, he plucked a pint flask half filled with an amber
+colored liquid, one sniff of which assured him was the probable product
+of a peach-still somewhere in the neighborhood.</p>
+
+<p>Had it not been for the pipe he had previously found, Hiram might have
+believed this raw brandy the property of Orrin Post, in spite of the
+fact that the condition in which the poor fellow had been when he took
+shelter in the shed seemed to preclude his having hidden the brandy
+flask.</p>
+
+<p>The sick man was scarcely in his senses all that day. Every time Hiram
+put his head in at the door of the incubator house, he found Miss
+Pringle either fixing up the room, giving the patient his medicine, or
+sitting sewing within reach of the bunk. She made Hiram go over to her
+house for his dinner, and Abigail Wentworth, a tall, gaunt, elderly
+woman with spectacles and a neat cap pinned upon her iron-grey hair to
+hide her bald spot, served him a most satisfying, as well as appetizing
+meal. He had not eaten many such since coming to Sunnyside Farm.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't wish to seem harsh, Mr. Strong," said Abigail, "but it does
+seem a blessing that that man came along and was taken sick as he was.
+It's given Miss Delia something to do besides clutterin' up my kitchen.
+I am blessed beyond all when some of the neighbors fall sick and will
+let Miss Delia in to nurse 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"I see she is a wonderful nurse," said Hiram approvingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she'll do less harm that way than most," said Abigail, who
+seldom was known to approve thoroughly of anything finite. "But that's
+what made trouble between her and that Yance Battick, I guess."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. He was pretty near down sick—just hobblin' around. Rheumatism
+and all. That old Pringle house is as damp as the grave. Miss Delia
+heard how bad off he was and off she marched with her pills and
+plasters and what-not. But Yance Battick wasn't goin' to let no woman
+into his house—and he told her so to her face."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think Mr. Battick understands Miss Pringle's character," said
+Hiram. "He does not realize how very kind she means to be."</p>
+
+<p>"'Means to be'—yes. That's it. I never could give three cheers for
+those folks that always mean so much better than they do," sniffed
+the angular woman, who could not even speak in entire approval of her
+employer. "But it's wisdom to let fellows like Yance Battick alone.
+Besides," she added, dropping her voice, "there's dark doin's in that
+house of Battick's. Ain't no place for a decent, respectable woman."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean it!" exclaimed Hiram, rather amused. "I stopped there
+over night, and I saw nothing much out of the way."</p>
+
+<p>"You weren't let to," said Abigail pursing her lips. "There's those
+that say Yance Battick is deeper than Sim Paget's well—and <i>it</i> never
+had no bottom! He's got a power of knowledge that never came out of
+books. And no man would ever be so crotchety and shy off his fellowmen
+like Yance Battick does, if he wasn't sold, body and soul, to the
+devil."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram found no answer to this statement. It was evident that Abigail
+Wentworth, lineal descendant of Salem Puritans transplanted to this
+Middle West, possessed superstitions that are popular still in some
+localities.</p>
+
+<p>The following day Mr. Bronson came up to Sunnyside himself with some
+more young cattle. He had heard of the "tramp" Hiram had taken in and
+whom Miss Pringle was nursing. Hiram had had rather a hard night with
+his patient; but he was freshened up when his employer arrived.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a good chap, Hi," Mr. Bronson said. "But you'll overdo some
+day, helping all the yellow dogs that come your way."</p>
+
+<p>"Better speak to Miss Pringle about it, too," grinned Hiram. "And we're
+not altogether sure he is a canine of the breed you mention."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll take him back with me to the Plympton hospital—if you say
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think that would be best. Miss Pringle says he is coming along
+all right. He is pretty measly right now, and he might catch cold if he
+was moved and then they'd 'strike in,' so she says. Then he'd be worse
+off. Guess I've got him on my hands for a while."</p>
+
+<p>"It's your funeral," Mr. Bronson said.</p>
+
+<p>"And it might have been Orrin Post's funeral if I hadn't found him as I
+did. Hello!" he added, as he observed the loutish figure of Adam Banks
+approaching. "Here's a fellow wants to see you, I guess, Mr. Bronson."</p>
+
+<p>"What about?"</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>says</i> he wants work. But he doesn't want to hire out to me—I'm
+too young," laughed Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want him? I understand you are about ready to put a gang of
+ditchers to work in that wheat field. But you haven't told me what kind
+of underdraining you are going to do there. Tile is awfully expensive
+just now, Hiram."</p>
+
+<p>Adam Banks slouched into hearing before Hiram could reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" asked Mr. Bronson briskly of the newcomer. "Do you wish to see
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hear you are hiring men for spring work, Mr. Bronson," said Banks
+respectfully. "I'd like a job."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not hiring anybody at Sunnyside," the farm owner said promptly.
+"That is all in Mr. Strong's hands. If he likes your looks and can make
+use of you—"</p>
+
+<p>"That kid!" interrupted Adam Banks, turning red in the face and glaring
+scornfully at Hiram. "I want work all right, but—"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't act as though you do," Mr. Bronson interposed. "Mr. Strong
+is in charge here."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you get a man to run your farm for you, Mr. Bronson?" asked
+Banks boldly. "You know my dad owns a good farm, and I've been brought
+up to work. And I'm a voter. Why don't you give a young man like me a
+chance to show you what can be done here on Sunnyside?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now," Mr. Bronson said, his eyes twinkling, "I really didn't
+know about you when I was looking about for a farmer. What's your name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ad Banks. You know my dad."</p>
+
+<p>"I presume so. Well, Mr. Banks, I fear it is too late now. A bargain is
+a bargain. I have hired Mr. Strong—"</p>
+
+<p>"But that fellow ain't of age. You can see that plain. Your contract
+ain't binding if he's under age—and he is."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed? Then you are quite a lawyer as well as a farmer, Mr. Banks.
+However, I always consider a contract binding, with whomever made."</p>
+
+<p>He turned away; but Adam Banks did not lack persistence. He urged:</p>
+
+<p>"If you ain't found out yet whether this Strong can fill the bill or
+no, I might be handy if I was working for you here, Mr. Bronson. I
+could jump right in and take hold when he gets into trouble—as he
+will. What are you paying for day's work?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not paying anything. I tell you, young man, Mr. Strong will do
+all the hiring. And the discharging, too, for that matter. Do you want
+this fellow, Hiram?" he asked the young farm manager bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, what use is there askin' him?" broke in Banks, with disgust.
+"He's heard what I said. He knows what I think of him for a boss. What
+chance is there of my getting a job on his say-so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid I cannot make use of Mr. Banks," said Hiram quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"No! Of course you can't. You'd ruther take in tramps. I hear you've
+begun that. And we don't think much of tramps in these parts."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bronson merely smiled, waiting to see how Hiram Strong would handle
+the situation.</p>
+
+<p>"Just because you made a bid for my job doesn't influence me to refuse
+your services, Mr. Banks," the boy from the East said. "But I have two
+things against you."</p>
+
+<p>"What's them?" demanded Banks sneeringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Here they are," Hiram told him, and drew the pipe from one pocket and
+the flask of peach-brandy from another. "Here is your pipe that you
+left in one of our sheds day before yesterday, with burning tobacco
+in it. And the quantity of peach-brandy you had evidently drunk out
+of this flask made you forget both pipe and bottle. Neither of these
+things find favor in my sight about a farm, either inside or outside of
+a man."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be switched!" ejaculated Adam Banks. "Huh!"</p>
+
+<p>His face blazed up and he gave every indication of having been caught
+with the goods. He even accepted the pipe and flask. Both Hiram and Mr.
+Bronson had already smelled liquor upon Adam Banks' breath. At least,
+he had had something besides ham and eggs for breakfast. But suddenly
+the loutish fellow decided not to acknowledge the ownership of the
+articles.</p>
+
+<p>"Here!" he growled. "These ain't mine. What are you trying to put over
+on me, Strong? More'n likely they were brought on the place by that
+tramp you've taken up with. I ain't been near your sheds."</p>
+
+<p>"You were seen there," Hiram said sharply. "More than that, your pipe
+has been identified. There is no use denying either fact. I shall not
+hire you."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to let me be treated like this, Mr. Bronson?" demanded
+Adam Banks. "Dad's a neighbor. We live right here. That upstart,
+Strong—"</p>
+
+<p>"That will do," interrupted Mr. Bronson, waving his hand in dismissal.
+"If Hiram doesn't want you that closes the discussion as far as I am
+concerned," and he walked away with his young farm manager, leaving
+Banks in the road.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">WORK BEGINS</p>
+
+
+<p>"I'd keep my eye on that fellow Banks if he continues to hang around
+here," said Mr. Bronson. "He means you ill."</p>
+
+<p>"And perhaps would do something to cause trouble. Perhaps I should have
+taken him on," Hiram Strong said thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I should say not! You did just right. You read him aright. His prime
+failings are drink and laziness. Just warn him off the premises if he
+bothers you. He's been in trouble and is not locally liked. Mr. Banks
+spared the rod in Adam's case, sure enough.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Hiram, to get back to ditching. You don't mean to leave open
+ditches through that field, do you? I can't stand a ditch bank—always
+growing up in wild cherry and poison oak and such worthless trees and
+vines. Besides, open ditches interfere with tillage most abominably."</p>
+
+<p>"That is farthest from my thought, Mr. Bronson."</p>
+
+<p>"But tiling—"</p>
+
+<p>"I figure to underdrain with something much cheaper than tile," the
+young farmer declared.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to use?"</p>
+
+<p>Hiram pointed across the road at Miss Pringle's patch of scorched
+woodland. The underbrush and sprouts were beginning to show that faint
+blur of green that announces the coming of spring growth; but the trees
+were gaunt looking and black.</p>
+
+<p>"I've bought as many as I can use of those scorched trees at ten cents
+apiece," Hiram explained.</p>
+
+<p>"For the land's sake!" exclaimed Mr. Bronson, quoting Miss Pringle, but
+looking puzzled, too.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. For the land's sake. For the improvement of that twenty
+acres—or such of it as needs draining."</p>
+
+<p>"But—Hiram—my dear fellow—"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not starting something that I cannot put over, Mr. Bronson,"
+laughed Hiram. "Nor is it a brand new idea of my own. I have seen
+timber in the rough employed in underdraining more than once. My father
+used to do it when the man who owned the farm father worked would not
+listen to the expense of tiles."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! I acknowledge the corn," replied Mr. Bronson.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not criticising you, Mr. Bronson. You are preparing this farm
+for a sale. You wish to put it in as good shape as possible at as small
+expense as possible."</p>
+
+<p>"Right, young man."</p>
+
+<p>"So we will put in a drain that will answer every purpose of tiling for
+a few years. In very low, wet ground logs laid in a ditch, and covered,
+will last twenty years—sometimes forty. On this upland the life of the
+timber I mean to use will not be so long."</p>
+
+<p>"But it is fire-killed."</p>
+
+<p>"That makes no difference. I've been over there and looked at it. You
+couldn't knock any of those trees down. The fire went through there
+only last year. They are not punky."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose not."</p>
+
+<p>"And we shall be killing two birds with one stone—getting cheap
+drainage and likewise wiping out a very ugly spot right across the road
+from your new house."</p>
+
+<p>"That is so. And you are getting the timbers cheap enough, if they are
+any good. I wouldn't have had the heart to offer Miss Pringle such a
+price."</p>
+
+<p>"It is more than anybody else would have given her," Hiram declared,
+smiling. "And it is worth all you are paying for it to have those
+unsightly sticks chopped down."</p>
+
+<p>"Guess you are right, Hiram."</p>
+
+<p>"The logs will serve the purpose we want them for very well indeed.
+We'll lay two in the bottom of the ditch, six inches or so apart, and
+a third log on top to cover the aperture. Earth packed down upon them
+will soon form a firm culvert into which all the superfluous water will
+drain.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll put a man into Miss Pringle's patch with an axe and soon knock
+down everything that is standing. The whole patch will be covered with
+green by midsummer."</p>
+
+<p>"Smart boy, Hiram!" exclaimed Mr. Bronson. "Will you snake the logs
+right across the road into the wheat field?"</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as the ditches are begun and you send up that pair of
+Percherons you promised me. I can't do that work with Jerry."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have the Percherons in a few days. They are a well mated
+pair and young. By the way, your disc-plow, harrow, check-row planter,
+and the mowing machine are on the siding at Pringleton. I'll send a
+truck over for them tomorrow. We don't want any demurrage charges
+piling up on us."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! I want to see those things on the big floor of the barn," cried
+Hiram, his eyes beaming.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd better send up a machinist to help you set them up, hadn't I?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. Leave it to me. I must learn to put together every machine
+that comes onto the place. There are always instructions sent with the
+implements from the factory. The time may come, right in the middle of
+a job of importance, that the machine will balk. I've got to know all
+about it. Do you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see. And you are right, I guess."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bronson, seems to me I'll be just about made when I sit up on that
+plow and chirrup to those Percherons. I've tramped along in the furrow
+behind one or two horses for so many years—Well!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bronson laughed. "While I've ridden a plow and other farm tools
+so much that I hate to get up on one," he said. "They say it's mighty
+good exercise for a sluggish liver to ride 'em over hobbly ground.
+Ah, my boy! you've got the best of it, for you are young. You've got
+enthusiasm."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, so have you, Mr. Bronson," cried Hiram. "Only it is enthusiasm of
+a different kind from mine. Otherwise you would not buy farms and put
+them into shape for other men to run."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe that is merely business."</p>
+
+<p>Before night Orrin Post was quite in his right mind. Abigail had been
+making broth and porridge for him, for now that his fever was reduced
+Miss Pringle's idea of nursing seemed to be to stuff the patient with
+food.</p>
+
+<p>"She will kill me with kindness," the young man said to Hiram. "I hope
+I shall not have to lie here long."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Pringle is awfully good," the young farm manager said stoutly. "I
+do not know what we would have done without her."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what I would have done without you, Mr. Strong. She's
+told me how you thought I had smallpox, and yet picked me up and
+brought me here."</p>
+
+<p>"You've got the cart before the horse," chuckled Hiram. "I got you up
+here from that shed before I discovered that you were breaking out in
+such shape. How did you get to the shed?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't a very clear remembrance of it," confessed Orrin Post. "I
+felt pretty bad."</p>
+
+<p>"Had you traveled far?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had a job with a farmer all winter at Roundspring. But I was taken
+down with this fever and he told me I had better go because he was
+afraid his children would catch it. I couldn't blame him—much. So I
+started west."</p>
+
+<p>"Wasn't there any place they would take you in? No hospital?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't happen to stop at a hospital," said Orrin Post dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"And nobody offered to do anything for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not remember that any one did. I was kind of flighty the last day
+or two, I guess."</p>
+
+<p>"Were you heading for home?" asked Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"If I was I didn't know it," Post said with a faint laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"But where is your home?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anywhere I hang up my hat."</p>
+
+<p>"Really?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm giving it to you straight."</p>
+
+<p>"And no friends?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are the best friend I ever had," declared the young man, with
+sudden emotion. "Nobody ever put himself out for me before that I can
+remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't make too much of what little I have done," Hiram urged.
+"Where do you go from here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't the first idea. I'll get out as soon as I can—"</p>
+
+<p>"If you say that I'll take your clothes away," declared Hiram promptly.
+"You've got to eat many a gallon of Miss Pringle's broth and porridge
+before you get a chance to leave Sunnyside."</p>
+
+<p>"'Sunnyside,'" repeated Orrin Post wistfully. "Is that the name of this
+farm, Mr. Strong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"It must be a pleasant place."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that myself yet," laughed Hiram, "I have been here so
+short a time."</p>
+
+<p>And for the next few days Hiram Strong was so busy that he was not at
+all sure whether or not he would like it himself at Sunnyside Farm.</p>
+
+<p>He set a gang of a dozen men to ditching in the twenty acre lot. He
+could have made much better time with a ditching machine; but of course
+it would not have paid to hire such an implement for this small job.</p>
+
+<p>He had been all over the wheat field and had made a mental plan of what
+he wished to do before a spadeful of earth was thrown. He proposed
+running a ditch the entire length of the field, through the middle and
+parallel with the road on which the twenty-acre piece bordered. On the
+wetter portion of the piece he proposed having transverse ditches every
+hundred feet. Where the land seemed naturally better drained he would
+have the cross ditches dug less frequently.</p>
+
+<p>The county ditch beside the road was deep enough and clean enough to
+carry off an immense volume of water. The natural drainage of the land
+was toward the road; therefore nobody could complain of his using the
+county ditch as he intended.</p>
+
+<p>With a cross-cut saw they fitted the logs to match at the intersection
+of the ditches and there he laid a cap of heavy planking which chanced
+to be about the place. Any bit of rough lumber answered this purpose.</p>
+
+<p>As fast as the timbers were laid they covered them, tamping the earth
+over them firmly and leaving a very slight ridge through the field.
+Snaking the logs across the field did not damage the wheat much, for
+Hiram made the driver of the horses follow a single path—that of the
+main ditch—both coming and going.</p>
+
+<p>The man Hiram had hired to cut the timber was very dexterous with the
+axe, but after the first day he raised decided objections to working in
+the half-burned area. He was smutted from head to foot and looked like
+a charcoal burner.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry," the young farm manager told him, "if you find the work
+different from what you supposed it to be. I told you plainly enough
+what I wanted you for."</p>
+
+<p>"Let some of the other fellows take their turn in that patch, and I'll
+do a little digging. That's clean work," said the man.</p>
+
+<p>"No. I hired you because I was told you were a good axman. I hired the
+other men for ditching. You can chop better than you can ditch, and the
+others can use a spade better than an axe; I want the most I can get
+for my money."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I suppose that's fair enough," agreed the man grudgingly. "But
+what my wife will say when she sees this jumper will be a plenty."</p>
+
+<p>He was in no better mood the second day; and that afternoon Hiram saw
+Adam Banks stroll along the road and go upon the burned-over piece
+to speak to the woodchopper. There was not so much tree cutting done
+during the next hour, and it vexed the young farm manager.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems, as Mr. Bronson suggested, that I am bound to have trouble
+with that fellow, whether I hire him or not," Hiram reflected.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">WHEAT</p>
+
+
+<p>It was about this time that Hiram received his first letter since
+leaving Scoville from Sister. He was glad to hear personally from her,
+and about her wonderful fortune as well; but it must be confessed
+that had the letter been from a certain other girl he would have been
+equally pleased.</p>
+
+<p>He had heard of Lettie Bronson frequently from her father. She would
+graduate from St. Beris in June and come home to Plympton. Then, Hiram
+hoped, he would see her occasionally at Sunnyside Farm.</p>
+
+<p>Secretly the young fellow was particularly pleased with his new
+position as farm manager because it gave him an opportunity to delegate
+the heavier and dirtier work to his workmen. If Lettie came on the
+place he would be able to go to meet her in decent clothes and with
+clean hands.</p>
+
+<p>Sister's letter was very friendly and newsy; but upon reading it a
+second time Hiram thought he observed in it a tone that was not like
+that of the Sister he had previously known. She had been wont to be
+rather fly-away and careless of speech and act. Now there was a sudden
+primness in the way she expressed herself which must, Hiram thought,
+arise from the feeling of responsibility which her new circumstances
+had brought to her.</p>
+
+<p>But here spoke the old tender-hearted, if imaginative, Sister:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>"I wish I could go out myself, Hiram, and find my little brother. Just
+think of his running away—even from a reform school—into the world
+all stark alone! I don't know anything more about him than that—not
+even what his first name is. It seems my Grandmother Cheltenham hired
+the lawyer to find us both before she died, but she would do nothing
+for Brother and me until we were both found. So all that I can do is
+to wait patiently. I hope the poor boy will come to no harm."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>She signed the letter: "I-don't-know-my-first-name-yet Cheltenham." But
+Hiram could imagine how proud and happy Sister was with a real name of
+her own.</p>
+
+<p>"Bless her dear little heart," he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>The carpenters began to arrive at Sunnyside, and the shack, first to be
+used for a bunkhouse and kitchen, was soon put up. It would comfortably
+house twenty men, the bunks being built along the walls and a long
+table and benches occupying the middle of the room. Hiram took his old
+bed in the small house after Orrin Post moved in with the other men,
+and the incubator house was fumigated.</p>
+
+<p>"For as long as you are used to farmwork," Hiram had told Orrin, "why
+should you not stay here and work for me when you get strong enough?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are a good fellow, Strong!" declared the friendless one. "You
+won't be sorry that you took me in."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," Hiram said, his eyes twinkling, "I figure to get all of my money
+back on you, Orrin."</p>
+
+<p>There was something about Orrin Post that Hiram found very attractive,
+and yet the fellow was as secretive about his personal history as
+though his past life was something to be ashamed of.</p>
+
+<p>He proved to be, now that he was convalescent, a good looking young
+man, rather frail of physique, but manly in every way. Because of his
+enunciation and judging, also, by little turns of expression in his use
+of English, Hiram thought Orrin came, too, from New England. He was
+intelligent and to all appearances well-educated.</p>
+
+<p>But never did the latter drop a word to reveal what his upbringing
+or his former state had been, save that he had worked on farms. He
+appeared to have none of the vices of the common tramp; he was polite,
+clean-mouthed, and an easy and fluent speaker on almost any subject but
+that of his private affairs.</p>
+
+<p>He read everything there was to read—books, papers, magazines, even
+a pile of old poultry journals Brandenburg had left in the incubator
+shed. Miss Pringle pronounced him to be "real nice" and lent him all
+the books and papers she owned.</p>
+
+<p>Now that Orrin Post was out of danger and there were so many men about
+Sunnyside Farm, the spinster did not visit them so often. But Hiram
+and Orrin sometimes called on her in the evening. In numbers there is
+safety, Hiram thought, while Orrin did not seem to be at all disturbed
+by any of Delia Pringle's languishing ways.</p>
+
+<p>That he was grateful both to the good-hearted spinster and to Hiram
+they could not doubt. Orrin began to do light jobs for both very soon.
+One thing, he relieved Hiram altogether of the care of the more than
+twenty cattle that the young farm manager was feeding in the pens
+behind the big barn.</p>
+
+<p>It was Orrin, too, who assisted Hiram in setting up the farm machinery
+that had arrived. He seemed to have some idea of mechanics, and Hiram
+always found him of considerable assistance.</p>
+
+<p>The two-disc plow was the first implement they set up. It was a
+splendidly built machine, one of the newest on the market, and could be
+pulled by either tractor or horses.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bronson did not intend to use a tractor much at Sunnyside; at
+least, not this first season. When the season's work really commenced
+he would have all his present tractors could do on his other farms.</p>
+
+<p>"But with these young elephants," Orrin said, admiring the pair of
+Percherons when they had arrived, "you ought to be able to do almost
+anything, Mr. Strong."</p>
+
+<p>The horses were really huge fellows, quiet, kindly, and well broken to
+work. They were not much like the horses Hiram had been used to in the
+East, it must be confessed. Even Jerry, who was a good cross of Morgan
+and Canadian stock, looked truly Lilliputian beside these huge fellows.</p>
+
+<p>When the Percherons started one of the largest logs in the burned
+piece, the driver chanced to steer them wrong at one point and the
+foot-and-a-half butt of the pine-log rammed a stump. The force of the
+blow, with the horses leaning against their collars, split the pine-log
+for half its length.</p>
+
+<p>"Say," said Will Pardee, the driver, "let me tackle them to the corner
+of that barn, and I bet I could start it. Aside from a steam engine,
+they are the best pullers I ever saw."</p>
+
+<p>The carpenter gang was now at work and the material for the stave silo
+had arrived. All but the wire cables with which Hiram had advised that
+it should be stayed. But those were promised.</p>
+
+<p>It was to be a hundred-and-forty-ton silo—one of the largest of the
+old-fashioned kind—and its foundation was of masonry. Under proper
+conditions it would last for years if the walls (the staves were
+grooved and tongued) were properly erected. The silo was placed at one
+corner of the barn just where it would be handy to shred and blow the
+ensilage into the enormous round tank.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Hiram had continued his corn testing, and to his
+satisfaction. Having selected the good ears among those he had bought
+of Mr. Brown, discarding the less vigorous, he shelled the remaining
+corn off these good ears and mixed the kernels thoroughly. This seed he
+sacked, tagging it plainly, and hung it where Yancey Battick's dread
+enemies, the rats, would not get at it.</p>
+
+<p>This bag of corn would not furnish Hiram with all the seed he would
+need at planting time. He had other corn to test and his testing boxes
+were busy for some weeks.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime he had tried out the little handful of wheat he had
+brought with him from Yancey Battick's place. The vigor and uniformity
+of that red-streaked wheat was quite remarkable. Never had Hiram Strong
+seen a wheat that pleased him as much as did this new grain.</p>
+
+<p>He was deeply interested in Yancey Battick's experiment with this
+wheat; but he did not know how to go about gaining the odd man's
+confidence. Really, he was on less familiar terms with Battick than
+with any other neighbors about Sunnyside—save, perhaps, the rascally
+Adam Banks.</p>
+
+<p>The latter came around occasionally and talked with the men working for
+Hiram and interfered in a small way with the ditching and the chopping
+down of the pine trees. But Hiram was determined to have no trouble
+with the fellow if he could help it.</p>
+
+<p>He had been told that Adam Banks had quarreled with a farmer for whom
+he had worked, and later, when that farmer's barns were fired, the
+owner had declared that Adam Banks had done the firing. But nothing
+could be proved against the fellow.</p>
+
+<p>There had been a few warm days; but the ground was not ready for corn
+plowing, and Hiram was to raise no oats this year. Nor did he give
+any attention to potatoes or other truck crops. Primarily his job at
+Sunnyside was to raise corn—with a proper rotation of clover and
+grains to keep the soil of the farm in arable condition.</p>
+
+<p>He had mapped the farm and planned his work of seeding for the year,
+both on the land that had lain fallow over winter and that already in
+crops.</p>
+
+<p>He did not like the looks of the wheat on the upper twenty acres where
+the ditching was being done. It had not stooled properly; there were
+patches where it was winter killed because of the poor drainage. He
+knew the crop on this piece would scarcely pay for harvesting.</p>
+
+<p>And yet he understood that both lime and commercial fertilizer had
+been used heavily on this acreage before it was seeded the previous
+September.</p>
+
+<p>"The standing water has made the land soggy. You can't grow crops on a
+sponge—at least, not wheat," he told himself. "The fertility put into
+the soil for this wheat is still here, or it has evaporated or leached
+away. Surely the lime has not done all its work in releasing the
+natural fertility which the soil possesses. This piece should not need
+liming again for three years.</p>
+
+<p>"If I can get this wheat off in time for an ensilage crop—first
+broadcasting the coarse manure from the cattle pens—I might make a
+showing on the profit side of the ledger, for this piece, ditching and
+all, by the next year. Ensilage corn and peas together would make this
+twenty acres look pretty good."</p>
+
+<p>Thus he dreamed. He walked about the other wheat fields. None of the
+grain was as seriously injured as was that on the twenty-acre piece
+bordering this much traveled section of the county road.</p>
+
+<p>Through a rift in the strip of woodland between the Sunnyside fields
+and Yancey Battick's place, he saw a lovely plain of green. It looked
+so very different from his own wheatlands that Hiram ventured across
+the boundary fence to examine the patch more closely.</p>
+
+<p>Here was not more than an acre of level, wheat-covered land. He saw
+that the grain had been sown very thinly; and yet the plants had
+stooled so well that, at a little distance, it seemed as though the
+ground was matted by the grain plants.</p>
+
+<p>If this was the red-streaked wheat it must be wonderfully productive.
+At least, the plant itself was thrifty and lush—far beyond any wheat
+Hiram Strong had ever seen. Whether it was of the bearded or smooth
+variety, the grain from such a plant must make a heavy and paying
+harvest.</p>
+
+<p>He looked up suddenly to see Yancey Battick—his face inflamed and gun
+in hand—bearing down upon him with so savage a demeanor that Hiram
+confessed himself frightened.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">YANCEY BATTICK'S STORY</p>
+
+
+<p>"What are you doing there?" demanded Battick, with his gun cocked and
+the muzzle on a level with Hiram Strong's breast. "Have I got to give
+you a lesson, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"You certainly are teaching me something, Mr. Battick," returned the
+young farmer with flushed face and angry look. "Put down that gun! What
+do you mean by threatening to shoot me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll more than threaten to do it!" declared the man wildly. "You get
+away from that wheat! You get off this farm! And you stay off!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter with you, Mr. Battick?" cried Hiram. "Are you
+crazy? You haven't got your farm posted over there where I entered."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't go to the expense of putting up a 'no trespass' sign every
+few feet," snarled Battick. "But you, as well as everybody else around
+here, know that I don't want anybody sneaking around my place. Get
+out!" and he advanced with the gun again.</p>
+
+<p>The double muzzle of the shotgun was a most unpleasant prospect. Hiram
+Strong did not fancy being backed through the wood to the boundary
+fence with the gun against his breast. It was too ignominious a
+prospect to be borne.</p>
+
+<p>It has always been a mooted question just how far a man may go to
+protect his property from trespass. In most cases the courts demand
+that harmful trespass be proved. And certainly Hiram had done no harm,
+and contemplated none, in coming here to look at his neighbor's wheat.</p>
+
+<p>He did not believe Yancey Battick was altogether sane. But an insane
+man with a shotgun is a combination as uncertain as a barrel of
+gunpowder and a match!</p>
+
+<p>Hiram half turned towards the woods path through which he had come.
+Battick, only eight feet or so away, raised the muzzle of his gun a
+trifle. Like a flash the young fellow wheeled, stooped, and leaped in
+to seize the man.</p>
+
+<p>The gun exploded and Hiram's hat went sailing into the air, its brim
+in front torn to bits. His forehead was blackened by the smoke of the
+discharge, so near was it.</p>
+
+<p>But he had seized Yancey Battick around the waist and held on. The
+shotgun fell to the ground under their stamping feet. The young farm
+manager was more vigorous if not more angry than his antagonist. For
+half a minute or more they strained and tugged—Hiram to throw the man,
+the latter to escape from his embrace.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly they broke apart. Both staggered back a pace. They stared at
+each other, their visages pale now rather than inflamed. Both realized
+how near to tragedy the incident had led.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram drew a palm across his blackened and sweating forehead. Battick
+still glared, panting, at the young fellow.</p>
+
+<p>"I—I might have shot you, Strong. You're a young fool," he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>"If anybody lacks sense it is you," retorted Hiram quickly. "If you had
+killed me I'd only have been dead. But you would have had to pay the
+penalty."</p>
+
+<p>"You are on my land—"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't begin that old foolishness," commanded Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>He seized the man's arm and led him toward a log at the edge of the
+wood. Battick was actually shaking and he stared at Hiram in a way
+that troubled the latter considerably. Could it be that this strange
+individual was really insane?</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down here," said the youth, and took a seat beside him on the log.
+"Now for goodness sake, tell me what the matter is with you. I know you
+have bred a new wheat. I saw the grain at your house. I suppose this
+is a field of it. Why act like a madman about it? I can't steal these
+plants and so breed the wheat in competition."</p>
+
+<p>Battick looked at him solemnly. "You don't know what I have been
+through, Mr. Strong," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I can see you are carrying on a regular guerrilla warfare against your
+neighbors, Mr. Battick. But I cannot imagine why."</p>
+
+<p>"They have hounded me—robbed me!" exclaimed Battick excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Who have?"</p>
+
+<p>"People you don't know, perhaps. And perhaps you do! I can never be
+sure that their agents are not around here. You may be one of them, Mr.
+Strong."</p>
+
+<p>"I assure you—"</p>
+
+<p>"Or you may be as right as rain. I was too quick just now. But I am
+suspicious of every person I see trespassing in my fields."</p>
+
+<p>"Who could, or would, do this wheat harm?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let me tell you! When I bred my Mortgage Lifter Oats I was robbed of
+my seed, my standing grain was burned just before it was ready for the
+sickle, and cattle were turned in on my young oats, a field like this,
+and allowed to graze."</p>
+
+<p>"The Mortgage Lifter Oats? The great new oat that Bonsall and Burgess,
+the seedsmen in Chicago, put out four years ago and which proved such a
+wonderful cropper?"</p>
+
+<p>"The same."</p>
+
+<p>"You bred that variety, Mr. Battick?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But I do not get the credit for it, nor did I get any of the
+money—a small fortune—that has been made through its sale. I do not
+hold Bonsall and Burgess at fault. They honestly bought the new seed of
+those who robbed me and were themselves aware of no crime having been
+committed."</p>
+
+<p>"I never!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Strong. There are mighty mean people in this world. Where I
+lived before I came to this place there were other men living around me
+who gave some attention to the selection and breeding of new varieties
+of seed. You see, that clergyman who years ago made a clear twenty
+thousand dollars by breeding a famous muskmelon started us all to
+hunting for new types of vegetables, fruits, and grains.</p>
+
+<p>"Rivalries arose in my neighborhood, of course. But I thought they
+were friendly rivalries. We even talked over our discoveries at the
+Grange meetings. I had made a study of plant life, and I gave little
+lectures—the more fool me!—to the boys and girls who were interested
+enough to come together at the schoolhouse to listen. I had no idea my
+neighbors would steal."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to say they did?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. And some of the very boys I had tried to interest and help
+were the ones who broke down my fence and turned the cattle into my
+young oats. That was so I should be unable to raise a crop of the new
+oats that year and so fail to take advantage of the Mortgage Lifter
+being advertised by the seedsmen. You understand that all big money is
+made on new seeds in the first and second seasons, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know that, Mr. Battick," Hiram agreed. "After that everybody has the
+new strain. It must be a quick clean-up in the seed business."</p>
+
+<p>"That's it. I don't really know to this day just who it was profited by
+my loss. In the main, I mean. Almost everybody around my place had some
+of the seed. That held the gang together and made it impossible for me
+to get any evidence against the real transgressors. You see, the other
+neighbors were bribed.</p>
+
+<p>"However, my crops had been destroyed, the seed-oats taken out of my
+granary in the night when I was ill. It was a dirty plot! Bonsall and
+Burgess were not to be blamed. Nor could they tell me anything. They
+were bound to secrecy in their contract."</p>
+
+<p>"And could you get no satisfaction?" asked Hiram, in sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>"I could prove nothing. You cannot patent, or copyright, a seed! Those
+fellows merely beat me to it."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a shame!"</p>
+
+<p>Battick laughed bitterly. "They certainly did me dirt," he said. "I
+sold out and came here. I may be wrong in telling you this. Nobody else
+knows what I came here for and why I bought the old Pringle place."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Hiram smiling. "Some of the neighbors assume you came here
+to practice the black art."</p>
+
+<p>"Let them! The less they know the better for me. I've chased more of
+them than you think off the place. That lazy, good-for-nothing Adam
+Banks—"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say that he has troubled you?" put in Hiram, with some
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And I'll surely fill his pants full of rock salt so that he'll
+prefer eating off the mantel-shelf for a week, if he doesn't keep away.
+I don't trust anybody, Mr. Strong, and that's a fact. Unless it is you.
+I believe I have the finest strain of wheat that was ever bred."</p>
+
+<p>He stopped. It was plain that he could not trust Hiram sufficiently to
+talk intimately about it. He shook his head and looked away.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram glanced at him, scrutinizing the worn, hoop-backed figure from
+the corner of his eye. Yancey Battick was not an old man. He was worse
+than that. He was a man worn out before his time.</p>
+
+<p>The young farm manager could understand just how hope and faith had
+dried up in this unfortunate man and left only a husk. Fate and unkind
+circumstances, as well as wicked men, had sadly treated Yancey Battick.</p>
+
+<p>His best efforts had gone for nothing. His attempts to win a competence
+for his old age had been frustrated. Perhaps there were more personal
+sorrows—heart-breaking sorrows—in Yancey Battick's life that he had
+not touched upon in his angry and bitter narrative.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram's own heart warmed toward him, unlovely as he was physically. If
+he could help Yancey Battick he was determined to do so.</p>
+
+<p>"I am mighty sorry for your bad luck, Mr. Battick," Hiram said, rising
+at last from his seat on the log. "I really did not intend annoying you
+when I came over here to look at your wheat. It looked so much better
+than that on Sunnyside that I was curious."</p>
+
+<p>"Un-huh," muttered Battick. "I understand you, Mr. Strong. I presume
+you are all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, good-day!" said Hiram, moving off. "I'll be sure to come around
+to the front door again if I visit you," and he laughed shortly.</p>
+
+<p>The laugh died on his lips as he went back through the woods path. And
+for a very strange reason. Through the greenery to the right he caught
+sudden sight of a figure slinking away from behind the log on which he
+and Battick had been sitting while the latter told his story.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram recognized this eavesdropper. It was Adam Banks.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">THE COUNTRY DANCE</p>
+
+
+<p>Miss Delia Pringle had an idea and she came to Hiram with it that very
+day when he returned from his visit to Yancey Battick's patch of wheat.</p>
+
+<p>"I do love a dance, Mr. Strong, don't you?" she began with her head on
+one side and a languishing look. "We have had very few of them around
+this neighborhood this winter. The flu, you know—so many unfortunate
+sicknesses.</p>
+
+<p>"But the winter's well over now and everybody who hasn't died of the
+flu has recovered. I'd dearly love to have one more dance before haying
+and grain harvest—before all the young men get too busy."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But—"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I want your help in getting it up, Mr. Strong," Miss Pringle
+explained.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Miss Pringle," he said rather anxiously, "I'm a newcomer. I don't
+want to put myself forward and act officiously. It might make a bad
+impression on the minds of the neighbors."</p>
+
+<p>"What nonsense!" cried the lively spinster. "They all like you—of
+course they do!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not Adam Banks," suggested Hiram, with one of his quick smiles that
+always made his rather plain face more attractive.</p>
+
+<p>"My goodness! I should hope not," exclaimed Miss Pringle. "If he did I
+certainly wouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>"And I think Terry Crane is getting to dislike me, too," added Hiram
+speaking of the man whom he had put into the burned-over patch of
+woodland to chop down trees. "I understand that Crane's wife thinks I'm
+quite a terrible fellow because I make her washing so hard."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Pringle laughed. "It would be a good thing, I should think, if
+these folks got together and learned more about you, Mr. Strong—got
+really to know you and how nice you are," and her smile would—when he
+first knew her—have made Hiram blush to the very tips of his ears.</p>
+
+<p>"You flatter me, Miss Pringle," was what he said. "And I don't believe
+I would know how to go about getting up a dance."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's all right. You leave that to me," she said promptly. "What
+I want of you, Mr. Strong, is to get Mr. Bronson to let us dance on his
+floor."</p>
+
+<p>"Dance on his floor?" repeated Hiram. "At Plympton?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where, then? What floor? His barn floor here at Sunnyside?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! Of his new house. Don't you know how Dolan and MacComb are
+going to put up the house after your silo is done? They often build 'em
+so around here. They do not raise the whole frame at once, but lay the
+floor on the sills and then put up the scantlings for the frame, story
+by story—the outside walls first."</p>
+
+<p>"I see. That is a common practice in some localities."</p>
+
+<p>"It is here," returned Miss Pringle, "for we have a good many high
+winds. Come along one of those baby tornadoes, as they call 'em, and
+a regular house-frame would be torn all to pieces, unless it was well
+boarded in."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well. If it's nice weather, as it is likely to be in June when the
+floor's laid, we always try to have a dance. Christen the floor, as
+it were. In this Pringleton district we don't get to have a real good
+dance once in a dog's age. Carpet dances are nothing, and barn floors
+are so rough. So's the schoolhouse floor. There isn't a real hall
+nearer than Plympton."</p>
+
+<p>"I see your idea, Miss Pringle," Hiram said; "and if I can get Mr.
+Bronson to agree—and I presume he will—I don't see why we shouldn't
+have a nice time. Miss Bronson will be home early in June, and I
+shouldn't wonder but that she would help."</p>
+
+<p>"Little Lettie Bronson? Of course she will. We'll have a regular
+party," declared the enthusiastic Delia. "And I hope you'll ask me to
+dance, Mr. Strong."</p>
+
+<p>"I promise to," laughed Hiram. "I ask you right now for at least two
+dances, and there's Orrin. I bet he can dance."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I've already promised him three, Mr. Strong," declared the
+fore-thoughtful spinster, in high fettle.</p>
+
+<p>This was a bit of pleasure to look forward to; and all work and no play
+does make Jack a dull boy. It was something to write Sister about, too;
+and Sister (who wrote more frequently now that she had discovered Hiram
+would answer her letters) became very much interested in "Hiram's house
+raising party," as Mother Atterson called it.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>"Mrs. Atterson remembers going to a barn raising party when she was
+a girl in the country and there she met Mr. Atterson for the first
+time," Sister wrote in her very next letter. "She thinks she never had
+such a nice time as she did at that party. I wish I was going to be at
+your house raising party, Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Lettie Bronson has been here and says she expects to be home
+for the party. She says Miss Pringle—the lady you write so much
+about—has writ (is that right, Hiram? Mrs. Atterson says it is) her
+all about it and how fine you are getting along with your spring work.
+I would dearly love to see you riding your double-disc plow behind
+those Percherons. They must be as big as elephants.</p>
+
+<p>"I am most of all interested in that Orrin Post. To think of his
+coming to your place sick, and all, and then turning out to be such a
+nice fellow and such good help! Mrs. Atterson says it was a leading.
+You were led to go down into the calf shed that night to find the poor
+fellow."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There was considerable more to the letter for Sister was a voluminous
+writer when once she got started. Hiram's epistles, however, had soon
+to be of the briefest description, for the work was piling up on him
+enormously. Spring had opened with a bang!</p>
+
+<p>Had it not been for Orrin Post the young farm manager would actually
+have been swamped with the details of the farmwork. As he gained
+strength (and Orrin did that rapidly) he relieved Hiram of many petty
+duties that had begun greatly to try the latter.</p>
+
+<p>Helpful and pleasant as Orrin Post always was, he did not grow any more
+communicative about himself as their intimacy increased. His past was
+a sealed book to everybody about Sunnyside. Even Miss Delia Pringle
+confessed to the young farm manager that she had never met such a
+close-mouthed person.</p>
+
+<p>"A dentist's forceps wouldn't pull anything out of that Post—no more
+than as though he was a post," she declared. "But he is a mighty nice
+fellow."</p>
+
+<p>The workmen at Sunnyside and the other neighbors had at first referred
+to the stranger as "that tramp," but after a time they warmed up to
+Orrin. He was friendly, and was always willing to bear a hand at any
+job.</p>
+
+<p>The ditching was completed and the logs laid in the drains and
+covered. Miss Pringle's burned-over patch was certainly improved in
+appearance. The sprouts and bushes were growing rapidly green and would
+soon completely hide the unsightly stumps. Even the most critical
+neighbors owned to the improvement. But some of them carped at Hiram's
+underdraining scheme. That twenty acres never had amounted to much and
+it never would, according to these people.</p>
+
+<p>"Digging the drains was all right, Mr. Strong," said Turner, who held
+the farm back of Miss Pringle's. "That is, the ditches would have been
+all right, except they'd have been in the way of plowing and tilling.</p>
+
+<p>"But when you threw in the logs and covered them up you did a fool's
+trick, if you'll allow me, who was farming, it's likely, when your
+daddy was born, to say so. A fool trick—yes, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>But Hiram only laughed pleasantly at the grizzled old farmer's
+criticism, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot say I believe you are right and I am wrong, Mr. Turner; but
+there is one thing that will settle the question."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that, young man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Time," replied Hiram, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! I guess that is so," agreed the aged farmer. "Maybe you ain't so
+big a fool as you appear."</p>
+
+<p>Criticism did not bother Hiram Strong, and as he told Mr. Turner he
+could afford to wait for time to prove him right. He knew that even the
+owner of Sunnyside Farm, Mr. Bronson, felt some doubt regarding the
+value of the kind of underdraining his young farm manager had done. And
+it had cost a pretty penny!</p>
+
+<p>But now came the plowing for corn and Hiram had four weeks of steady
+plowing and raking to get the fallow land into shape for his corn crop.
+And he did most of the plowing with the Percherons and the double-disc
+plow himself. There being little culch on the land, this make of plow
+worked remarkably well.</p>
+
+<p>This land on which he proposed to grow his main crop was limed heavily
+before it was raked, and he determined to fertilize well with a
+special corn fertilizer at planting time. Mr. Bronson mixed his own
+fertilizers. Early in the season Hiram had secured specimens of the
+soil on which he was to plant the corn, and had sent them to the State
+Agricultural College for examination.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, he expected his employer to supply him with a chemical
+compound which would have in it just the needed ingredients to
+fertilize the soil in question for the growth of corn. But he knew
+these acres of Sunnyside had already been heavily cropped; and in
+spite of their having lain fallow for a year he did not look for any
+big crop. The long-tenanted farm was hungry for humus—something the
+chemicals could not put into it.</p>
+
+<p>"But at the last cultivation of the corn," he told Mr. Bronson, "we
+will sow crimson clover. Well limed as the land now is, we should get a
+good catch of clover. We'll cut it for hay in June—and cut it at the
+right time. I shouldn't want it to ball up in the stomachs of these
+splendid Percherons, for instance, and kill them, as many a good horse
+has been killed by crimson clover."</p>
+
+<p>"We usually plant wheat and clover together for hay," Mr. Bronson said.
+"I have had an unfortunate experience with crimson clover cut at the
+wrong time."</p>
+
+<p>"My father showed me the time to cut and cure it. It is safe as a
+church if handled right," declared Hiram vigorously. "But it should not
+be fed steadily without other hay. It would be like trying to bring up
+a child on sugar only. The youngster would like it all right—until he
+was made sick. So with the horses.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, we ought to get a good crop of hay off this corn land by June
+of next year. Then if we can broadcast the sod with compost or cattle
+manure we shall have an ideal soil for corn."</p>
+
+<p>"But, I say! you're figuring on following corn with corn and only
+clover between," exclaimed the farm owner.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure enough. And with the broadcasting of manure and a good, sharp
+fertilizer in the drill, I guarantee to make a fifty per cent. better
+crop on this same land next year than I can this, although next year's
+crop will have to be planted a month later than this, and I shall have
+to have help in the plowing."</p>
+
+<p>"All right! All right! Go ahead, Hiram," cried Mr. Bronson, literally
+throwing up his hands. "You are the most convincing talker for a young
+chap that I ever heard. But on my other farms I usually plant potatoes
+on clover sod."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the old and standard rotation of crops—corn, clover, potatoes.
+But Sunnyside is not potato raising soil. Nor are the marketing
+conditions right for going in heavily for such a crop. To make money
+here I thought we had agreed, Mr. Bronson, that nothing should be sold
+off Sunnyside save what can walk, outside of the wheat and corn?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's right. We did. And you are correct, my boy. But the old Irish
+Cobbler has made me so much money on my lower land around Plympton,
+on a three crop rotation, that I cannot get it out of my mind that it
+ought to work up here."</p>
+
+<p>"On Sunnyside we've got to raise corn, we've got to raise silage, and a
+part of the land should be excellent for grain if properly tilled."</p>
+
+<p>"I hear from Miss Pringle that for the last few years the wheat has not
+been much."</p>
+
+<p>"And the crop now in the ground will not be much," grumbled Hiram. "But
+believe me, Mr. Bronson, I won't put a grain of wheat in the ground
+next September unless I am pretty positive of a thirty bushel crop."</p>
+
+<p>"Sh! Don't let any of these old hardshells around here hear you say
+that or they'll think you are crazy. They don't average over twenty
+bushels to the acre, if they do that."</p>
+
+<p>"There's one man around here who is going to do better than that unless
+all signs fail," said Hiram quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yancey Battick."</p>
+
+<p>"What? Why, that wet, sour land of his isn't fit to grow wheat."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right; but wait a while. Maybe he'll show you something.
+That is, barring the weather or the Hessian fly."</p>
+
+<p>"The weather we cannot control. We can only pray about that," said Mr.
+Bronson smiling. "But how about the Hessian fly and other insect pests?"</p>
+
+<p>"Luck. It's good luck if you don't have 'em and bad if you do,"
+answered Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know anything about this new one—what they call the English
+wheat louse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only that he's 'bad medicine,'" Hiram replied. "But I do have faith in
+one thing to help overcome the ravages of all pests on wheat."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"The use of a fertilizer in which nitrate of soda is prominent. The
+nitrate forces the growth and sometimes that puts the crop ahead of the
+fly or other vermin. There is not much fast-growing wheat on Sunnyside
+to-day, Mr. Bronson. Here it is corn-planting time and the wheat is not
+yet two feet high."</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen richer land, Hiram," rejoined the farm owner. "But I don't
+expect to see much richer around here than Sunnyside will have after
+a couple of years of your work. I'll supply the money, my boy, if you
+will supply the brains."</p>
+
+<p>"That swells me all up, Mr. Bronson," laughed Hiram, "But I never did
+claim that all the farm knowledge in the world is under my cap."</p>
+
+<p>"No one man or boy ever had too much of that, I can assure you," Mr.
+Bronson agreed. "But you must feel your responsibility. If Sunnyside
+is going to be a well tilled and profitable farm, it will come through
+your personal effort, more than by any other way, Hiram."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram Strong felt all this. He had taken a big contract on his
+shoulders, and he did not overlook that fact for a single waking hour.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bronson sent another corn planter from one of his other farms and
+the two teams cleaned up the Sunnyside corn patch in a week. It was the
+biggest acreage of corn Hiram had ever had anything to do with, and
+he looked over the great brown field from the altitude of the knoll
+on which the new farmhouse was being built with no little pride and
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+  <img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt="" id="illus1">
+    <div class="caption">
+    <p>The two teams cleaned up the Sunnyside cornpatch in a week.</p>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<p>Miss Delia Pringle had proved a true prophetess. The silo was finished,
+all but two of the hoops and the wire stays, and the carpenters were
+well at work on the new house. The lower floor was laid and the
+framework for the outer walls raised as high as the second story, and
+the back and sides were boarded in.</p>
+
+<p>Lettie Bronson arrived home on the eighth of June, and it was the
+evening of that day that had been set for the "house raising dance" at
+Sunnyside.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">TROUBLE WITH TURNER'S BULL</p>
+
+
+<p>The hard scrubby looking red and yellow corn that Hiram had got from
+Mr. Brown and tested so carefully, had planted a goodly patch of the
+Sunnyside cornland. Mr. Bronson looked at some of it as Hiram filled
+the two cylinders of the cornplanter, running several handfuls through
+his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"That's kind of scrubby looking stuff, Hiram," he observed doubtfully.
+"I sent you up better looking seed."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. Your seed certainly is well selected and graded," agreed the
+youth. "But I am not going to plant it on this lowland; not much of it,
+anyway. That big corn grows tall, I imagine, and takes plenty of time
+to grow, doesn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"From a hundred and ten to a hundred and twenty days. But you are
+planting plenty early."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Only we may get frost on this lowland early in September. The
+farmers about here tell me they do, some years. And June frosts, too,
+once in a bad while. I am afraid, if we had a set-back in corn planting
+in June, that long-growing variety of yours would get scarcely glazed
+down here, before the September frost hit it. And it is not the sort of
+corn I want for silage."</p>
+
+<p>"I see. You always do have an answer ready, Hiram; and usually it's
+a good one. Though, truth to tell, an early September frost here is
+almost as unlikely as a July snow."</p>
+
+<p>"Just the same," his young employee said, "this corn that you think is
+so scrubby is due to make you a big crop. I am planting a specially
+prepared strip on that far side toward Battick's for seed."</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"But it isn't even pure breed, Hiram. There will be a dozen red ears to
+the bushel, I am certain."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever see a horse or a mule refuse a red ear of corn?"
+laughed Hiram. "I don't ever remember of seeing smut on an ear that
+turned out to be red—though that doesn't prove anything. And red ears
+make just as good meal as yellow."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you are right. But this looks like scrub."</p>
+
+<p>"If it comes right, when it is cured you can knock a steer down with
+an ear of it without knocking a kernel off the cob."</p>
+
+<p>"That will be some corn, boy!" chuckled Mr. Bronson.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram came up from the first raking of this seed corn patch at noontime
+of this beautiful June day to find Miss Pringle and some of the younger
+girls transforming the first floor of the new house at Sunnyside into
+a ballroom. Busy as they were at this time on the farm, both Hiram and
+Orrin gave the girls a helping hand during the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>The carpenters built a small platform at the back of the house for the
+musicians. There was to be the piano brought over from Miss Pringle's,
+a violin, and a horn. Mr. Bronson had sent up a lot of Japanese
+lanterns, and these the boys strung as they were directed about the
+big, open floor and overhead. Chairs and benches were brought from the
+schoolhouse, half a mile or more away.</p>
+
+<p>The veranda flooring had likewise been laid, and the carpenters had
+built wide, rough steps by which the veranda could easily be reached.</p>
+
+<p>The girls swept out all the shavings and other litter, and the
+well-laid floor presented an attractive appearance to the eye of
+anybody who was fond of dancing. Just as the place was pronounced
+ready by Delia Pringle, and the girls and boys were retiring from the
+cleanly swept floor, Adam Banks appeared at the back door and coolly
+scrambled into the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's see how it is laid," he said, grinning, and beginning to clog
+clumsily with his heavy boots.</p>
+
+<p>He had been walking in muddy places, and every step he took on the
+clean boards rattled gravel and mud off his boots.</p>
+
+<p>"You get out of here, Ad Banks," commanded Miss Pringle, starting after
+him with broom and dust pan. "You are the biggest nuisance that ever
+was."</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, Delia, don't be harsh with a fellow," said Banks, grinning
+broadly. "You going to promise me a dance to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"And you probably coming here half drunk!" announced the spinster,
+frankly. "I guess not!" announced the spinster, frankly. "I guess not!
+No indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better. You'll be a wall-flower enough, Delia—you know you
+will."</p>
+
+<p>At that Miss Pringle flushed very red and her eyes fairly snapped.</p>
+
+<p>"If I never danced at all I wouldn't take on any such makeshift of a
+man as you, Ad Banks! Get out of here!" she commanded, "shooing" him
+with the broom.</p>
+
+<p>He grappled with her, still laughing in his lubberly way, and wrenched
+the broom from Miss Pringle's hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Delia," he sing-songed, "how I love you! You're the prettiest
+girl I know. Come on and give us a dance. No? Then I'll dance with the
+broom," and he proceeded to do a grotesque dance over the clean floor
+with the broomstick for a partner.</p>
+
+<p>"Now just look at what you've done, Ad Banks!" cried Miss Pringle
+almost in tears. "See that!"</p>
+
+<p>Broken cakes of mud were scattered about the floor wherever the fellow
+clogged while Miss Pringle looked on angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"That fellow needs a good licking," Orrin Post said to Hiram, while the
+girls loudly expressed their vexation at what Banks was doing.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram had quite made up his mind not to begin any personal violence
+with Adam Banks. The man had time and again sought to coax the young
+farm manager into a fight.</p>
+
+<p>Banks was half a head taller than Hiram and much bulkier in appearance.
+He could easily have overcome Orrin, who was slight and still suffering
+from the effects of the attack of measles.</p>
+
+<p>But when Orrin leaped back upon the veranda and started to enter
+the house, Hiram could not allow the matter to go farther without
+interference. He would not see Orrin attack a man plainly so much
+stronger than himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on!" the young farm manager commanded. "You stay out of this,"
+and he caught the angry Orrin by the arm. "If anybody is going to make
+Adam Banks walk French, it has to be me. Really, nobody else has a
+right to throw him out, I presume, as I am the representative of the
+owner of the farm."</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry up and do something, then," growled Orrin. "I'm not going to
+stand around and see Delia abused."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram pushed ahead of his friend, and as Banks, still dodging and
+laughing at Miss Pringle, gyrated nearer, Hiram stepped quickly
+forward and seized him by his shirt collar and the waistband of his
+trousers.</p>
+
+<p>"Hi! Hey!" bawled Banks. "What are you trying to do?"</p>
+
+<p>He dropped the broom. He struggled mightily to break away. But all he
+could do was to kick and paw the air.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram had him right on the tips of his toes, and propelled him across
+the floor in a most undignified way and at great speed. Doubtless the
+young fellow's success arose from the unexpectedness of his attack; but
+Hiram was likewise very strong.</p>
+
+<p>He shot Banks out of the front door of the new house, across the
+veranda and down the steps, and thence across the front yard to the
+road.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me go! I'll kill you for this, Hi Strong!" Banks shouted.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram made no verbal reply to this threat, but to the delight and with
+the applause of the girls he flung Adam Banks from him with such force
+that the fellow sprawled on hands and knees in the dust.</p>
+
+<p>"There!" Hiram said. "I am sorry that I was obliged to do it; but I
+<i>have</i> had to and so the matter is settled. Mr. Bronson told me to put
+you off the place and keep you off. I've done part of my duty—I've
+thrown you off of Sunnyside. I'll do the rest of it just so sure as you
+come loitering around here—I'll keep you off."</p>
+
+<p>"You blamed fool!" sputtered Banks, "don't you dare touch me again."</p>
+
+<p>"You step back on to the farm and see how quick I'll touch you."</p>
+
+<p>Banks, after so emphatic an exhibition of Hiram's ability to handle
+him, took it out in sputtering. He did not come back. But he threatened
+dire vengeance as he stumbled away. The girls and the carpenters
+working within sight approved of Hiram's exploit—so much so, indeed,
+that the young fellow was glad to get out of the way for a while after
+Banks had gone, and so escape their congratulations.</p>
+
+<p>But after supper at six-thirty in the workmen's shack, Hiram Strong
+was obliged to appear in front of the new house and meet people. What
+he had done to Adam Banks, the neighborhood bully, seemed to have been
+circulated by some method of grapevine telegraph, and Hiram realized
+that those who did not speak to him about it showed that they had heard
+the story by their curious smiles.</p>
+
+<p>He was a newcomer, and naturally his neighbors were sizing him up. The
+young farmer from the East expected they would be curious about him if
+not actually doubtful.</p>
+
+<p>The thing that soon began to make the deepest impression on the young
+manager of Sunnyside was the number of automobiles that were arriving.
+There were some horse-drawn buggies and carriages, but one after
+another the more popular makes of motor-cars arrived at the farm until
+there were more than fifty parked along the roadside.</p>
+
+<p>The Bronson car came after the dancing had begun. Hiram ran out to
+greet his employer and Lettie. The latter was dressed in the very
+height of city fashion and when she came up to the dancing floor on
+Hiram's arm the country girls fairly buzzed.</p>
+
+<p>But in spite of Lettie's <i>outré</i> style in dress, she was by no means
+snobbish. She greeted everybody whom she knew with perfect freedom,
+and she displayed no air of patronage. Hiram thought to himself that
+Lettie Bronson had greatly improved during these past few months.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Pringle, who had already danced once with Hiram and once with
+Orrin, ran over to meet the daughter of the owner of Sunnyside Farm,
+and her effusive greeting only made Lettie laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a whole flock of fellows here who will want to dance with
+you, Lettie Bronson," the young-old girl declared. "You'll have a good
+time here."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she will," said her escort, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Hiram, first," declared Lettie, smiling up at her father's employee in
+a way to make the young fellow's heart increase its beat. "I haven't
+danced with him since we had our barn dance last corn husking at
+Scoville. Remember, Hiram?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say I do," he agreed with warmth.</p>
+
+<p>"And then I want to know Orrin Post. Does he dance, Hiram?"</p>
+
+<p>"There he is now dancing with Miss Paulsen," said Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course Orrin can dance," Miss Pringle joined in.</p>
+
+<p>"You know Sister—or is it Cecilia?—is very much interested in this
+Orrin Post, too," Lettie said to Hiram as they got into step with the
+music. "I saw her and dear old Mrs. Atterson just the other day. You
+will have to make good here at Sunnyside, Hiram Strong, or you will
+disappoint Sister and Mrs. Atterson fearfully."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean to succeed. I hope all my friends will root for me from the
+side lines," laughed Hiram, yet with a certain wistful glance at his
+partner.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we will," cried Lettie frankly. "And nobody will root any
+louder than 'yours truly,' Hiram. Why! next to father I am sure nobody
+can have your welfare more at heart than I."</p>
+
+<p>Lettie said this with her very best grown-up air. But it pleased Hiram
+a great deal. His interest in his employer's daughter was very deep and
+very serious. Lettie Bronson was the most interesting girl he had ever
+met.</p>
+
+<p>The dancing floor was now well filled every time the orchestra
+played, and the chairs and settees around the edge of the floor were
+crowded. It was a lively scene, and the lanterns furnished all the
+light necessary. At the openings for the windows that were not yet, of
+course, framed in, men and boys who did not dance stood and talked or
+smoked.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd increased both on the floor and outside the new house. Now
+and then Hiram went out to see what was going on. There was some
+shouting and ribald laughter at a distance, but the rowdy element
+seemed to keep away from the vicinity of the dance.</p>
+
+<p>"I hear you finally took my advice about Ad Banks," Mr. Bronson said to
+Hiram, chuckling, "and ran him off the place."</p>
+
+<p>"Folks are making too much of it," the young fellow replied. "Hullo!
+What is this coming?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a wood road through the burned-over patch belonging to Miss
+Pringle, and there was light enough from the moon and stars to show
+Hiram and those who stood with him on the front porch of the new house
+a crowd of men and boys approaching along this rough way.</p>
+
+<p>"There's Ad Banks now!" exclaimed one man. "You are going to have
+trouble with him, Bronson."</p>
+
+<p>"Not me," declared the farm owner. "It's all in Hiram's hands, and I
+have confidence that he can handle anything Banks can start."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram had already started for the road. A sharp cry arose in front:</p>
+
+<p>"Look out, there! That bull is as mad as he can be. Look out!"</p>
+
+<p>A huge, plunging shape came out of the wood path with two men, or boys,
+hanging on to the ropes hitched to the monster. The latter headed
+right across the road and those in the way scattered like chaff before
+a wind.</p>
+
+<p>"That's Turner's bull!" shouted somebody behind Hiram. "He is as savage
+as a lion."</p>
+
+<p>At that the two men clinging to the maddened animal let go of the
+ropes. With head down, and uttering a reverberating bellow, the
+creature came toward the new house on the floor of which the girls and
+boys were dancing.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">WHEAT HARVEST</p>
+
+
+<p>There had been two powerful lamps lifted from automobiles and placed so
+that they would light the veranda. Therefore the front of the partially
+built house and the yard were well illuminated.</p>
+
+<p>As the bull charged through the gap in the fence his coming cleared the
+yard in a hurry. The only person who stood his ground was Hiram, and he
+did not do so from any choice of his own.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed that the mad bull was aiming directly for the steps to the
+veranda, and the young farm manager stood directly in his path. The
+youth was not fear-paralyzed, but his mind was quite as empty of ideas
+at the moment as the others who had run in all directions. His single
+thought was:</p>
+
+<p>"If I only had a club!"</p>
+
+<p>Hiram Strong had not overpowering fear of this, or any other, bull. He
+quite realized the danger threatening whoever stood in the way of the
+beast. But he had dodged more than one animal of the kind, and with a
+hardwood stick in his hand he would not have been panic-stricken at
+this meeting. The nose of a bull is a very tender spot.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if I only had a club," the young farmer repeated to himself.</p>
+
+<p>But Hiram had no club, and he saw no other weapon within his reach. As
+Turner's bull charged across the yard directly at him, Hiram skipped
+backward until he reached the steps, and up those he stumbled.</p>
+
+<p>The figure of the young fellow—the only living thing in his
+path—evidently held the bull's attention. He came on after Hiram,
+uttering another bellow.</p>
+
+<p>Within those few seconds the excitement outside the new house was
+communicated to those inside. The music stopped suddenly; the girls
+began to scream. And when the boys at the bay windows began to shout
+that Turner's bull was loose a good many of the dancers and spectators
+acted as though the beast was already upon the dancing floor.</p>
+
+<p>And it actually did seem as though the animal had that very intention
+of entering the partly finished house. Hiram had no more than leaped up
+the steps than the bull plunged clatteringly after him.</p>
+
+<p>Had there been a bit of plank or a piece of scantling lying about,
+the young fellow might have beaten the bull back. But the girls that
+afternoon had cleaned up the rubbish all too thoroughly.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram flashed a single glance behind him. Within the wide opening left
+for the front door he caught a glimpse of the startled faces of both
+Lettie Bronson and Miss Pringle. They were both screaming some advice
+to him; but what it was they said Hiram did not know. The general
+hullabaloo drowning their cries. The excitement was growing.</p>
+
+<p>But here, through a gap in the front wall, darted another person. It
+was Orrin Post bringing with him a cape belonging to one of the dancers
+that he had caught up and which floated behind him like the cape of a
+matador.</p>
+
+<p>The flying garment doubtless caught the eye of the enraged bull. He
+bellowed again and again and stopped to paw the boards of the veranda
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>His hesitation was his undoing. Orrin rushed right in between Hiram and
+the bull and flung the cape over the bull's head. Quickly Hiram leaped
+forward to help, and between them he and Orrin wound the cape about the
+animal's head so that it could not shake off the all-smothering folds.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+  <img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt="" id="illus2">
+    <div class="caption">
+    <p>Orrin ... flung the cape over the bull's head.</p>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<p>"We got him!" shouted Orrin, in high delight. "All right, Strong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Hiram. "Grab that rope. Here's one on this side. They
+are hitched to his horns. Whoever those fellows were, they had no need
+to let the beast go."</p>
+
+<p>"It was Banks and his friends. They did it purposely, you can just bet."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt of that."</p>
+
+<p>All the ferocity of the bull seemed to have evaporated. They backed him
+off the veranda while the girls and boys returned with much excitement
+and noise. The bull, half smothered in the folds of the cape, uttered a
+rather plaintive "moo!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hear that creature, will you?" cried Miss Pringle's strident voice.
+Then, with increased excitement: "What have you got his head wrapped
+in, I want to know? For the land's sake if it isn't my best broadcloth
+cape! Now what do you folks know about that!"</p>
+
+<p>The laugh that rose after this excited statement by the spinster
+relieved the situation to some degree. But it did not pacify Hiram
+Strong's anger.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish with all my heart I had trounced that Banks fellow this
+afternoon when I had the chance," he declared to Orrin.</p>
+
+<p>"I agree with you. Nothing but a blamed good licking will ever do a
+fellow like him any good."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to do him good," grumbled Hiram. "I just want to pound
+him and make him suffer."</p>
+
+<p>But they were not likely to see Adam Banks again just then, or have a
+chance to beat him properly. Having encouraged younger boys to help
+lead Turner's bull from the pasture to Sunnyside and turn him loose,
+Banks had taken his own hasty departure.</p>
+
+<p>Then, evidently awakening to the enormity of his offence after he
+reached home, he packed a bag and departed from his father's house
+before daybreak and was not seen in the neighborhood again for some
+time.</p>
+
+<p>The excitement did not serve to spoil the house-raising dance, however,
+for when the bull was led away the crowd returned to the dance floor,
+and the gaiety continued until long after midnight.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram met most of the people worth knowing for a wide district
+surrounding Sunnyside Farm, and he was glad to make their acquaintance
+in this friendly way. Most of all, however, did he enjoy the dance
+because of the presence of Lettie Bronson. She gave him several dances,
+and when he finally put her into the car beside her father Hiram
+secretly felt that this evening was marked with a very agreeable
+milestone in his career.</p>
+
+<p>They next day opened a season of work even more strenuous than that
+which had gone before. The cultivating of the corn crop had to be
+carried on every day now unless it rained. Mr. Bronson had furnished
+Hiram a second small horse, and that, with Jerry, kept the cultivators
+and rake busy. The Percherons were too big and clumsy to use in the
+cornfield after the planting, and there was, too, plenty of other work
+for them to do.</p>
+
+<p>Such hay as there was on Sunnyside had to be harvested, and then came
+wheat harvest. Most of this crop—especially that on the twenty acre
+piece which had been underdrained—was rather thin. Sunnyside had not
+grown heavy crops for years—if it ever had—and Hiram felt somewhat
+doubtful about the final outcome of this attempt to make the old farm
+productive when he saw how slim the wheat crop was.</p>
+
+<p>They cut and stacked it, however, trusting that it would pay for
+thrashing later. Hiram went to the expense of removing the sheaves from
+the field entirely and building the stacks on a lot near the barns.
+Immediately he put the Percherons to work plowing the twenty acres
+along the county road.</p>
+
+<p>He had no stable manure to broadcast here; yet he desired to help fill
+his silo from this very piece of ground as well as to put the soil in
+better condition for winter wheat.</p>
+
+<p>The Percherons certainly earned their keep that week. It was dry, with
+the ground getting harder and more baked every day. Yet Hiram ploughed
+the piece deep and raked it well before setting out to broadcast a good
+dressing of bone meal.</p>
+
+<p>Turner came along and stopped to watch Hiram, who was himself riding
+the harrow which, in this case, pulverized the soil better than the
+disc machine.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why it is," the aged farmer said, as Hiram stopped near
+the road fence in a cloud of dust, "but this soil fines up, seems to
+me, after such late plowing, better than I ever remember its doing
+before. Why do you suppose that is, Mr. Strong?"</p>
+
+<p>Hiram smiled across the fence at him: "I never saw the piece plowed
+before, you know, Mr. Turner. I don't think much of it even now. But if
+there has been any change in the condition of the soil I am inclined to
+lay it to that foolish job of underdraining I did."</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! Nonsense! Couldn't be that!" exclaimed the old fellow, driving
+on. "We ain't had no rain to amount to anything yet. When I see the
+water pouring out o' those log drains of yours into the county ditch
+I'll take back all that I said about that foolishness."</p>
+
+<p>"Mighty hard work to convince some people they are wrong," chuckled
+Hiram to himself, as he started the Percherons again. "But it looks as
+if we would get enough rain pretty soon to prove one of us—either Mr.
+Turner or me—in the wrong."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">THE BABY TORNADO</p>
+
+
+<p>Hiram had not lost sight of the fact that Yancey Battick's wheat had
+promised to be better than any of that planted on Sunnyside, to say the
+least; and although since his rather serious experience with Battick
+and his gun he had barely nodded to the strange man in passing the old
+Pringle homestead, Hiram had been very curious as to how Battick's crop
+was coming on.</p>
+
+<p>While Mr. Bronson's binder was at Sunnyside Hiram offered Battick the
+use of the machine.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, I will drive it myself, so nobody else need know anything
+about your crop," Hiram said.</p>
+
+<p>"Very kind of you, Mr. Strong," said Battick, but in such a way that
+Hiram was not at all sure whether the man was still suspicious or not.
+"But I am going to reap that field with a sickle. I always do. This
+seed wheat is too precious to waste with a binder. I cradle it by hand
+and shall thrash it with a flail, too. That wheat which you happened
+to see in my house was harvested in the same way; and then it was all
+winnowed and selected by hand, grain by grain."</p>
+
+<p>"Some job!"</p>
+
+<p>"But worth it if I can once get a sufficient quantity to interest a big
+seed house."</p>
+
+<p>"I presume so," agreed Hiram. "How does your wheat stand the dry
+weather?"</p>
+
+<p>"I take it you have not been over to see it of late?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can assure you I have not crossed the line fence since you showed
+me so plainly how you felt toward even innocent trespassers," Hiram
+rejoined stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>Battick gave him a sidewise glance and said nothing for a moment. He
+was leaning, smoking his pipe, on his sagging front gate.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on down to the field and take a look at my wheat, Mr. Strong,"
+said the man at last, and only because Hiram saw that it was such an
+exertion for Yancey Battick to give the invitation did the youth accept.</p>
+
+<p>They walked down past the old house, and Hiram saw that Battick had now
+made plank shutters to all his lower windows which fitted flush with
+the frames and were barred on the inside. He certainly had prepared to
+withstand a siege!</p>
+
+<p>It seemed silly. Surely the man's troubles must have turned his brain.
+Yet when Hiram considered what Battick had suffered of wrong and
+disappointment, he did not altogether blame him, sane or not.</p>
+
+<p>"And this wheat is a wonder!" the young farmer thought.</p>
+
+<p>He said it aloud when he came in sight of the field in question. It was
+not more than an acre in extent, and he presumed it was the best spot
+on the little farm which Miss Pringle had sold Battick along with the
+old homestead.</p>
+
+<p>The undulating field of grain was shoulder high and was now all of a
+wonderful golden hue. Such a field of golden luxuriance Hiram had never
+before seen. The wheat was of a bearded variety, the awns very stiff
+and long, while the ear itself was the fullest and longest Hiram had
+ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a picture! A picture!" he declared with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>Yancey Battick's leathery face lit up as might the face of an artist
+who heard his masterpiece praised. His gloomy eyes glowed. There was
+even a smile trembling on his lips as he said:</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Mr. Strong. It is one of the finest pictures ever
+painted by Nature. A field of wheat, when you consider it, is the most
+wonderful thing to contemplate on this, our western hemisphere. Next
+to rice, it is the grain most depended upon as the staple of human
+consumption. And when used in its entire, or whole, state it has no
+rival for nourishment and health.</p>
+
+<p>"An entire rationing of a people with rice may, some medical men claim,
+nourish the germ of leprosy; we know that badly cured corn is the start
+of the dreaded pelagra. But wheat—even when refined and bleached until
+its goodness is all but wasted—brings no disease in its train save
+indigestion and that quite an unnecessary result of its use. Ground as
+a whole grain and properly baked, we need not even fear indigestion.
+More and more is the bread made from wheat becoming the Staff of Life."</p>
+
+<p>"You certainly have a variety here," Hiram said, carefully examining
+one of the ears, "that might well be named that when you put it on the
+market, Mr. Battick."</p>
+
+<p>"Named what?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Staff of Life Wheat,' you know," Hiram said, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"A good suggestion, Mr. Strong—a cracking good suggestion," declared
+Battick, with some enthusiasm. "I'll bear that in mind."</p>
+
+<p>"And can I have one of these heads, Mr. Battick?" Hiram asked.
+"Frankly, I'd like to show it to Mr. Bronson."</p>
+
+<p>The man started, reddened, and glared at the young farmer sharply
+again. His easily roused suspicion was immediately awakened. But Hiram
+looked at him steadily—unwinkingly. Battick's gaze finally fell.</p>
+
+<p>"You know how I feel about it, Mr. Strong. Your Mr. Bronson may be an
+all right man; but it was just such men as he appears to be who robbed
+me of my Mortgage Lifter Oats."</p>
+
+<p>"He won't rob you, I guarantee," Hiram said shortly.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Battick plucked several of the long plants and handed them to
+Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't find their like around this part of the country, that is
+sure," the proud owner of the new wheat said. "If I had better land on
+which, this coming fall, to plant the grain I have, I should feel the
+time was ripe next season to sound some seedsman."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you will make a fortune out of it, Mr. Battick," said Hiram
+with earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>"No fear!" bitterly returned the man. "But I mean to try. Of course,
+Mr. Strong, I'd just as soon you wouldn't show that grain to everybody."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Or tell the folks around here where you got it."</p>
+
+<p>"Trust me," rejoined the young man.</p>
+
+<p>After he had left Battick, however, he thought of something. There was
+probably one person in the neighborhood—or of the neighborhood—who
+knew about Battick's wheat and about Battick's former ill-fated
+attempts to make something out of breeding seed.</p>
+
+<p>Should he turn back and speak to Battick about Adam Banks? Ad had gone
+away. Hiram had heard that after the night of the dance at Sunnyside
+the fellow had gone to another county and was working on a farm.</p>
+
+<p>"Let sleeping dogs lie," muttered the young farm manager. "And Ad Banks
+is a dog all right."</p>
+
+<p>The twenty acres of the Sunnyside farm along the county road, and on
+which Hiram had made his experiment in underdraining, was now in shape
+for replanting. There had been no rain, but if a farmer did not have
+hope—and especially hope in helpful weather conditions—there would
+be few crops planted. The twenty acres were made into a smooth and
+good seed bed; but when he went upon it with the Percherons and the
+grain-drill the dust rose and floated in a stifling cloud across the
+field.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid that a part of my bone meal is drifting off this field
+with the dust," he told Orrin. "Loose as ashes, by jinks! But if I can
+get the seed in and covered deep, and if a rain comes—"</p>
+
+<p>He had stopped every other spout of the drill and filled the boxes
+alternately with silage corn and cowpeas. The drill had to be arranged
+in a particular way to sow these large grains properly.</p>
+
+<p>The corn was of a low-growing variety and the ears would be pretty
+sure to glaze in seventy-five days. The cowpeas, rich in nitrogen
+and a soil improver almost unsurpassed, would be at their best
+condition—green-podded and with the leaves still clinging to the
+vines—when the corn was ready to cut. Harvested together, shredded and
+blown into the silo, this crop should pretty well fill that huge tank.</p>
+
+<p>There were now on Sunnyside nearly forty head of yearlings and
+two-year-olds. Mr. Bronson picked up all the strays about his other
+farms and brought them to Hiram. The Sunnyside pastures were in good
+condition, and now all the young cattle were far down in the river-lots
+getting sleek and fat at practically no expense to their owner.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram desired to have plenty of the right kind of feed for them the
+coming winter. And the next year he hoped to feed the herd almost
+altogether at the barns so as to conserve a greater proportion of the
+fertilizer which the cattle made.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, Hiram desired to see that silo filled, and with just such
+succulent silage as would make the herd of young cattle put on flesh
+at a cheap rate. He got the twenty acres planted, and the Saturday
+afternoon he finished the job, thunder heads gathered in the west and
+south, threatening a tempest if nothing more.</p>
+
+<p>Dolan and MacComb were pretty well along with the new house now. In
+fact, by hastening the erection of that building the carpenters had
+neglected the completion of the silo, although Hiram had spoken of this
+neglect on several occasions.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, he had no authority over the contractors or their men; but
+the iron hoops and cable-stays for the silo not having been at hand
+when the walls of the tank were completed and the roof on, the gang had
+been taken off the silo job and had not gone back to finish it.</p>
+
+<p>When Hiram and Orrin drove the sweating team of Percherons back to the
+yard with the drill the carpenters had picked up their tools for the
+day and were getting ready to depart in a big auto-bus for Plympton.
+They all went home over Sunday, and besides Hiram and Orrin Post only
+one farm laborer and a boy remained on Sunnyside over the week-end.
+Even the cook went home, and the four remaining on the farm had to make
+out as well as they could with amateur cooking until Monday morning.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything is all right at the house, Mr. Strong," said the boss
+carpenter to Hiram. "The windows are in and the roof is tight at last.
+If it rains it can't do us any harm."</p>
+
+<p>"Say!" exclaimed the young farmer. "How about if a big wind came up?
+Those clouds over yonder look ugly."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no baby tornado is going to do the house any damage," declared the
+boss, following his men into the bus.</p>
+
+<p>"How about the silo? Suppose something happens to it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that'll be all right. Anyway, it is too late to put those bands on
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"Or the wire stays?" cried Hiram as the automobile started.</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! You are an old Betty, Hi Strong!" sang out one of the
+carpenters as the machine rolled out of the yard. "I don't believe it
+will rain enough to lay the dust."</p>
+
+<p>However, that prophecy went by the board before Hiram and his helpers
+got the chores done at Sunnyside that evening. They ran for the shack
+as the big drops of water began to fall. The drops soon turned to
+sheets of wind-driven rain that slatted against the walls of the shed
+like sleet.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of the supper preparations Orrin opened the door to look
+out. He stared through the thinning rain toward the south.</p>
+
+<p>"She's letting up, boys," he said confidently, and then turned to look
+across the road and up the hillside. Immediately his voice changed and
+the cry he uttered was one of positive fear.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" Hiram shouted, and all of them darted out of the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>The moment the old man, Blodger by name, looked over the shoulder of
+the hill he threw up his hands and shrieked:</p>
+
+<p>"It's coming! Tornado! The wind'll change and come from the
+north—right from the North Pole—in a minute. There!"</p>
+
+<p>For an instant it was calm and the rain ceased. Then, with a whistle
+and roar and the sudden writhing of the branches in the wood, the
+tornado came. It might be only a "baby," but to Hiram's mind the
+funnel of black cloud sweeping down upon Sunnyside seemed a full-grown
+wind-storm indeed.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">DISASTER THREATENS</p>
+
+
+<p>"Who's that scurrying down the road toward Pringleton?" demanded
+Blodger in the lull before the tornado struck Sunnyside.</p>
+
+<p>They all saw the man hurrying along the county road with the tails of
+his coat over his head. Jim Larry, the boy, shrieked:</p>
+
+<p>"I believe that is Ad Banks. What's he doing around here? I thought he
+was working over at Loomisville."</p>
+
+<p>Nobody gave the running figure much attention. The phenomenon of the
+coming tornado quite filled their minds.</p>
+
+<p>The whine of the wind rose to a demoniac shriek. Hiram turned to shout
+to his companions and a sudden gust seemed to take his breath so
+completely that he could not utter a sound.</p>
+
+<p>He staggered, crouching, and seized Orrin Post who was actually being
+swept down the yard by the force of the gust. Jim Larry had scuttled to
+cover. Blodger stood in the doorway of the shack yelling something that
+Hiram could not understand.</p>
+
+<p>The trees across the road and up the hillside bent and writhed as
+though seeking to uproot themselves. Into the air sprang a shed on the
+Pringle place, and when it had crossed the road and was about ten feet
+above the ground it fairly exploded as though a bomb had been set off
+inside of it.</p>
+
+<p>Then the tornado struck Sunnyside—struck the place in all its fury.</p>
+
+<p>There was not much rain, but what there was, blown by this terrible
+gale, cut like a knife. Loose boards began to fly over the yard.
+Everything the wind could get under seemed to shoot right up into the
+air. There was a cloud of light litter sucked up into the churning
+black mass that was flying over the farm.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram and Orrin had managed to get into the lee of the shed. The wind
+thundered against it, shaking the structure as though to tear it loose
+from its foundations. But being low it did not offer the resistance
+of a higher structure, and perhaps was as safe from disaster as any
+building about the farm.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless we got into the cellar," Orrin managed to make Hiram hear.</p>
+
+<p>"Seems as though this wind would scoop us right out of a cellar,"
+shouted Hiram. "Hey! Look there!"</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to the corner of the barn where the silo stood. The round
+tank positively shook under the recurrent blows of the wind!</p>
+
+<p>"She's going!" yelled Orrin in dismay. "She's going!"</p>
+
+<p>"Like fun she is!" returned the other young fellow. "Those bands and
+cables should have been put on. But as the tank's empty and there is
+nothing to hold her down, she'll shift on her foundation if we don't do
+something."</p>
+
+<p>"We can't help it, Strong," objected Orrin.</p>
+
+<p>"We can try," returned Hiram forcefully. "You get Blodger and Jim. I'm
+going over there. There are two sets of fastenings for the cables on
+the barn and the barn won't blow down—that's a sure thing."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that it is a sure thing," grumbled Orrin. "You'll take
+your life in your hands if you go out there."</p>
+
+<p>But Hiram had already started. The wind did not come steadily, and he
+ran stooping between gusts to the silo. The wire cables, cut as he knew
+to proper length and wound on a spool, lay with some other material
+against the barn foundations.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, Hiram knew they could not put on the iron bands; but if they
+could pass a couple of the length of cable around the silo and fasten
+them to the barn Hiram was sure it would aid in keeping the tank on its
+foundation.</p>
+
+<p>He looked back across the yard and saw Orrin propel the frightened Jim
+out of the doorway of the shack; and he had to fairly drag Blodger out
+as well. Both the old man and the boy knew these tornadoes too well to
+desire to be out-of-doors.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram was endeavoring to unwind the first cable alone when the others
+reached him. He had fastened the end of the twisted wire through one
+of the rings in the side of the barn about eight feet from the ground.
+They unwound the entire length of this first cable, struggling against
+the wind, and carrying the end around the silo.</p>
+
+<p>Here the fastening ring was too high to be reached without the aid of
+a ladder. The carpenters had left their various ladders behind the
+new house. Hiram spied them, and, shouting to Orrin to come with him,
+started against the wind for that place.</p>
+
+<p>They had actually to tack like a boat in a heavy seaway to reach the
+ladders. And coming back, each bearing an end of the ladder selected,
+they were blown to the ground half a dozen times.</p>
+
+<p>This was the most awful gale Hiram, at least, had ever been out in.
+And for the four of them to raise the light ladder was one of the most
+serious tasks one could imagine.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the silo was weaving back and forth in a threatening manner.
+Hiram had selected a ladder long enough to enable him to reach the
+upper ring intended for the second cable. Two of his helpers had to
+hold the ladder steady, however, while the other handed him the end
+of the wire cable. It took more than half an hour of hard fighting to
+secure both ends of the two wire ropes.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+  <img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt="" id="illus3">
+    <div class="caption">
+    <p>Two of his helpers had to hold the ladder steady while the other handed him the end of the wire cable.</p>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<p>The silo rocked back and forth, the vibrations seeming, of course,
+much greater than they really were. But the cables—or good
+workmanship—held it in place. The four got back to the living shack
+and cowered therein in darkness for another two hours before the wind
+really ceased blowing. The rain had stopped long since, and beyond the
+hurrying shreds of cloud the moon and stars appeared.</p>
+
+<p>Drenched as everything had been by the first tempest, the ground was
+now fast becoming dry. The water drained away quickly from the knoll on
+which the Sunnyside buildings stood.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the danger from the big wind was over, however, Hiram had
+thought for another thing. He lit a lantern and said to Orrin:</p>
+
+<p>"Come on down the road and take a look."</p>
+
+<p>"Who for? That Ad Banks? If he's drowned in the ditch I wouldn't much
+care."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd forgotten all about him," confessed Hiram. "But come on. I want to
+look at something."</p>
+
+<p>Curiously Orrin followed him while the old man and the boy sought their
+bunks. The rain had washed and rutted the road deeply. The ditches were
+carrying the surplus water off, however.</p>
+
+<p>At the first cross-drain through the recently planted corn and pea
+field Hiram flashed the light of his lantern into the ditch. A stream
+of water the size of his leg was spurting from the opening.</p>
+
+<p>"Cracky! Look at that!" ejaculated Orrin. "Why, Strong, <i>the darned
+thing works</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it works. Didn't I tell you it would?" replied the young
+farm manager.</p>
+
+<p>They went on along the road, and at every such opening the yellow flood
+poured forth. That particular twenty acres of Sunnyside Farm would
+never be sour or lumpy to work as long as Hiram's simple underdraining
+scheme continued to work so successfully as it was now doing.</p>
+
+<p>They were about to turn to go back to the house when Orrin clutched
+Hiram by the arm and pointed toward Yancey Battick's place.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter down there do you suppose?" he asked, with anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sudden glow against the sky, seemingly rising from behind
+Battick's buildings. Then a long streamer of flame bannered into the
+air above the treetops.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a fire! Something's burning!" declared Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>The two lads set off on a hard run down the road toward the old Pringle
+homestead which Yancey Battick occupied.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">A BARGAIN</p>
+
+
+<p>Before Hiram Strong and Orrin Post reached the strip of woodland that
+divided the open field of Sunnyside from the old Pringle place they
+heard somebody shouting. After the passing of the rain and the terrible
+gale of wind the whole countryside seemed very quiet. This raucous
+voice could have been heard a mile:</p>
+
+<p>"Fire! Fire!"</p>
+
+<p>"It must be his house," Orrin panted, having some difficulty in keeping
+up with the young farm manager.</p>
+
+<p>"That flame is too far back for the house," Hiram rejoined with
+confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"The barn, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is something at any rate," was the grim reply.</p>
+
+<p>The flames were streaming high in the air; yet before the young fellows
+reached Battick's gate the fire seemed decreasing. They could still
+hear Battick hoarsely shouting.</p>
+
+<p>Entering by the gate they dashed around the house and out behind the
+barns. Hiram had felt, although he had not said it to Orrin, that he
+knew the nature of the disaster. Yancey Battick's stack of wheat was
+more than half consumed!</p>
+
+<p>He had been running madly from pump to stack, trying to throw enough
+water on the sheaves to put out the fire. But the blaze had burned up
+through the very heart of the stack. It must have, indeed, to have
+burned the wheat at all after the exceedingly heavy rain of three hours
+before.</p>
+
+<p>"You're too late! Too late!" shrieked the man wildly. "They have got
+me again. What did I tell you, Strong?" for he recognized the young
+manager of Sunnyside by the fading light of the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you pull the stack to pieces?" shouted Orrin, beginning to
+burrow into the bottom of the stack which the fire seemed not to have
+consumed, a good deal as a terrier would burrow for a rat. "Come on,
+Hiram. We can save some of this wheat."</p>
+
+<p>But the sheaves which he dragged out proved to have had their heads
+entirely burned. Although the flames soon flickered out and left but a
+smouldering heap, there was but very little wheat left.</p>
+
+<p>"They got me again! They got me again!" mourned the shaken Battick.
+"What did I tell you, Mr. Strong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Mr. Battick, do you really believe some enemy burned your wheat
+stack?"</p>
+
+<p>"It certainly was no friend of mine," returned the man laughing wildly.</p>
+
+<p>"You said a true word there, Brother," Orrin Post remarked bluntly.
+"Whom do you suspect?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who about here knew anything about this wheat?" asked Hiram. "Yes, you
+might as well let Orrin know about it. I can assure you I have not told
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" asked Post curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"This wheat!" almost sobbed Yancey Battick. "It was a special variety
+that I was raising for seed. They have burned it up on me! Oh, the
+rascals!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who do you suspect?" demanded Orrin again. "Couldn't it have been set
+on fire by accident?"</p>
+
+<p>"How by accident? There was no lightning accompanied that tempest. I
+tell you somebody came here and set it off. I have had as bad done to
+me before."</p>
+
+<p>"Who could it have been?" Hiram murmured. "And so soon after that
+terrible wind. You wouldn't think anybody would have gone out in that
+gale to do a neighbor an ill turn."</p>
+
+<p>"Hey!" ejaculated Orrin suddenly. "There's that Ad Banks."</p>
+
+<p>"Where?" demanded Hiram turning around quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mean that he is here now," Orrin said grimly. "But don't you
+remember we saw him coming down the road in this direction in the
+middle of that rain storm?"</p>
+
+<p>"So we did," Hiram agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"Banks isn't at home now," said Yancey Battick, looking at the two
+young fellows doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"We saw him all right," Orrin declared. "Jim Larry who works up at
+Sunnyside knows him well. Lives right on the next farm to the Bankses."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Battick!" exclaimed Hiram, smitten by a new thought, "have you
+ever had any trouble with Ad Banks?"</p>
+
+<p>"I told you once I had to run him off my place."</p>
+
+<p>"And there is something I did not tell you," Hiram went on. "Remember
+the day I was over looking at your wheat field? Back there in the
+spring, I mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I remember, Mr. Strong," said Battick, reddening.</p>
+
+<p>"When I left you that day I chanced to see Adam Banks sneaking through
+the underbrush away from that very log on which we had been sitting to
+talk!"</p>
+
+<p>"Had he been eavesdropping?" demanded Battick angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Like enough. I did not give it much thought at the time. But he may
+have learned at that time all about this special wheat."</p>
+
+<p>"He did it!" ejaculated Battick. "He was paid to do it, I bet."</p>
+
+<p>"We-ell," said Hiram thoughtfully, "that's rather jumping at
+conclusions without much evidence. But it might be."</p>
+
+<p>"It is!" repeated Yancey Battick. "They told me Ad Banks went over to
+Loomisville to work."</p>
+
+<p>"That is right," Orrin said.</p>
+
+<p>"That," said Battick significantly to Hiram, "is where I lived before
+I came here. They robbed me of my Mortgage Lifter Oats over in that
+neighborhood."</p>
+
+<p>Orrin looked at him curiously, but Hiram understood.</p>
+
+<p>"You think they might have sent Ad over here to do this?" the manager
+of Sunnyside said thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure they did."</p>
+
+<p>But Hiram was not convinced. He began to see flaws in this theory.</p>
+
+<p>"How did Banks set it off? How could anybody have set it off?" he
+queried.</p>
+
+<p>"With a match," said Orrin, grinning faintly in the lantern light.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Hiram said. "But we saw Banks coming down this way
+when the rain was almost over. This stack was thoroughly wet on the
+outside by that time."</p>
+
+<p>"It was set off somehow inside," interposed Battick. "When I looked out
+of my door after the big wind the flames were shooting right out of the
+peak of the stack. It had been smouldering all that time deep down in
+the heart of the pile."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Well, like the famous query about the old woodchuck's hole: How
+did the fire get there?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" asked Battick and Orrin in unison.</p>
+
+<p>"If the fire had been set before the wind, it would have spread much
+sooner. Doesn't that stand to reason?"</p>
+
+<p>"Uh-huh!" agreed Orrin, although Battick looked doubtful.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course! And if it was set on fire after the wind stopped, how did
+the incendiary get his fire into the heart of the wet stack?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're just asking questions," snarled Battick. "Why don't you say
+something that is worth while?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will say something," replied Hiram. "I'll say this much: Perhaps
+your stack was not burned by an enemy, Mr. Battick. It might even be
+your own fault."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" snapped the other with a sour look.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a smoker," said Hiram; "and it might be that you dropped a
+match when you were stacking this wheat. It's been done more than once."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" cried Battick, "That it has taken all this time for
+a match to ignite? Do you mean by spontaneous combustion?" he scoffed.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. I mean that it may have been ignited by the sharp little
+teeth of a field mouse. Such things have happened."</p>
+
+<p>"That's right!" exclaimed Orrin. "I believe a fodder stack where I
+worked once was burned in that way."</p>
+
+<p>"Mice and rats have been my bane since I came to this old Pringle place
+to live," admitted Yancey Battick slowly. "But I think your idea is
+far-fetched, Mr. Strong."</p>
+
+<p>"At least, it is as good an idea as that Adam Banks set the stack off.
+We ought to find proof before we accuse the fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mean to accuse him. What good would that do?" demanded Battick
+in disgust. "The harm is done. I've lost my wheat—"</p>
+
+<p>"But you have all that in the house for fall seed," Hiram said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," growled Battick. "And I mean to guard that with my gun. I mean
+to warn everybody that I'll put something besides rock-salt in my
+shotgun after this."</p>
+
+<p>"Whew!" ejaculated Orrin Post, "you sound very savage."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not blame you for feeling as you do, Mr. Battick," said Hiram
+cautiously, "even although I think you have jumped to a wrong
+conclusion. But I am sure trying to shoot your neighbors, good or bad,
+will not help you. I have an idea I'd like to talk over with you and
+will do so the next time I am down this way. But it is time we were all
+in bed now."</p>
+
+<p>He and Orrin started back for Sunnyside. The latter asked Hiram:</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you suppose that Ad Banks did go, Strong?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't the least idea."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really think he had nothing to do with that fire?"</p>
+
+<p>"At least, Battick can show no proof. Suspicion only, breeds trouble. I
+am inclined to blame the field mouse instead."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph! Well, maybe," grumbled Orrin Post.</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate it will do no good to spread abroad any suspicions you
+may feel about it."</p>
+
+<p>"We-ell."</p>
+
+<p>"Promise me you will not speak of Banks in connection with the fire."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, all right! If you don't want me to," said Orrin promptly.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a bargain," Hiram rejoined, and they dropped the subject for the
+time being.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">A PARTNERSHIP IS FORMED</p>
+
+
+<p>Not until morning was the full result of the tornado revealed on and
+about Sunnyside. Most of the buildings being comparatively new, Hiram
+found that few had suffered. The sheds were under the break of the
+hill, anyway; therefore he looked for little misfortune there.</p>
+
+<p>The silo had suffered despite the efforts they had made to stay it with
+the wire ropes. It had a decided list to the east and was no longer set
+true upon its cement foundation. The neglect of the carpenters in not
+staying it firmly before the storm came was a matter that would have to
+be settled between them and Mr. Bronson. Hiram was glad it did not come
+under his jurisdiction.</p>
+
+<p>The young farm manager had enough trouble of his own. The heavy rain
+which had preceded the gale of wind had beaten some of the corn on the
+lowlands almost flat to the ground. It was about two feet high and the
+sun of Sunday, the day following the tempest, began to revive the corn.</p>
+
+<p>But it was evident that it would be impossible to get into those fields
+with the cultivators for several days. At this stage of the corn crop
+continual cultivation was necessary. Hiram had always followed a system
+of cultivation not altogether approved of by corn raisers in this
+vicinity.</p>
+
+<p>All cultivation, Hiram had previously held, should not be shallow. It
+was all right to use a two- or three-horse hoe as most of the corn-belt
+farmers do, until the plant is half-leg high. But after that Hiram
+believed in using the fluke harrow.</p>
+
+<p>"Now we've seen something of what can be done to a field of corn by
+a big wind and rain. If such another baby tornado comes in August or
+September," Hiram said to Orrin Post, "and knocks the corn down, it
+never will recover unless the area of rootage is very wide and strong.</p>
+
+<p>"In the South they plow corn in July to hold up the stalk through
+heavy winds and rains; but that leaves the land in bad shape for the
+following tillage. I like to use a fluke harrow and cultivate deep.
+Tear right through the small roots and rip them apart. That more than
+doubles the root-system and finally gives the plant a hold on the soil
+that will enable it to stand up under almost any kind of blow and
+rain."</p>
+
+<p>"Shallow and frequent cultivation seems to be the rule around here,"
+Orrin remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And Mr. Turner tells me that only year before last he lost
+fifteen acres in one piece by the corn being knocked down in a big wind
+and hail storm just as it was silking. However, our cultivating is
+going awfully slow. I don't know but I shall have to get Mr. Bronson
+to furnish one of those three-horse hoes for next year, if I am really
+going to make a corn crop."</p>
+
+<p>This conversation was carried on while Hiram and Orrin were driving
+over to the pasture behind Jerry, and carrying with them a tub of salt
+for the cattle. Salting the cattle is always a Sunday job on the farm;
+but as a usual thing Hiram went to church before going to the pasture.</p>
+
+<p>They had got up too late on the morning after the tornado, however, to
+drive to the church service. It was only high noon when they came to
+the pasture gate.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that spotted yearling," Orrin said, as he climbed down to
+open the gate and the herd began to turn toward them. "He's usually
+right at the head of the bunch."</p>
+
+<p>"That red one with the crooked horn is missing, too," Hiram said, "I am
+afraid something has happened, Orrin."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they've just strayed away," said Post cheerfully. "Don't be
+worried."</p>
+
+<p>However, after the herd had come up and been counted and they found
+that four were missing, even Orrin acknowledged that there was reason
+for anxiety. They salted the young stock and then left Jerry to graze
+while they beat the pasture brush and the woods adjoining in search of
+the four missing animals.</p>
+
+<p>There was a plain path of the tornado's passing in this patch of wood.
+Several trees were uprooted and one huge forest monarch that had been
+struck by lightning years before and had stood dead and stripped of
+bark, had been snapped off at the butt.</p>
+
+<p>Under its heavy and sprawling limbs lay the four young steers, their
+backs broken by the weight of the fallen tree.</p>
+
+<p>"There lies a hundred dollars profit, as sure as you live, Orrin,"
+Hiram Strong declared. "I hate to tell Mr. Bronson that. And look at
+that silo, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry," said the other, but looking grimly at the dead cattle.
+"You did not bring the wind, I should hope. And that silo isn't your
+business, either."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram, nevertheless, was much disturbed by the unfortunate accident.
+Mr. Bronson and Lettie came up to Sunnyside that afternoon. The loss
+of the young cattle was, of course, irreparable; but the owner of
+Sunnyside declared he would demand that Dolan and MacComb straighten
+up the silo and make it firm before the next wind.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe I would have been wiser had I built the silo of cement, after
+all," he said to his young farm manager. "It is hard to know sometimes
+where real economy begins. 'Penny wise and pound foolish' is not my
+usual failing—</p>
+
+<p>"How about your log drains, Hiram? That was another economy."</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to have seen the water spurting out of the drains after that
+big rain last night. Come down there and have a look now."</p>
+
+<p>He included Lettie in this invitation and hoped that she would come;
+but the girl tossed her head, although it was with a smile that she
+refused.</p>
+
+<p>"That is all I hear—farming," she said. "Now that I have finished
+school I think papa ought to take me to some summer resort this year.
+I'm tired of Plympton."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till you are grown up, Lettie," said Mr. Bronson carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"If I'm not grown up yet, when shall I be?" asked the girl. "I'll soon
+be an old maid like Delia Pringle."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bronson and Hiram laughed at this statement. But the latter felt
+that Lettie was more in earnest than her father considered. St. Beris
+seemed to develop its pupils rather early. Hiram was glad that Sister
+did not attend that school—not, however, that he really compared
+Sister to Lettie Bronson in any way!</p>
+
+<p>However, Lettie Bronson went over to call on Miss Pringle while her
+father and Hiram started down the road toward Battick's place. From
+every drain the water was still pouring into the roadside ditch, but of
+course not in the volume it had the night before.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bronson cheered up immediately when he saw this.</p>
+
+<p>"And not a puddle in sight on the whole twenty acres! Well, Hiram, it
+looks as though you had done a good job here—and saved me money. We
+won't worry over the dead yearlings. That you certainly could not help.
+The tree you tell about must have fallen in the midst of the herd. It
+is fortunate no more of them were killed.</p>
+
+<p>"One of my neighbors near Plympton had his barn torn to pieces last
+night and all his cattle killed. Who else suffered around here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure that anybody suffered much damage by the tornado, but
+Yancey Battick lost his stack of wheat—and it was a wonder of a stack!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did he have much?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was the handsomest wheat I ever saw," Hiram told him earnestly. "I
+want to show you a sample of it that he gave me, Mr. Bronson. I think
+there would have been thirty-five or forty bushels of it when it was
+thrashed."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph! At the price wheat is going to be—"</p>
+
+<p>"He has got a new variety and had raised it for seed," Hiram explained.</p>
+
+<p>When they got back to the farm buildings he showed his employer the
+heads of grain Battick had given him. They shelled out the wheat. Every
+grain of it was perfect, with the tiny red stripe upon one side. Hiram
+watched Mr. Bronson's face with interest as the big farmer examined the
+kernels of wheat.</p>
+
+<p>"My goodness, Hiram!" exclaimed the man at last, "do you mean to say
+that Battick had bred this wheat—that it is all alike?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have every reason to believe it is all fully as good as that in your
+hand and true to type."</p>
+
+<p>"And he's lost it all?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has lost his crop for this year. He believes the stack was set on
+fire."</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. And you cannot blame him after what he has been through. Let
+me tell you, Mr. Bronson."</p>
+
+<p>They sat down and Hiram related the details of the story Yancey Battick
+had told him, as well as of his own adventures with the strange man.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," was Mr. Bronson's first comment, "I had an idea that Battick
+was not quite right in his head. But I guess he is sane enough. And an
+educated man, too, isn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should not wonder if he were college-bred; only he has grown
+careless of speech. And he certainly is a crank."</p>
+
+<p>"Who could blame him?" muttered Mr. Bronson thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>They discussed the matter at some length, and gradually Hiram got
+around to a plan that had formed in the back of his mind since he had
+learned so much about Yancey Battick's new wheat.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram had come by this time to know his employer pretty well. Not only
+was Mr. Stephen Bronson a money-maker and deeply interested in any new
+agricultural idea, but he was the sort of business man who is always
+willing to take a legitimate chance.</p>
+
+<p>If Mr. Bronson had a choice of making a sure ten dollars and a possible
+hundred dollars, he would naturally take the long chance. It was
+characteristic of him to be immediately interested by the story of
+Yancey Battick's wonderful new wheat. And when Hiram pointed out a way
+by which Battick, Bronson and Hiram himself might form a partnership
+to breed and exploit the new variety of grain without taking any
+seedhouse into the scheme, Mr. Bronson was eager for it.</p>
+
+<p>"If you can make Battick see it, I'll find all the cash necessary. A
+seed firm would want to hog it—they always do. Battick must know that.
+If he's got a good grain and we can introduce it ourselves to the grain
+farmers farther west, we'll all make money," Mr. Bronson declared with
+enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>That very week Hiram arranged a meeting and the three discussed the
+plan fully in the shaded dooryard of the old Pringle homestead. The
+loss of his whole crop—a possible forty and surely thirty bushels of
+the grain—had vastly discouraged Yancey Battick. The sensible way in
+which Hiram had approached him before introducing Mr. Bronson into the
+matter encouraged the unfortunate wheat breeder to look favorably upon
+the assistance that Mr. Bronson was able and willing to lend.</p>
+
+<p>Whether the wheat stack had been set on fire maliciously or had been
+destroyed by accident, as Hiram had pointed out, the fact remained that
+if the crop had been properly handled the grain would not have been
+destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, the wheat had not been allowed to cure long enough
+in the shock before being stacked. Battick admitted that he had only
+stacked it because he dared not leave the shocks in the field for long.
+He had camped in the field with his gun every night until he built the
+stack at the barn.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, to conserve the wheat and handle it in the best shape, it
+should have been cured in the shock and then thrashed immediately,
+afterwards being spread in a proper granary. There was no granary on
+the old Pringle place and the rats and mice were a pest, as Hiram had
+seen the first time he had met Yancey Battick.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, taking it all around Battick had tried to do the impossible.
+He had neither capital nor land nor housing facilities to develop and
+grow a sufficiently large crop of the new wheat to make its sale for
+seed a profitable venture.</p>
+
+<p>"You tell me that you lost everything on your Mortgage Lifter Oats
+undertaking," Hiram said to him. "So far you have tried to keep
+secret your new wheat, and you have lost out. If your neighbors have
+not robbed you, and if the burning of the wheat stack was not a case
+of incendiarism, it was a sure thing that the rats and the mice are
+against you. I do not believe that one man alone can handle such an
+undertaking.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose you make a contract with Mr. Bronson for two years, during
+which the wheat can be properly developed and a big crop raised. You
+furnish such seed as you have left—half to be planted this fall, the
+remainder to be held against chance of accident. Mr. Bronson will
+supply the land, the fertilizer, the tillage, paying for the harvesting
+and thrashing and storage, as well as for any guard that may be needed
+if trouble should arise. You'll make more under the terms of such a
+partnership than you would if you made the crop entirely by yourself
+and sold out to a seedsman."</p>
+
+<p>"And where do you come in, Mr. Strong?" Battick had asked.</p>
+
+<p>"If you go fifty-fifty with Mr. Bronson on the final profit obtained
+from the exploitation of the wheat, I'll get my share from Mr.
+Bronson," Hiram said.</p>
+
+<p>The proposal was most thoroughly thrashed out between the three, and in
+the end an agreement following closely Hiram Strong's suggestion was
+drawn up and signed by Yancey Battick and Mr. Bronson. Hiram being a
+minor, he could not enter into the partnership agreement; but he had
+his own contract with the owner of Sunnyside Farm by which he was to
+have a half interest in Mr. Bronson's share of the profits from the
+wheat transaction, if profits there were.</p>
+
+<p>And, under fairly favorable conditions, from what he had already seen
+of Yancey Battick's new wheat, the young manager of Sunnyside Farm
+was confident the profit for all would be large. He already had five
+hundred dollars in the bank when he came to Sunnyside. From his wages
+as farm manager he expected to lay aside at least two hundred and fifty
+dollars each quarter while his contract lasted.</p>
+
+<p>And for every dollar of these savings to which he looked forward, Hiram
+Strong had a definite use.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">A STRANGER APPEARS</p>
+
+
+<p>Hiram Strong was learning something about corn growing that he had not
+found out before. That is, after all, one of the greatest charms of the
+science of agriculture: There is always something new to learn.</p>
+
+<p>There is in addition always something new to find out regarding the
+methods adopted in different localities for the cultivation of the same
+crop. Farmers who have cultivated a certain plant in a certain locality
+where their fathers and grandfathers have grown the same plant, usually
+develop an almost uncanny knowledge of the conditions under which that
+particular plant will best grow and come to fruitage.</p>
+
+<p>All the scientific knowledge of farming methods does not come from the
+agriculture colleges; the ordinary farmer often cultivates his crop in
+a certain way because it is the right way without knowing the reason
+for following that particular method.</p>
+
+<p>One thing about growing corn in this Middle West section of the
+country was fast becoming a conviction in Hiram Strong's mind. Methods
+which had grown him a bumper crop of corn in the East might work quite
+as well here on Sunnyside Farm, but there had arisen objections to
+them. He had admitted as much to Orrin Post on a recent occasion.</p>
+
+<p>His old methods were quite necessary for the locality in which he had
+used them. But corn growing on the Atterson Eighty and corn growing on
+Sunnyside Farm were two distinctly different matters.</p>
+
+<p>"Always something new to learn," Hiram said to his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"Right you are," answered Orrin. "A good deal to learn," and he sighed
+heavily.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout July and more than half of August Hiram and Orrin worked
+almost on the run to keep up with the growing corn. Jerry and his mate
+lost flesh under this grilling work. To get over all the fields, and at
+the proper time, with one-horse cultivators, was an almost superhuman
+task.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, Hiram watched the shallow cultivation of his neighbors'
+corn. They used two- and three-horse knife-hoes that stirred the soil
+scarcely an inch deep and left the earth between the rows just as level
+as the harrow had left it when the field was first smoothed.</p>
+
+<p>Most of these farms about Sunnyside were more heavily manured than
+the fields that Hiram cultivated. The neighboring farms had not been
+cropped to death by careless tenants.</p>
+
+<p>These neighbors planted their corn in rows rather than checking it. The
+stalks stood twelve to fifteen inches apart in the row, making more
+than twice the number of hills to the acre than Hiram had planted.</p>
+
+<p>He was satisfied that he had planted and left to grow all the corn his
+land would develop properly. Two stalks to a hill and two good ears to
+a stalk was better to his mind than more fodder and less corn.</p>
+
+<p>The cultivating method followed by the neighboring farmers was not
+all it might be. The two- and three-horse cultivators left much to be
+desired. There were more weeds left in the row than Hiram cared to see.
+When he and Orrin got through cultivating a piece of corn they could
+safely have offered a prize for any weed in the field that had not been
+covered.</p>
+
+<p>In this connection, however, Hiram had something to learn, too.
+This land was not so cursed with weeds as that he had been used to
+cultivating farther East. There was no twitch-grass, wild mustard,
+or purslane. After many years of deep plowing and crop rotation, the
+fields of this part of the corn-belt were comparatively free of weeds.
+Only on land that had been allowed to lie fallow were the weeds a pest.</p>
+
+<p>The fields of Sunnyside Farm must be greatly improved before Hiram
+could, however, take up the local methods of corn growing in every
+particular.</p>
+
+<p>He knew of no improving crop better suited to his needs than crimson
+clover. It is rich in nitrogen, makes a heavy crop of hay before
+corn-planting time, and it could be sowed at the last cultivation of
+the present corn crop.</p>
+
+<p>The drawback was that it necessitated the cutting of the corn to the
+ground and the removal of the shocks from the field. On the better
+farms near by the corn was allowed to cure on the standing stalk and
+then the cattle and hogs were turned in to graze on the fodder, the
+stalks being knocked down and cut up by the disc harrow before plowing
+in the spring.</p>
+
+<p>That was another method Hiram could not adopt. If his clover catch was
+worth anything at all he did not want the corn stalks mixed with it
+at hay-making time. He talked the matter over with Mr. Bronson, and
+a machine was secured at harvesting time that, drawn by one of the
+Percherons, went through the field cutting two rows of corn at a time
+and giving the two men working with it all they could do shocking the
+corn at proper intervals.</p>
+
+<p>This corn finished curing in the shock and the husking was done at the
+barn where the fodder was stacked against the increasing need of the
+herd of young stock that Mr. Bronson was continually adding to.</p>
+
+<p>This method of harvesting cost more in time and labor than Hiram could
+have desired; but it left his fields clean and gave the young clover a
+better chance.</p>
+
+<p>The corn he had obtained from Daniel Brown proved to be all that Hiram
+had hoped it would be. That which he had raised for seed was so evenly
+matured and sound in the ear that Mr. Bronson admitted it was by far
+the most satisfactory variety Hiram had tried. And how it did mount up
+in the cribs with its glossy red and yellow grains!</p>
+
+<p>The wheat thrashing had yielded Hiram not more than sixteen to eighteen
+bushels to the acre—scarcely a paying investment. But it was all
+profit for Mr. Bronson, as the crop had been planted when he bought the
+farm.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram knew well enough where the fault lay. The land was not strong
+enough for wheat, and he proposed to plant but a small acreage to that
+grain for the next season.</p>
+
+<p>"Oats will pay us better, I believe. Some of this upland can be plowed
+early in the spring, and as soon as the oats are off we'll disc and
+put in cowpeas, turning them under for the corn crop."</p>
+
+<p>"Ow!" ejaculated his employer, "do you mean to plow under both the oat
+stubble and the peas for the corn?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you want corn—real corn," the young fellow told him. "This land is
+poverty stricken. And give me all the cattle you can find, Mr. Bronson.
+I'll manage to feed them somehow or other."</p>
+
+<p>The ensilage crop demanded his attention and the labor of all the hands
+for the better part of a week. Even Mr. Turner had been forced to
+confess that <i>something</i> had happened to that twenty acres of Sunnyside
+along the county road that heretofore had yielded such poor crops.
+Since Hiram's underdraining scheme had gone into effect the soil seemed
+entirely different. The corn and cowpeas had grown like a rank swamp.
+When cut and carted to the shredder it was so heavy it was all a man
+could do to lift a forkful.</p>
+
+<p>It was not particularly hard to load the wagon in the field; getting
+the ensilage off the cart was the more difficult part of the job.</p>
+
+<p>A brief experience taught the young farm manager something. He unhung
+the wagon and put the low wheels behind and the big wheels in front.
+With side racks spread at a wide angle and chains front and rear to
+hold the racks, they were enabled to pile an enormous load upon the
+sloping wagon body.</p>
+
+<p>The Percherons could pull all the ensilage the men could pile on. When
+drawn to the shredder all that was needed was to unfasten the chains at
+front and rear and draw the wagon out from under the load.</p>
+
+<p>This was quick work and kept the crew at the shredder busy all the
+time. The ensilage was blown into the silo as rapidly as it was
+shredded, and at the end of the week the huge tank was filled.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram at once had the twenty-acre piece broadcasted with stable manure,
+and as the heavy crop of corn and peas had kept the soil comparatively
+moist it was plowed much easier than might have been expected after the
+August drought. At wheat planting Hiram used a good fertilizer in the
+drill and set the sprouts to run about a bushel and a half rather than
+a bushel and a peck to the acre.</p>
+
+<p>This he did save on the lower four acres next to Yancey Battick's
+place. This patch was considered by both Mr. Bronson and Battick the
+best soil for experiment with the new wheat, and Battick planted the
+wonderful new grain himself, using a hand-sower and sowing only three
+pecks to the acre.</p>
+
+<p>The new wheat plant proved to stool so heavily that Battick claimed
+the field would be quite as well covered in the spring as the rest of
+the twenty acres. Hiram had observed the stooling property of the new
+wheat; but he had some doubt about its being well to sow the grain so
+thinly. He feared it would not furnish sufficient protection for the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>But as this crop was for seed rather than for bulk of grain, it might
+be all right. In any case the young farmer watched the experiment with
+much interest.</p>
+
+<p>Long before Thanksgiving the farm work was pretty well cleared up.
+Hiram kept only Orrin and the boy, Jim Larry, to help him do the winter
+chores. The three of them could feed the cattle, draw out the stable
+manure and spread it on the corn land which he would first plow in the
+early spring, and do the other necessary winter work.</p>
+
+<p>The house had been long since finished, although the interior had not
+been decorated, as Mr. Bronson wished to wait for the house to settle.
+It was otherwise ready for occupancy and there was a heating plant in
+the cellar. Hiram and the boys moved into the house when the weather
+became severe and started the furnace. Mr. Bronson furnished some
+necessities in the way of cots and warm blankets, and the three were
+very comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Delia Pringle insisted upon coming over on frequent occasions and
+"ridding up" for them.</p>
+
+<p>"For, talk as you will, men-folks ain't fitted by nature to be good
+housekeepers. For the land's sake! I remember once my mother and I
+went away from home for a time and left father alone, and when we came
+back we couldn't tell for the mess there was whether it was father or
+the dog that had lived in the kitchen. I am sure of one thing—the
+dog-kennel was a long sight the cleanest!"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Pringle was anxious to have another dance in the new house at
+Sunnyside; but Hiram did not like to ask Mr. Bronson for permission.
+There were certain rough fellows in the neighborhood who Hiram believed
+had helped Adam Banks loose Turner's bull on the occasion of the former
+dance. Besides, Ad Banks himself was at home again for the winter.</p>
+
+<p>What the fellow had been doing about Sunnyside at the time of the
+tornado in June, Hiram had never discovered. He certainly had not
+remained at home for long on that occasion. Yancey Battick was not at
+all convinced that Banks had not come straight from Loomisville for the
+express purpose of burning his stack of wheat. Battick still clung to
+the belief that the men who had stolen his Mortgage Lifter Oats had
+information of the new wheat, and were determined to ruin his chances
+of raising a crop of it for seed if they could do so. Adam Banks would
+be a perfect instrument to their hands, he declared, and he felt that
+Banks must be watched closely.</p>
+
+<p>However this might be, Hiram did not wish to tempt the ne'er-do-well
+to try any further tricks about Sunnyside Farm. Hiram, with Orrin and
+Jim Larry, were always on the keen lookout for Adam Banks. Orrin, by
+this time, was in good health and quite able to defend himself in
+any case. His ability to work well and his willingness pleased Hiram
+immeasurably. If only the fellow was not so secretive about his past!
+Hiram knew little more about Orrin Post now than he had when he found
+him in the calf shed, eight or nine months before.</p>
+
+<p>Orrin in all this time had never mentioned his family, his friends,
+where he was born, or what his circumstances had been before he came to
+Sunnyside Farm. His having been driven away by his former employer when
+he was taken ill, was positively all the information he had vouchsafed.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram had learned that he had come through Pringleton the day he had
+arrived at Sunnyside. Previous to such arrival, however, Orrin Post's
+life was a total blank to the young farm manager.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram did not believe that Orrin's previous life had been a happy
+existence. It might be even that he had had trouble with the police,
+and for that reason was so close-mouthed. Nevertheless, Hiram kept such
+thoughts as this to himself. For his own part he accepted Orrin Post at
+his face value.</p>
+
+<p>The three young fellows at Sunnyside used the kitchen to cook and eat
+in, set up their cots in the dining room, and occasionally on a rainy
+day or on Sunday sat in the parlor, where they could watch the road
+through the broad windows.</p>
+
+<p>They were doing this last on one dripping Sunday afternoon, when Jim
+spied a vehicle coming up the hill from the direction of Battick's and
+Pringleton. He did not identify the horses or the man driving them.</p>
+
+<p>"Stranger in this neighborhood," he announced. "That fellow driving has
+got a bushel of whiskers on his face. Did you ever see the like?"</p>
+
+<p>Hiram was reading and did not even get up to look out. Orrin, however,
+examined the approaching turnout at some length, but he made no comment
+and finally drifted out of the room. Hiram heard him open and close
+the back door just as Jim exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"Hey! Old Whiskers is stopping here. He's waving his whip and calling.
+What do you suppose he wants, Mr. Strong?"</p>
+
+<p>Hiram put down his book. "The best way to find out is to ask him," he
+said laughing, and rose to go to the front door.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">AN INQUIRY</p>
+
+
+<p>The rain dripped from the porch roof and a curtain of drizzle fell
+between the house and the gate where the gray horses stood. The
+bewhiskered individual had a rubber blanket over his knees and the
+water dripped from the brim of his hat into his lap—just as it dripped
+from the roof over Hiram Strong's head.</p>
+
+<p>On the back seat of the old-fashioned carryall sat a second man. But
+Hiram could not see him very well at first.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey!" yelled the bewhiskered man, "you ain't all deaf in there, are
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not all of us," replied Hiram. "I still have my hearing unimpaired.
+But 'hay' is for horses. It doesn't mean much to me. What do you want?"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the man in the rear seat of the vehicle thrust forward his
+head. He wore spectacles and was evidently no farmer. He demanded:</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any information of, or do you know anything personally
+about, Theodore, or Teddy, Chester, or a man calling himself by such
+name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never heard of him," declared Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"He is supposed to have come this way."</p>
+
+<p>"I might say that lots of people drive this way—especially in summer."</p>
+
+<p>"He would probably have been walking," said the bespectacled man
+confidently.</p>
+
+<p>"Not many strangers walk by here, I admit."</p>
+
+<p>"And if he came this way—as seems probable—it was months ago. Early
+last spring, to be more exact."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," laughed Hiram, "I would not be likely to remember anybody who
+passed here so long ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose he asked for work?" put in the bearded driver of the carryall.
+"He'd be likely to. Ted wasn't lazy."</p>
+
+<p>"You may remember the men who asked you for work last season?" repeated
+the more professional looking man with emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram began to think this man was a lawyer. An inquiry of importance
+was being made, and he grew interested. He put his head back into the
+house door and asked Jim Larry to get his umbrella. In a moment, when
+the boy had brought it, Hiram went out to the carriage to discuss the
+matter more at his ease.</p>
+
+<p>"You do remember the fellow, hey?" asked the bearded man, his little
+blue eyes sparkling. "I bet you do!"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't say 'yes' or 'no' so easily," laughed Hiram. "When was it the
+man was supposed to come this way?"</p>
+
+<p>The man on the rear seat of the carryall gave a date. It was well back
+in the spring.</p>
+
+<p>"It was after that date—soon after, we believe. We know almost
+positively that he came through Pringleton and was heading this way."</p>
+
+<p>"Heading for Sunnyside?" asked Hiram in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that the name of this place? I don't mean to say that he was coming
+to this particular farm. Only that he was walking in this direction."</p>
+
+<p>"Really," said Hiram, who had been trying to think of the incidents of
+the previous spring, "I don't know that there were many tramping people
+who asked me for work at that time."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you run this farm—a kid like you?" demanded the bewhiskered one in
+surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Hiram said with his customary smile, "I try to. I would know
+if anybody came along asking for work. And at that time I was having
+ditching done and hired almost every man I could get."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about Ted doing ditching," said the driver of the
+carryall. "He was a notch above that."</p>
+
+<p>"At that season of the year I presume a farm worker is not likely to
+have his pick of jobs," the other man suggested shrewdly.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel almost sure I would have remembered anybody who came here and
+whom I did not hire if he really wanted work at that time," said the
+young farm manager thoughtfully. "But there was nobody by that name."</p>
+
+<p>"He might not have given you that name," the legal looking man said
+quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"No?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Post knew him by that name," continued the gentleman, indicating
+the driver.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram was shocked to sudden and keen attention. But he controlled his
+features. He asked, after a moment, as though he had been thinking:</p>
+
+<p>"What did this Theodore Chester look like?"</p>
+
+<p>Here the bearded individual answered. The other man did not seem so
+familiar with the lost one's personality as was the driver of the
+carriage.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell you, he wasn't much to look at. Kind of slimpsy lookin'. Lean
+like. But he could work. Had a sleight with him about most things."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not giving the young man a very clear description
+of—er—Ted," interrupted the legal looking man. "What color are his
+eyes and his hair?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, his eyes are sort o' blue, or blue-gray, and his hair is brownish.
+Leastways, I should say it was. And he had kind of crinkly wrinkles
+about his eyes when he laughed—"</p>
+
+<p>"How old was the man?" interrupted Hiram quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"He is twenty-three years old this very month," replied the man from
+the back seat of the carryall.</p>
+
+<p>"He looks older," said the bewhiskered farmer.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, you have no photograph of him?" asked Hiram slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Wish I had!" exclaimed the other man. "I would plaster this whole
+country with reproductions of it if I had one."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes? Well," said Hiram, "I do not know any such man. At least, I do
+not remember any such asking me for work or passing this farm."</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" sighed the bewhiskered man, and took up his reins.</p>
+
+<p>"If you should ever see such a person let me hear about it, will you?"
+asked the other quickly, and thrust his hand into the rain with a card
+in it.</p>
+
+<p>"What did he do?" asked Hiram as the gray horses started.</p>
+
+<p>"He ran away from me, young fellow," the bearded man said shortly and
+grimly, and the carryall rolled away.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram looked at the card. It read: "Eben Craddock, Attorney at Law,"
+with an address in a Cincinnati office building.</p>
+
+<p>"Odd thing," muttered Hiram, slipping the card into his pocket. He went
+back to the house, leaving the umbrella on the porch to drip. He went
+in and found that Jim Larry seemed to have followed Orrin out through
+the rear door.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down and picked up his book again; but he could not fix his mind
+on the story he had been reading. That bearded man's name was Post and
+the young man of twenty-three had run away from him.</p>
+
+<p>The date the lawyer had mentioned as that on which the fugitive
+was supposed to have come through Pringleton was the very day—he
+remembered it now—on the evening of which he had found Orrin so ill
+and helpless in the calf pen here on Sunnyside Farm!</p>
+
+<p>This was a good deal of a nut to crack—and it was a meaty nut when
+Hiram Strong had cracked it. However, both the man named Post and the
+lawyer had refused to give any details of why they were hunting the
+mysterious individual called "Theodore Chester." If he was a fugitive
+and a criminal why had they been so secretive?</p>
+
+<p>"I have the lawyer's card. Somehow I don't trust that fellow with the
+whiskers at all," muttered Hiram. "And I've know Orrin more than eight
+months, and know nothing but good of him."</p>
+
+<p>So he said nothing regarding the inquiry for Theodore Chester to either
+of his companions. As for Orrin, he did not appear again at the house
+until dark.</p>
+
+<p>For some reason hard to explain Hiram was willing to take a chance on
+Orrin.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">SOCIETY</p>
+
+
+<p>Hiram knew that Lettie Bronson, after all, had her way with her father
+and that before the summer was over she had made him take her to one of
+the lake shore resorts where she met just the class of girls whom she
+had associated with at St. Beris. Since they had returned to Plympton,
+and during harvest and afterward, Miss Lettie had been to Sunnyside but
+seldom.</p>
+
+<p>Now that winter had come and Hiram Strong had some free hours, he
+began, as any other healthy and normal young fellow would, to long for
+some society besides that of his two comrades on the farm and Yancey
+Battick.</p>
+
+<p>Even Delia Pringle did not furnish all the "ladies' society" Hiram
+craved. And for some weeks about the only time he saw a girl was when
+he and Orrin hitched up Jerry and went to church on a Sunday morning.</p>
+
+<p>But he was not entirely forgotten by his employer's daughter. That fact
+became apparent the very day after the bewhiskered farmer and the
+lawyer searching for "Theodore Chester" had stopped at Sunnyside Farm.
+The postman brought Hiram a dainty envelope in which was an equally
+dainty missive in Lettie's rigid, upright handwriting.</p>
+
+<p>It was a warm little note—not at all the ordinary staid invitation to
+an evening party—and for a long time Hiram kept it in the bottom of
+his handkerchief box where some scent lay.</p>
+
+<p>Sister's letters, which now came with fortnightly regularity, he kept
+too. But he did not hide them under the flowered silk lining of his
+handkerchief box.</p>
+
+<p>The party at the Bronson house was to be—as Hiram supposed—rather
+a dressy affair. He had already prepared for it. He had sent his
+measurements as the advertised instructions directed to a catalogue
+house in Chicago and from there in due season arrived a "full tailored"
+dress suit. It fitted fairly well; but of course it was a block pattern
+garment, fitted with the tailor's "goose" rather than to Hiram's
+measurements. It fairly shrieked "ready made!"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll knock their eye out, Mr. Strong," declared Jim Larry, as Hiram
+appeared dressed for the revel, kid gloves and all.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram hoped he looked as good as Jim's enthusiasm suggested; but
+somehow he had his doubts. Besides Orrin, who had harnessed Jerry to
+the run-about for him and handed Hiram the reins after he got in the
+carriage, only said:</p>
+
+<p>"Hope you have a good time, Strong. My regards to the Bronsons."</p>
+
+<p>Orrin did not say a word about how fine Hiram looked in his new
+plumage. The young fellow began to feel a trifle anxious. He knew he
+felt uncomfortable. If by any chance he looked as bad as he felt—</p>
+
+<p>He drove down to Plympton in rather high fettle, however, arriving at
+the Bronson house at the edge of town just as it was getting dark. The
+place was not lit up and there seemed to be few arrivals. First he
+wondered if he had mistaken the evening. Then he wondered if anything
+had happened—anything serious to Lettie or her father—and the party
+had been postponed.</p>
+
+<p>He drove in by the side lane to the broad yard at the back. One of the
+stablemen came out with a lantern and recognized Jerry.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Hullo! You're from Sunnyside, aren't you? Come down to help us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Help you do what?" Hiram asked climbing down from the carriage rather
+stiffly, for it was a cold night.</p>
+
+<p>"Help us look after the teams and show 'em where to park their
+jitneys," said the man carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not to-night," Hiram replied soberly. "I've been invited to the party."</p>
+
+<p>"Whew! All right, me lord!" chuckled the stableman. "But there's
+nothing doing in the party line for an hour or more yet. Did you come
+so early because you were afraid they'd eat up all the cake and drink
+all the grapejuice on you?"</p>
+
+<p>Hiram did not answer this gibe. He walked around the cold streets for
+two hours before he ventured back to the Bronson house.</p>
+
+<p>Then he found that the company had arrived with a rush. He was directed
+to the men's coat room on the second floor. It was filled with men and
+most of them—at least those who appeared quite grown-up—were in dress
+suits. A glance assured the observant Hiram his own garments were not
+altogether in the mode.</p>
+
+<p>These fellows' coats fitted them as sleek as a cat's hide! Hiram knew
+that his garments wrinkled or bagged. After having his overcoat on so
+long and sitting in the carriage, his new dress suit needed pressing.
+The tailor's goose might have helped some at this juncture.</p>
+
+<p>He saw more than one curious glance cast in his direction. But he was
+in for it, and Hiram Strong had suffered a searing of his pride before.
+He knew how to stand the gaff.</p>
+
+<p>At the wide entrance to the drawing room Lettie was standing with her
+father to greet the guests. She carried an immense bouquet of hothouse
+flowers.</p>
+
+<p>"Hiram! How glad I am to see you," she said, very kindly.</p>
+
+<p>But at once the young farmer realized that she seemed looking over his
+shoulder as though in search of somebody else. Hiram stood aside, but
+there was nobody in the doorway. Lettie asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't he with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who?" Hiram queried.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Post—Orrin Post. Didn't he come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why Lettie! I didn't know he was invited. You didn't expect me to
+bring Orrin?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought he would come with you, Hiram. I invited him."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram felt momentarily relieved. He shook his head, however, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"I surely did not know anything about that. Orrin did not mention it to
+me. Are you sure—?"</p>
+
+<p>"I sent him an invitation," Lettie said, pouting. "He is such a nice
+dancer. I am disappointed, Hiram."</p>
+
+<p>"And he did not reply to you at all?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head firmly. She was very pretty in her party dress and
+with her hair "done up" for almost the first time that Hiram had seen
+it so. Lettie seemed quite grown up indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be that Orrin did not receive your invitation. He surely would
+have mentioned it. We talked about this party a good deal," said Hiram
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Lettie had been looking Hiram over, and now she was smiling a little,
+too. The young farm manager wondered if her amusement was not aroused
+by his ill-fitting suit. His gloves were uncomfortable, too. One of
+them had begun to split!</p>
+
+<p>"How did you send the invitation to him?" Hiram asked hurriedly, trying
+to cover his own embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"By mail. Just as I did yours."</p>
+
+<p>"It is strange, then," Hiram said. "I am sorry, and I am sure Orrin
+would have loved to come. Are there any other folks on our R. F. D.
+route named Post?"</p>
+
+<p>"I just directed it to him at Pringleton. I didn't even put 'Sunnyside
+Farm' on the letter. I didn't address yours any differently, Hiram."</p>
+
+<p>"No. But the mail carrier knows me all right. I—I don't believe Orrin
+has received or written a letter since he has been with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Doesn't he have any friends at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't seem to," replied Hiram, making room for another arrival then.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bronson welcomed him warmly; but of course he gave his time mostly
+to the older people who came to the party. Hiram found himself alone
+for the most part. He knew very few people here in Plympton, and almost
+none of the younger set.</p>
+
+<p>He found himself with a group of older men who largely talked farming
+or politics. It looked as if he would have a dull evening, and Hiram
+wished more than once during the first hour that he had not come.</p>
+
+<p>He wondered if Orrin had received an invitation but had been wise
+enough to remain away from the Bronsons' party. It was queer!</p>
+
+<p>Then Lettie was kind enough to hunt Hiram out and give him a dance on
+her list. The dance was informal and there were no cards, and the girls
+seemed just as likely to ask the young men for a dance as <i>vice versa</i>.</p>
+
+<p>No other girl gave Hiram the opportunity to dance, however, having
+seen him on the floor with Lettie. That awkwardly fitting dress suit
+certainly made a show of him.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram apprehended more than one giggling comment as he turned about the
+room with Lettie. She offered to dance with him again later, but he
+told her he thought he should go home early—it was such a long drive
+back to Sunnyside Farm.</p>
+
+<p>This was rather cowardly on his part. Yet he felt that he could not let
+the girl, out of the kindness of her heart, make a further exhibition
+on the floor of herself with him.</p>
+
+<p>The young farm manager kept out of Lettie's way as much as possible for
+the rest of the evening. And he did go home early.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you enjoyed yourself, Hi," said Mr. Bronson, when the boy bade
+him good-bye. "Seems to me I didn't see you dancing much. Don't you
+care for it? Too sensible, I bet!"</p>
+
+<p>His employer's cordiality was not to be doubted. Lettie seemed just as
+sweet to him as she could be. Yet Hiram was glad when he was jogging
+back to the farm behind Jerry. Society was not a condition in which
+Hiram Strong could shine.</p>
+
+<p>The next time he had occasion to drive to Pringleton the young manager
+of Sunnyside Farm went to the post office for a special purpose.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there any letter here for Mr. Orrin Post?" he asked the young woman
+who presided over the local mail.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Mr. Strong!" she exclaimed, "you don't take the Posts' mail."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't I take Orrin Post's letters—if he has any?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because Orrin Post lives clear down at the other end of Number Three
+route—almost fifteen miles east of the town. And you don't look
+anything like Orrin Post," she added, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't I?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has heaps and heaps of whiskers," laughed the young woman. "And
+there is no other Orrin Post that I know of."</p>
+
+<p>"There is a man working for me by that name," Hiram said seriously.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you must tell him to be sure to have his correspondents put
+'Sunnyside Farm' on their envelopes addressed to him," was the advice
+of the postmistress.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">A VISIT AND A PEST</p>
+
+
+<p>In spite of the disappointment Hiram Strong experienced regarding the
+party at the Bronson house in Plympton, the winter did not pass without
+some entertainment—and of a kind which he really enjoyed better than
+he had Lettie's party.</p>
+
+<p>The Christmas holidays ushered in a series of barn dances, surprise
+parties, straw rides and other country social functions organized in
+the Pringleton district and mostly of a nature that assured a pleasant
+time and plenty of clean fun.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram and Orrin and Jim Larry attended most of these entertainments.
+But Hiram hid away his dress suit and never wore it again. After a
+while his comrades on Sunnyside Farm ceased to gibe at him about the
+garments.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram had never asked Orrin about the invitation he might have received
+to the Bronsons' party. He shrank from arousing any suspicions in
+Orrin's mind that he, Hiram, was suspicious of him.</p>
+
+<p>But the young farm manager believed Lettie Bronson's note to the young
+man they both knew as "Orrin Post" had gone to the real Orrin Post—the
+bewhiskered farmer who had driven through the neighborhood with Eben
+Craddock, the lawyer from Cincinnati, looking for the mysterious
+"Theodore Chester."</p>
+
+<p>Was Hiram's assistant here at Sunnyside the individual that had run
+away from Post, the farmer, who lived fifteen miles east of Pringleton?
+If so, why had the young fellow given Hiram his former employer's name
+as his own?</p>
+
+<p>And then, searching his mind for the details of that long-past
+incident, Hiram remembered that the sick young fellow when Hiram found
+him in the calf shed had been delirious. He had given his name as
+"Orrin Post" without realizing, perhaps, what he was doing or saying.
+He had uttered the first name that had come into his mind—the name of
+the farmer who had treated him so harshly by driving him out of his
+house when he was taken ill.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram was quite convinced that there was no criminal charge against the
+young man he knew as Orrin Post. It was surely no misdemeanor for a man
+twenty-three years old to run away from his employer! It was evident
+that neither the bewhiskered man nor the lawyer were willing to accuse
+the man they called "Theodore Chester" of any particular wrongdoing.
+The circumstances remained a mystery.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever Miss Delia Pringle had anything to do with getting up a party
+that winter Hiram, Orrin and Jim Larry were of course invited. Indeed
+they were practically her right hand men.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Pringle frankly admired Orrin, treated Hiram as though she had
+known him all his life, and could not keep from hugging the fresh-faced
+and grinning Jim if he chanced to sit next to her on a straw ride or in
+any other free-and-easy assembly.</p>
+
+<p>Yancey Battick once remarked to Hiram, and with vast disapproval: "They
+can't come too young for Delia. She'd rob the cradle, she would!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're unfair to Miss Pringle, Mr. Battick," Hiram told him. "She is
+the best-hearted girl around here."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Girl!</i>" snorted Battick, with emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>It was in January that something happened to Yancey Battick that
+was bound to change that misanthrope's attitude toward most of the
+world, and should have changed it particularly toward Miss Pringle.
+All through the winter up to that time, Battick could have been seen
+frequently walking about the lower end of the wheat field where his new
+seed was planted. That he apprehended trouble at almost any time he
+frankly admitted to Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes in the middle of the night, or when the boys came home late
+after some party, or very early in the morning when they got up for
+some special purpose at Sunnyside Farm, they would see the spark of a
+wandering lantern down at that end of the twenty-acre lot. Battick was
+roaming about on the lookout for trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Just what the man expected to happen to the dormant wheat plants, in
+mid-winter, Hiram could not imagine. But it was a fact that going out
+at all hours of the night and in all kinds of weather brought its own
+punishment.</p>
+
+<p>Battick lived so much like a hermit anyway that had it not been for
+Hiram's interest in him, the man might never have seen spring again
+and the revival of his wonderful wheat. One day the young farm manager
+suddenly remembered that he had not seen or heard from Battick for at
+least three days.</p>
+
+<p>The thought somewhat startled him; yet he started along the county road
+toward the old Pringle place with no real fear that Battick was in
+trouble. When he mounted the low steps to the rickety front porch where
+he had taken refuge from the rain the first night he had come to this
+neighborhood, Hiram was startled by hearing a faint cry from inside the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>"Hi!" he shouted. "That you, Mr. Battick?"</p>
+
+<p>There followed another murmuring cry. Hiram put his hand on the knob of
+the door and rattled it. The door, of course, was locked. But he heard
+the pleading call again. This was no time for etiquette. Nor did he
+worry about Battick's gun.</p>
+
+<p>"It's I, Mr. Battick! Hiram Strong!" he shouted, and then threw his
+shoulder against the door. The frail bar to his entrance gave way
+immediately. He was almost catapulted into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"What's up?" he cried seeing nobody in the living room of the house.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm down, Mr. Strong," croaked Battick's voice from the bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>"For pity's sake! what is the matter?" demanded the boy, and hurried to
+see.</p>
+
+<p>Battick was stretched upon his bed, covered in his blankets and shaking
+with a chill. He could scarcely speak above a whisper and his face was
+fiery-red with fever.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram was deft in attending the sick. He had shown that at the time
+Orrin Post had first come to Sunnyside. He made Battick as comfortable
+as possible, leaving drinking water beside him, and then hurried back
+up the hill. His first thought was to hitch up Jerry and go for a
+doctor. He believed the man was in a bad way.</p>
+
+<p>Then he remembered that Miss Pringle had a telephone. In addition, the
+spinster was famous as a nurse. Hiram knew that Yancey Battick was in
+need of nursing as well as of medical attention.</p>
+
+<p>"I expect he will give me fits when he gets well for letting Miss
+Pringle into his house, he hates her so," thought Hiram. "But if I was
+to be sick that way myself, and could not get Mother Atterson to nurse
+me, I'd be mighty glad to get Miss Pringle as the next best nurse."</p>
+
+<p>So he did not stop at Sunnyside but went on to Miss Pringle's and told
+his story. Almost immediately the spinster was at the telephone and
+calling up Doctor Marble. Abigail Wentworth scurried around to pack a
+basket with the things Delia thought she might need.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't be let in. You'll be put out like you were before," declared
+Abigail in her sputtering way. "That Yance Battick will work some magic
+on you—"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Pringle.</p>
+
+<p>"Yance Battick has got the evil eye," declared Abigail with confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"He's got pneumonia, I shouldn't wonder," snapped Miss Pringle. "I'll
+be glad when Doctor Marble comes. Are you going back with me, Hiram?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly am, Delia," said the young farm manager. "And if he tries
+to send you home, I won't let him."</p>
+
+<p>But when they got down to the old Pringle homestead Battick was too
+deep in delirium to recognize Miss Pringle. When Dr. Marble arrived
+he declared that Hiram had found the man and given the alarm none too
+soon, if he was to be saved.</p>
+
+<p>It was a fight to keep Battick from slipping over the Border. Hiram,
+or Orrin, or Jim Larry was at the house all the time. Miss Pringle
+remained night and day. Other neighbors showed an interest in the queer
+man and Mr. Bronson sent up everything that might be needed and which
+Battick and his neighbors might not possess when he became convalescent.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bronson had been over-urged again by Lettie, and they were going to
+Florida for the season.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, if anything happens to Battick—if he dies—let me know by
+telegraph," Mr. Bronson told Hiram. "Being his partner in that wheat
+growing deal gives me a personal interest in the poor fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"And me, too," agreed Hiram. "I will look out for him—and for the
+wheat too."</p>
+
+<p>Battick did not wholly forget his precious wheat, and the day after
+Hiram had found him so ill he recognized the young farmer and earnestly
+begged him to bring the remaining seed of the new wheat into his
+bedroom and hang it in a bag above the foot of the bed where Battick
+could see it.</p>
+
+<p>"If anything should happen to that in the ground," the sick man
+whispered, "I'd still have a chance."</p>
+
+<p>But the wheat in the ground—not only Yancey Battick's but all the
+wheat on Sunnyside, gave promise of good growth when the spring should
+open. There was some snow for a cover during the coldest weather; but
+most of the storms were of rain and wind. Hiram was growing hungry for
+the spring. He watched anxiously for the earliest moment when he could
+get the plow into the ground for oats.</p>
+
+<p>Battick was convalescing when this first plowing began. Miss Pringle
+had ministered to him so faithfully that, crank though he was, the
+hermit could but speak well of her at last. Yet—</p>
+
+<p>"She is a nuisance to have around—all women are," he grumbled to
+Hiram. "She's cleaned and scoured this room—even my workbench—till
+I know I can't find half my things. There isn't anything in its right
+place. But she has nursed me faithfully and won't take a cent's pay—"</p>
+
+<p>"Great goodness, man! you didn't offer her money?" Hiram gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she did not take it," muttered Battick.</p>
+
+<p>"No wonder I met her just now going up the road crying. Is that all
+the sense you have? Or gratitude? Or <i>anything</i>?" completed Hiram with
+great disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"Hoity-toity, young man!" Battick said weakly. "Do you realize that I
+am much older than you are?"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't act so," snapped the young farm manager. "I can't respect
+anybody who throws away the very heart of the nut and eats the husk.
+You are determined, it seems, to make all your neighbors dislike you.
+If I were Delia Pringle I'd never step inside your house again!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't know that I shall ask her," muttered Battick.</p>
+
+<p>At that Hiram marched out himself. He knew very well that the man did
+not mean what he said; he was still sick and weak enough to quarrel
+with everybody—even his best friends.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram was too busy just then to give the crotchety man much attention;
+and thereafter he knew that Miss Pringle sent a neighbor's boy down to
+Battick's with the dainties she cooked for him. She did not go near the
+old homestead.</p>
+
+<p>Another team of Percherons and a double plow came to Sunnyside to help
+in the plowing and oat sowing. They got on the land just as soon as
+the horses would not mire. But there was much of even the higher fields
+that Hiram wished might be tiled properly to make the soil more friable.</p>
+
+<p>They drilled the oats and then went about the other spring
+work—cleaning the stables and calf pens and drawing out all the
+fertilizer the cattle had made to the early corn land. There was now
+more than sixty head of young stock on the farm and Hiram intended to
+grain a dozen or more for market.</p>
+
+<p>But the silo was empty and most of the corn fodder had been picked over
+and trampled in the cattle yards. What hay he had left Hiram needed for
+the horses. It was still three months and a half till haying time, and
+Sunnyside did not yield any too much hay, in any case.</p>
+
+<p>The promise of the crimson clover was encouraging, however; and it
+would make the earliest of pasture. Therefore he turned the cattle into
+a ten-acre piece below the barns and let them graze there before the
+regular pasture at the far end of the farm was grown.</p>
+
+<p>The stock went pretty nearly crazy over the first few mouthfuls of
+clover, bawling and running about rather than settling down to eating.
+But after a few hours they spread out and went quietly to grazing.</p>
+
+<p>Until mid-May they found plenty to do on this patch of fast-growing
+clover; but of course Hiram could not cut that for hay. He put the plow
+into it as soon as the cattle were driven to the regular pasture. They
+had enriched it considerably and the roots and stubble of the clover
+held plenty of nitrogen. He knew the soil was in good condition now for
+corn.</p>
+
+<p>The fields that had lain fallow over winter were already plowed and
+planted. This year Hiram was following the local custom and planting
+in the row and would use the large horse-hoes for cultivating. The
+early cornfields had received during the winter a heavy dressing of
+manure and all the other cornfields—save those that now had growing
+wheat upon them—would either have clover sod to turn under or an
+eighteen-inch growth of cowpeas.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram claimed that his cornfields this year would be well enriched in
+one way or another.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bronson had returned with Lettie from Florida. He brought Lettie up
+to Sunnyside in his car on several occasions; but although the girl was
+chatty and kind, both to Hiram and Orrin Post, to the mind of the first
+named there was something lacking in her manner. She seemed bored and
+dissatisfied. In her usual frank fashion Miss Pringle commented upon
+the change in Lettie since she had first met her.</p>
+
+<p>"Land's sake, Hiram! that girl is certainly getting her nose in the
+air. Not that I mean she's spoiled, but she ain't the same as she was.
+This taking her around from one flashy place to another is making her a
+regular flibbertigibbet."</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever that is," laughed Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>But he recognized the truth of Delia's homely statement. Since Yancey
+Battick's illness Hiram and the spinster had become even firmer friends
+than before. Miss Pringle was shrewd enough to see that Hiram was
+enamored of Lettie Bronson. But there were other interests Hiram had
+that Miss Pringle knew about.</p>
+
+<p>Long before this time she had not only heard all about Sister, but she
+had begun a correspondence with the little girl back in Scoville and
+with Mother Atterson. She could tell those loved ones "back home" more
+about Hiram and his affairs than the youth himself would have been
+willing to write about.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram was too busy again to send very long letters to Scoville,
+although during the winter he had been faithful in writing to Sister.</p>
+
+<p>Oat harvest came and the Sunnyside Farm crop was all that Hiram had any
+right to hope for. They stacked the oats ready for the thrashing and
+then put both big plow-teams to work, turning under the stubble, raking
+and rolling the land. Jerry and two mates (the first trio-hitch Hiram
+had driven on Sunnyside), followed behind the land rollers with the
+drill, sowing cowpeas.</p>
+
+<p>Haying and wheat harvest was right ahead of them when Miss Pringle
+drove past Sunnyside behind her dappled pony one day, bound for
+Pringleton.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going to be when I come back, Hiram?" she called to the
+young farmer.</p>
+
+<p>"Right here, or hereabout," he replied. "What do you want, Delia?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to have something to show you," she said, and drove on.</p>
+
+<p>It was two hours later that Hiram chanced to walk down the county road
+toward Battick's, intending to take a careful look at the green wheat
+at that end of this roadside field—the wheat in which he, as well as
+Battick and Mr. Bronson, placed such hopes.</p>
+
+<p>Although he did not apprehend that the same danger menaced the new
+wheat which Yancey Battick did, Hiram seldom allowed two days to go by
+without a scrutiny of the field.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the new wheat proved itself, to the most casual eye, to be
+a different variety from that growing in the remainder of the field. It
+was a foot taller, the bearded heads were beginning to fill out, and,
+as Battick had promised, the plants had spread so in growing that the
+grain stood quite as thick as in any other part of the twenty acres.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram saw a figure moving at the edge of the field at the far corner
+next to Yancey Battick's land, and he knew it to be Battick himself.
+These warm days the man was getting around quite briskly and was
+feeling much like his old self.</p>
+
+<p>Before Hiram could cross the ditch and start around the lower end of
+the wheat field, as he intended, he saw the dappled pony coming up the
+hill. There was somebody beside Miss Pringle on the seat of the buggy.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, Hiram! Wait!" called the spinster. "I want you to see who I have
+here."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram had already given a second glance. He saw a slim, prettily
+dressed figure with a flower-like face under a shade hat. For a half
+minute or so the boy had no idea who this person could be. He only
+realized that she was a very pretty girl.</p>
+
+<p>And then Miss Pringle's companion smiled. Hiram fairly jumped.</p>
+
+<p>"Sister!" he shouted, and strode down the hill to meet the dappled pony.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment he heard a wild yell from Yancey Battick. The man came
+running along the lower edge of the field. He bore high above his head
+a handful of the grain which he had torn up by the roots. His lean
+face was actually pale.</p>
+
+<p>"Strong! Look here! They've got us!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Who has got us? What is the matter?" demanded Hiram, startled into
+forgetting Sister and her wonderful appearance for the moment. "What's
+turned that wheat in your hand yellow so early?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see it? Do you see it?" shouted the excited Battick. "It's
+being eaten alive! Little green bugs—not the Hessian fly. It is a pest
+I never saw before. It wasn't there the other day. I tell you, they've
+got us!" concluded the man in a hopeless tone of voice.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">THE FIGHT FOR THE WHEAT</p>
+
+
+<p>"What's the matter now, Hiram Strong?" demanded Miss Pringle, urging
+her pony nearer. "For the land's sake! is that Battick man completely
+crazy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Hiram! what has happened?" called Sister.</p>
+
+<p>She jumped over the wheel and ran to greet the young farmer. A year
+previous Hiram would certainly have met Sister with a hug and a kiss!
+But this tall, pretty, almost grown-up girl was an entirely different
+person from the child he had known and first remembered as the
+boarding-house slavey in Crawberry. She was almost a stranger to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Sister! What a surprise! How nice you look!" he cried, seizing both
+her hands and gazing into her glowing eyes with fully as much delight
+as she herself displayed. "What a surprise!" he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Hiram, I'm so glad you're glad to see me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I am! And Mother Atterson?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is fine. And so is Mr. Camp. And Henry Pollock. And everybody!"</p>
+
+<p>"How did you ever come out here without letting me know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Pringle did it all. I am going to stay with her. You'll have to
+thank her if you are glad to see me, Hiram."</p>
+
+<p>"I should say I am! Delia, you are a darling!" cried Hiram, laughing up
+into the good but homely face of the spinster.</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture the almost breathless Battick reached the roadside.</p>
+
+<p>"Here! What's the matter with you, Strong?" he demanded, shaking the
+handful of wheatstraw at the young farm manager. "Do you hear what I
+say—or have you gone crazy over those women? That wheat is being eaten
+alive."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" exclaimed Sister looking wonderingly at the excited Yancey
+Battick.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Pringle scrambled down from the carriage. They gathered about the
+young farmer while he examined the affected heads of wheat.</p>
+
+<p>These heads were now about half developed. The straw was already three
+feet and a half tall, and the bearded, three-sided heads had been most
+promising only a day or two before.</p>
+
+<p>Now the tiny green bugs (and occasionally a long fly into which the
+insect develops) were evidently sucking the life of the plant. The
+presence of both the louse-like insect and the adult fly on the same
+staff of wheat proved to Hiram's mind at once that the creatures were
+of a single species and that their growth and development was very
+rapid—like that of hard-shell from soft-shell potato beetles.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you call those things?" demanded Miss Pringle looking askance
+at the green insects.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the English grain louse," Hiram announced with conviction.
+"I have been reading about the pest this winter. The louse did
+considerable damage in grain last year in New Jersey and other parts of
+the East. But how did it get into our wheat?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah-h!" groaned Yancey Battick. "You can easily answer that. It was put
+here by those that mean to ruin our crop. And between two days, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really think that possible?" Hiram said. "And yet, what I have
+read about this pest suggests that it does not come suddenly into a new
+field of wheat in this way, unless it has already been a scourge in
+some near-by patch of grain the winter before. In such an open winter
+as we have had it might have hybernated on the plants. Then, in April,
+it begins really to reproduce. But we have watched this wheat so
+closely—"</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you the lice have been brought here," Battick cried almost
+wildly. "It did not just <i>happen</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd surely think so," Delia Pringle said. "I never saw those things
+before. But I heard the other day that some pest had attacked wheat
+fields over back of the hill—to the north of us."</p>
+
+<p>"Which farms?" Hiram asked quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Seems to me they said Wilson Banks' wheat was the worst affected."</p>
+
+<p>"Adam's father?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah-h!" ejaculated Yancey Battick. "What did I tell you?"</p>
+
+<p>Of course, this gossip proved nothing, and Hiram very well knew it. But
+both Battick and Miss Pringle seemed so sure!</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go and look at the affected patch," Hiram said slowly, and, of
+course, Sister trailed along with him to the far corner of the field.
+She clung to his arm and chattered away at a great rate, giving Hiram
+all the news of Scoville and the Atterson farm neighborhood. Naturally
+this forced Miss Pringle and Battick into each other's company for the
+walk. They did not make a very friendly looking pair, however, for
+Battick's gaze was fixed on the ground while Miss Pringle had her head
+in the air and did not vouchsafe him a glance!</p>
+
+<p>The party came to the corner of the field where Battick had found the
+specimens of the grain louse. A patch several yards square was turning
+yellow.</p>
+
+<p>"These lice," Hiram observed thoughtfully, "feed on the leaves of the
+wheat plant until the grain commences to head. Then they assemble
+on the heads among the ripening kernels. When the grain ripens they
+migrate to various grasses, the book says, and manage to live until
+fall when the new wheat is sown and appears. But we had nothing like
+them here on Sunnyside last year."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor did I see any on my patch," muttered Battick. "I tell you they
+were sown here recently."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" exclaimed the sharp-eyed girl from Scoville. "What is this?"</p>
+
+<p>She sprang forward and picked out of the tall and robust wheat several
+withered wheat-straws that were about half developed. She gave them to
+Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you pull up any plants besides those you brought to me, Mr.
+Battick?" asked the young farm manager, curiously examining the wilted
+plants.</p>
+
+<p>"No. And, say, those are not my wheat! Don't you see, Strong? The
+straw is entirely different, nor is it as well developed as the straw
+standing on this piece."</p>
+
+<p>"That is what I saw," Sister said softly. "It is not the same plant as
+this handsome wheat."</p>
+
+<p>"You've got sharp eyes, Sister Cheltenham," declared Miss Pringle.
+"Hasn't she, Hiram?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind all that!" snapped Battick, interrupting crossly. "What do
+you think about this, Strong? Somebody brought those straws with the
+living insects on them and tossed them in among this wheat."</p>
+
+<p>"It would seem so," Hiram admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"The villains! It is no more than what I have expected all along. And
+you and Bronson would not believe me. Now what do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think somebody has it in for us," Hiram frankly said. "This was
+deliberately a malicious act."</p>
+
+<p>"If it was any of those Bankses they ought to be horsewhipped!"
+declared Miss Pringle.</p>
+
+<p>"Has Adam been home of late?" asked Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," replied the spinster. "But I bet he has."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall have to watch this field night and day now till the grain is
+ripe," Battick declared moodily.</p>
+
+<p>"But first of all we must get rid of this pest."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you do that?" asked Sister.</p>
+
+<p>"Never was anything so bad that it could not be worse," declared the
+young manager of Sunnyside Farm sententiously. "These flies have only
+just begun their nefarious work. There must be some way of stopping
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"How will you do that, Hiram?" Miss Pringle demanded. "When the striped
+bugs get on my melon vines they're gone, and that's all there is to it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Every blade and ear on which the louse has fastened itself must be
+destroyed. We must be ruthless in rooting the plague out."</p>
+
+<p>Battick groaned aloud. He hated to think of losing a single grain of
+the new wheat. "How are you going to do it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be pulled up and burned. And this may not be the only spot
+where the pest was thrown."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll look all around the field," Battick said eagerly. "You don't see
+any place where the scoundrel has walked into the wheat to spread the
+pest, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. He probably did nothing to trample down the wheat and so reveal to
+us where he had worked.</p>
+
+<p>"I would make sure how wide the area of affection is before pulling up
+any wheat, Mr. Battick," said Hiram. "I'll bring the boys down here and
+we'll burn a wide enough area to surely put the louse out of business
+in this field. No use cutting off the dog's tail half an inch at a
+time."</p>
+
+<p>Battick understood this homely saying, and only groaned again.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram and the girls returned to the road, and Miss Pringle and Sister
+climbed into the buggy. Hiram walked beside the vehicle to the Pringle
+cottage, and remained there for supper.</p>
+
+<p>The change in Sister in the time since Hiram had last seen her seemed
+marvelous. Not having seen a picture of her in all that time, the
+surprise Hiram felt was even greater that it otherwise would have been.
+Sister positively had become a pretty girl.</p>
+
+<p>Battick came up to report after supper. He had found but that one place
+where the grain louse was at work. Hiram took Orrin and Jim Larry and
+one of the new men and went down with Battick to burn the affected
+wheat.</p>
+
+<p>He slashed into that corner with a scythe and cut out almost a quarter
+of an acre of the wheat. Meanwhile the other boys had been smearing
+oily sacks over the condemned patch, and when the fire was put to it
+even in its green state, the grain blazed up hotly. They forked what
+Hiram had cut down on to the fire and made sure of burning every spear
+of wheat that could possibly be affected.</p>
+
+<p>It was furthermore arranged that a night watch should be kept upon
+this end of the twenty acre wheat field. Hiram, as well as Yancey
+Battick, was confident that the pest had not come here by chance. An
+enemy that would try such a despicable trick once, might try to repeat
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you I have felt all along that we shall have to fight to get a
+decent harvest of this wheat," said Battick.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we'll fight!" returned Hiram grimly. "Go ahead, Mr. Battick, and
+get your gun and watch here until midnight. Then either Orrin or I will
+come down and relieve you. I don't mean to let our enemies beat us, no
+matter who they may be."</p>
+
+<p>The young farm manager had an interest in the success of this new wheat
+matched only by Yancey Battick's own.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">DAY DREAMS</p>
+
+
+<p>There was an uncertainty in the atmosphere of Sunnyside Farm and an
+expectancy of trouble in all their minds. What would happen next? Would
+the enemy strike again, having been thwarted in one attempt to destroy
+the new wheat?</p>
+
+<p>The fact that the soil had been well enriched and that the forcing
+effect of nitrate made the crop grow so fast was really the salvation
+of Yancey Battick's new grain. The pest could not work fast enough to
+overcome the rapidity of the wheat's growth.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram had a multitude of things just now to take up his time; yet he
+made a pilgrimage to each farm in the vicinity to discover which wheat
+fields, if any besides that on Sunnyside, were affected by the new
+pest. The English grain louse had not been seen in this part of the
+country he was sure, previous to a few months before.</p>
+
+<p>"It bred on Banks's land," Mr. Turner told Hiram Strong. "When I first
+saw the critter during the winter—Banks called me over to show it to
+me—I told him I'd plow up that wheat as soon as I could, if I was him,
+and plant something else—spring wheat, or oats, or something. It was a
+puling kind of crop anyway. And it's a sight now!"</p>
+
+<p>"I presume his land is poor?"</p>
+
+<p>"You presume just right. And he's shiftless. Don't raise more than half
+a crop of anything. Don't keep cattle—they are too much trouble, he
+says—and his farm is getting poorer and poorer."</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen his kind of farmer before."</p>
+
+<p>"You bet you have! I've often thought, Mr. Strong, that a shiftless
+neighbor is worse than a dishonest one. You are on the watch for a
+thief; but a shiftless or lazy man will make more trouble than forty
+thieves, I do believe."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram considered that Mr. Turner was about right. He went far enough
+with the old man to look at the Banks' wheat. It was completely
+blighted by the pest and to Hiram's mind would scarcely be worth
+thrashing. Besides, when the binder went through the field he knew very
+well that the pest would lodge on the weeds and grass that bordered
+the grain, and would thus exist—a serious menace—until the new wheat
+appeared in the fall.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know what I would do if I had money, Mr. Turner, and owned a
+farm next to this one?" the young farmer said.</p>
+
+<p>"What would you do?" asked the old man suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd offer Banks a price for his standing grain and then burn it."</p>
+
+<p>"Hey! You surely would have money to burn," grumbled Turner.</p>
+
+<p>"Get the other neighbors to go into the deal with you. It will save
+your crops in the end. First you know, you'll have to give up raising
+grain to starve out the pest. And maybe that won't do it."</p>
+
+<p>"'A fool and his money are soon parted,'" said Turner.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe," Hiram rejoined slyly. "But how about a fool and his wheat?"</p>
+
+<p>"Huh!" was Turner's only comment.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Hiram learned that Adam Banks had been at home over Sunday
+and on that occasion could easily have brought the specimens of the
+grain pest to the fields on Sunnyside. He would never have a chance to
+repeat the trick, however—if he was guilty—for there was a guard at
+the wheat field every night, and by day some of the workmen were always
+in sight of the piece of seed-wheat.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram Strong enjoyed Sister's visit immensely. The girl seemed just
+like a bit of home—the only real home Hiram had known since he was a
+child. Had she been really his sister he could have thought no more of
+her.</p>
+
+<p>And she was still a healthy, wholesome girl. She was not growing up too
+fast, as he sometimes thought Lettie Bronson was.</p>
+
+<p>Sister, in a gingham frock and one of Miss Pringle's sunbonnets,
+was out with Hiram all over the big farm. She knew enough about
+agricultural pursuits now, and loved nature enough, to enjoy thoroughly
+Sunnyside and all it meant to Hiram. The latter, too, found in Sister a
+confidante such as he had never had before.</p>
+
+<p>She could help, too. The clover crop ripened suddenly because of a
+dry spell. The brilliant crimson blossoms which gave to the fields a
+blush such as no other flower gives, began to turn brown at their base
+petals. The mower had to be brought into use at once—in fact, two of
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Sister rode the tedder and managed to stir the clover well behind
+both mowing machines. In spite of the dry spell it was a heavy crop
+of clover hay, and the odor of it ascended in the noonday heat as the
+incense must have ascended from the altars to the Sun God in ancient
+times.</p>
+
+<p>The two teams of Percherons were at work six days a week. As soon as
+the clover was made and drawn to the mows, the big plows were put
+in to turn over the clover sod. This was raked lightly, rolled, and
+then the corn was drilled. The early corn was already up and under the
+second or third cultivation. Everything at Sunnyside was on the rush.</p>
+
+<p>The cattle were on regular pasture. Twelve of the sleekest and
+oldest were held in the pens for fattening. They would be the first
+"commercial crop" since Hiram had come to Sunnyside sold off the farm,
+save a part of the previous year's wheat.</p>
+
+<p>Following the plowing of the clover sod, the areas where oats had been
+and the cowpeas put in for a soilage crop were turned under, and corn
+was planted on that land. Hiram was planning for a real corn crop this
+year, and for the most part he used the seed corn he had raised from
+that of Daniel Brown. Another corn crib was built at this time to be
+ready for the expected harvest.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the corn was planted where the peas were turned under for
+manure, the regular haying came on. Such hay as there was on Sunnyside
+had to be harvested in a hurry. It was a thin crop, for it had been
+seeded to timothy and red top several years before. Hiram decided to
+plow most of this meadow land for wheat in the fall and seed some of
+the present wheat- and corn-land for meadow. He turned the cattle into
+the mowing fields, therefore, as soon as the hay was out of the way.</p>
+
+<p>No further menace had attacked the wheat. The fields of grain on
+Sunnyside were a beautiful sight—now turning a golden yellow and with
+the heavy heads nodding to the harvest. Battick's new variety was at
+least a foot taller than that in any other field on the farm.</p>
+
+<p>The man had watched the special wheat as a mother cares for her
+new-born babe. Night and day he hung about the edges of the field. He
+even crept over the patch that had been burned seeking for any of the
+insects that might not have been destroyed by the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"I think that man must be more than half crazy, as Jim says he is,"
+Sister said to Hiram in commenting upon Battick.</p>
+
+<p>"Why does Jim—and you—think Battick is insane?" Hiram asked her,
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he makes such a fuss over that new wheat."</p>
+
+<p>"His whole heart is set upon developing this Staff of Life Wheat," the
+young farm manager said thoughtfully. "And so is mine, Sister."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, Hi?"</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I am crazy, too," the young fellow said. "I believe my
+fortune, as well as Battick's, is wrapped up in that wheat. Somehow,
+from the very first time I saw the seed in his house, the night I
+arrived in this neighborhood, I have felt that the new wheat meant much
+to me."</p>
+
+<p>Sister looked at him, puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"I really wish you would say right out what you mean, Hi Strong!" she
+exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"I am day dreaming, I suppose," he told her. "But when I look over this
+billowing field I can see thousands of acres of the same grain, all in
+one mowing, and a crop that will fill vast granaries with wheat. There
+would be a fortune in a single crop of such size."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Hiram, you are thinking of the wheat fields of the great
+Northwest," Sister said in a low tone. "Are you dreaming of going so
+far away from us all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sister," said the young farmer seriously, "I set out to farm Mrs.
+Atterson's Eighty with the idea of making that a stepping-stone for
+something bigger. I have got the bigger thing; but it is not big
+enough. I am still working for another man. I want to work for myself."</p>
+
+<p>"But—but it takes so much capital to run one of those great wheat
+ranches."</p>
+
+<p>"I know. I couldn't expect to begin at the top. If I begin for myself
+it must be at the bottom. But I have more than a thousand dollars
+saved, and I have a quarter interest in Battick's new wheat. Before
+this time next year, Sister, I ought to have at least five thousand in
+cash!</p>
+
+<p>"When I have that much money I am going to strike out for myself—on
+my own hook. Whether it will be in the Northwest or not I don't know.
+But Hiram Strong, Sister, is going to be his own man before he gets
+through, not another fellow's hired hand!"</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">CORN AND COMPARISONS</p>
+
+
+<p>Hiram and Sister (who had as yet not discovered her first name) often
+discussed her personal mystery. The lawyer who had finally searched her
+out at the Atterson farm, having traced her through the records of the
+orphanage in which she had spent so many unhappy years, had neglected
+to tell her the name with which she had been christened.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor do I know my little brother's name. Poor boy! To think of his
+having been sent to a reform school! I often cry about him, Hiram. How
+awful it is for him to be wandering about the world, maybe ill-used,
+beaten, hungry—perhaps growing up <i>wicked</i>! He perhaps will not find
+anybody like Mother Atterson—or you—or Mr. Lem Camp."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that you had much to congratulate yourself about until we
+all left Crawberry and got out on Mother Atterson's farm," said Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it seems to me now that I was pretty lucky," the girl said
+soberly. "But poor little Claude couldn't possibly have found such good
+friends."</p>
+
+<p>"'Claude'!" repeated Hiram in surprise. "How do you know his name is
+Claude?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't—really. Sometimes I call him 'Marvin.' I like both names,"
+replied Sister. "It doesn't really matter what I call him till I know
+what his really, truly name is, does it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, for goodness' sake! don't call him 'Claude.' If he is a real
+boy, that will make him sick! And how do you know he is so much younger
+than you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why—"</p>
+
+<p>"Did the lawyer say so?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, he didn't. He didn't say how old—er—Marvin was. But, of course,
+he must be only a little boy to run away and get lost."</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! He may be older than you are."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how you talk! Of course he isn't, Hi Strong. How could my little
+brother be older than I am? Why, that is ridiculous!"</p>
+
+<p>"You have a mighty hazy idea of your brother, I do believe," Hiram
+chuckled. "If he was arrested and sent to the reform school—"</p>
+
+<p>"Hiram! How can you? My brother arrested?"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you suppose he got into the reform school?" demanded her
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Do they have to be bad to get to reform schools?"</p>
+
+<p>"He'd have to be sent by the Court to such an institution. He must have
+been old enough to be arrested for doing something, Sister. It needn't
+have been anything very bad—swiping apples, or throwing stones, or
+something like that."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Hiram!" murmured Sister, almost in tears.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it sounds hard. Sometimes a committing magistrate is pretty
+harsh. They don't have Children's Courts everywhere. And sometimes
+there isn't any other place to send kids but to the reform school."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear, you make my heart ache," declared Sister, sighing.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he was some size to have been sent to such an institution
+instead of to an orphanage, as you were."</p>
+
+<p>"I—I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>"How long was he in the reform school before he broke out?" Hiram asked.</p>
+
+<p>"That lawyer did not tell us."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, when did he run away?"</p>
+
+<p>"I guess it was some time ago, come to think of it," the girl admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"Seems to me you and Mother Atterson didn't ask many questions of that
+man," said Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"We were so stirred up!" cried Sister. "And he was only at the house a
+few minutes. He told me to be sure and let him know if I went anywhere
+else. I wrote to him when I was coming out here. But he never replied."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to ask him a few things," muttered Hiram thoughtfully. Then:
+"So you have no idea when your brother ran away?"</p>
+
+<p>"It must have been some time before the lawyer found me last year. He
+said he had been hunting for both of us, and he wanted to make sure of
+me, so that I would not run away and make trouble. For the property my
+Grandmother Cheltenham left us cannot be divided till both heirs are
+found. That is just the way he put it."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph! A nice way to fix it, I must say. Your grandmother must have
+been a pretty cranky old tea-party."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, Hiram. Maybe she did what she thought was best. But I do
+hope that I take after my mother's side of the family."</p>
+
+<p>"Which can't be any worse than the Cheltenhams in any case, eh?"
+chuckled Hiram. "Nice name—'Cheltenham.' Sounds as though you ought to
+be related to the King of England, or some of the nobility."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, you're laughing at me, Hiram! I'd just as lief my name was
+something short and nice sounding—like 'Strong,' or 'Post,' or—"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe Orrin's name isn't so short and sweet." Hiram said suddenly.
+"You know, as I wrote you, there is a mystery as to what Orrin's name
+really is."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know," said Sister thoughtfully. "And Orrin is such a nice
+young man. I asked him the other day, Hi, what he supposed might have
+become of my little brother after he ran away from the reform school."</p>
+
+<p>"What did he say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he seemed real interested. He said maybe Claude—I mean,
+Marvin—was wise to run away. Orrin said sometimes they hire boys out
+from those schools to farmers who make them work like slaves. He seemed
+to know all about such things."</p>
+
+<p>"He did?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe Orrin must have been in one of those schools himself when he
+was a boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Lucky if he wasn't in a worse place," thought Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>But he did not go any deeper into a discussion of Orrin's affairs at
+this time. The mystery of who and what Orrin Post really was seemed
+quite as far from being solved as the whereabouts of Sister's brother.</p>
+
+<p>The wheat was now nodding heavy heads for the harvest. The binders and
+extra harvest hands came to Sunnyside Farm after reaping Mr. Bronson's
+other wheat fields. Everybody about the place—even Sister—worked in
+the wheat fields, standing up the golden shocks, from early morning
+until nightfall.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+  <img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt="" id="illus4">
+    <div class="caption">
+    <p>Everybody about the place—even Sister—worked in the wheat fields.</p>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<p>Close on the heels of the harvesting the great tractor drawing the
+threshing machine rumbled up to Sunnyside. The regular threshing crew
+came with it so that the work at Sunnyside went much more rapidly this
+time than it had the year before, although the yield of grain was far
+greater.</p>
+
+<p>But how everyone did toil at it! Threshing under the very best
+conditions is the hardest farm work there is. It is not such tedious
+work as the making of the crop—the plowing and raking, rolling and
+seeding, and the cultivation of it, or of the mowing and binding; but
+for out and out bone-breaking labor, and in the hottest part of the
+year, threshing takes the palm. It must be hurried, too, for there is
+always another grain ranch to go to. And the season, too, is that when
+other work on the farm is urgent.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bronson came himself to Sunnyside to watch Hiram's wheat and oats
+threshed. Besides, he was particularly interested in the yield of
+Battick's new wheat.</p>
+
+<p>Lettie came up with him from Plympton and remained over night at Miss
+Pringle's, with Sister. She seemed unfeignedly glad to see Sister
+again, and the two girls raced about together all day, watching the
+toiling threshing crew, and riding the empty wagons back to the field.</p>
+
+<p>"One seemed," Orrin said to Hiram Strong, "as big a kid as the other."</p>
+
+<p>In the evening, however, after the boys had eaten supper and washed at
+the bunkhouse, they strolled over to Miss Pringle's, and the girls met
+them with their most grown-up manner. Indeed, Lettie flirted with Orrin
+in a way that actually amazed Hiram. He was glad that Sister was not
+addicted to such manners. And yet, of course, Lettie meant no harm and
+Orrin Post seemed to understand. Hiram wondered if he had been used to
+the kind of society in which Lettie had learned to behave in this way.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, Orrin was quite "grown-up." Lettie looked upon him as
+fair game, without doubt. She would not have considered for a moment
+treating Hiram in this way.</p>
+
+<p>Sister did not attempt to copy the more sophisticated Lettie. Yet she
+seemed to approve fully of the daughter of the owner of Sunnyside Farm.</p>
+
+<p>"Lettie is so much nicer than I used to think her," Sister said gently
+to Hiram. "She is so kind."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"She wants me to go back to Plympton with her and stay a while before I
+go home."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" questioned Hiram again.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I—don't—know," said Hiram slowly.</p>
+
+<p>He remembered the sort of young people he had met at the Bronson house
+the night of the party. He had never been able to make up his mind
+whether he had been invited on that occasion out of sheer kindness,
+or not. Hiram's perceptions were keen. Would Sister be comfortable in
+their society? Would they, young and gay and careless and more or less
+intimate friends from childhood, make her feel a little as though she
+were outside of all their fun and friendships? Sister was sweet and
+lively, true and likable, but could she, after all, adjust herself
+to surroundings which were very different from those she had been
+accustomed to?</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like you to advise me, Hiram," said Sister softly.</p>
+
+<p>"What does Delia say?" exclaimed Hiram suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"She says go if I want to, and if I don't like it to come back here
+any time. She says I can hire a flivver there to bring me back for a
+couple of dollars—if I am in a hurry."</p>
+
+<p>"There!" exclaimed Hiram with relief. "I always did think Delia Pringle
+was a mighty sensible person. I agree with her, Sister."</p>
+
+<p>"After all," thought Hiram, "Sister is likable and attractive, and,
+moreover, pretty well able to look out for herself. And then, Lettie
+is kind and sweet-natured and thoughtful, and why should I take it for
+granted that her friends are not the same sort?"</p>
+
+<p>Orrin only laughed about Lettie when the boys went back to Sunnyside at
+ten o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't be jealous, Strong," he said. "She is only practising on
+me. She thinks you are not ripe for such nonsense yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph!" thought Hiram. "Do I appear to be such an awful kid?"</p>
+
+<p>Comparisons are odious, however. Hiram did not propose to judge Lettie
+by the same standard by which he judged Sister. They were two very
+different girls.</p>
+
+<p>The work of threshing went on apace. Hiram had arranged his wagons as
+he had the year before in harvesting the ensilage for the silo—putting
+the small wheels in the rear and the big wheels in front. They thus
+brought enormous loads of the golden sheaves on the racks to the
+threshing machine, merely dumping the load. Men stood on both sides
+of the heap and forked the sheaves into the chute. This was a modern
+threshing machine which automatically cut the bands as the sheaves were
+fed into the maw of the roaring monster.</p>
+
+<p>The straw was blown into a huge pile at one side of the barn, later to
+be baled; for good wheat straw is valuable. The straw from the oats
+Hiram used for bedding.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bronson or Hiram stood by the men bagging the grain, keeping
+tally. The ordinary wheat averaged thirty-two and a half bushels to
+the acre—almost twice the average of the year before, and better by
+several bushels than the average on the neighboring farms. Still, this
+was no great yield.</p>
+
+<p>The threshing machine was then run in between the oat stacks and the
+bundles of oats were pitched by crews of four men into the chute. The
+oats yielded a fair average—nothing great. But, then, they had been
+raised more as a preparatory crop than anything else. All the oat land
+had grown a heavy crop of cowpeas for soiling, and now the corn stood
+rank, black, and knee high upon all those oat fields.</p>
+
+<p>The oats were run through the threshing machine before the new wheat
+was brought up from the lower end of the twenty-acre piece which lay
+along the road. The oats had swept every kernel of the ordinary wheat
+out of the machine. The Staff of Life Wheat, as Hiram had dubbed it,
+was the handsomest grain anybody working on the threshing crew had ever
+seen.</p>
+
+<p>And how it did yield! It was a marvel considering how thinly the seed
+had been sowed. Still, Battick was not satisfied, and almost wept
+whenever he thought of the quarter acre that had been burned. From the
+remaining three-and-three-quarters acres was threshed a hundred and
+sixty-eight bushels and a peck of grain—the biggest yield that had
+ever been known in the neighborhood of Sunnyside within the memory of
+the oldest living farmers.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram, flushed and excited, felt like shouting in his happiness,
+self-contained though he usually was.</p>
+
+<p>"Even when this land was all virgin prairie, I do not believe they got
+greater yields of wheat," Mr. Bronson declared.</p>
+
+<p>"And yet," Hiram said thoughtfully, "a forty-five bushel average is an
+ordinary harvest in Kansas and Nebraska. And further north the yield is
+even greater. This, Mr. Bronson, is not wheat land."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it is good enough for me," declared his employer, warmly. "Those
+fellows out there in the Northwest are under greater expense than I am
+for tractors, machinery, and wages. I am pretty well satisfied. If you
+do as well for me with the corn—"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, when it comes to corn, this is just the land for it!" cried Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"And with tractors instead of horses—"</p>
+
+<p>Hiram shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been figuring that out, Mr. Bronson," the young farmer said.
+"Nothing less than three hundred acres of corn—and as much of it in
+one piece as possible—would pay under tractor cultivation. Sunnyside
+could never be a tractor farm. The fields are too much cut up."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">EXPLOITING THE WHEAT</p>
+
+
+<p>The wheat threshing was past. The plows were going again, and following
+the raking and smoothing of the fields Hiram Strong put in either
+ensilage corn and peas, or a mixture of grass seeds for new mowing.</p>
+
+<p>There were more than a hundred head of young stock on Sunnyside
+by midsummer, for Mr. Bronson was continually adding to the herd.
+Sunnyside was bound to wax fat in another year with all this kine to
+enrich the acres. Whoever Mr. Bronson sold the farm to would get, after
+all, one of the most productive farms in the Pringleton district.</p>
+
+<p>Orrin Post (Hiram always thought of him by that name, whether it was
+rightfully his or not) was fairly in love with the place. He often said
+to Hiram:</p>
+
+<p>"Strong, it would be the height of my ambition to own this place. I
+could settle down here in happiness for life."</p>
+
+<p>"And marry Miss Pringle?" suggested Hiram chuckling.</p>
+
+<p>"Delia has her cap set for another fellow," returned Orrin, grinning
+widely. "Believe me, she will get him, too."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you talking about?" snapped Hiram, thinking the tables were
+being turned upon him and not liking it after all.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing personal. You are not the fellow, Strong," said Orrin.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be Jim Larry, then, that she is after," sniffed the farm
+manager. "But if you like it, Orrin, I should say Sunnyside would make
+a mighty nice homestead. But, I tell you truly, Mr. Bronson isn't
+writing anything much on the credit side of the ledger yet. It takes
+time to bring back an abused farm like this to a paying basis. This new
+wheat of Battick's will put Mr. Bronson ahead of the game. Yet that
+ought not to be charged to the profits of the farm, for it was entirely
+a side issue."</p>
+
+<p>The prospect for a bountiful corn harvest was, however, plain. When the
+corn was in the cribs they might easily count a clean slate, at least,
+without referring to the Staff of Life Wheat.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram was elated when he went through the fields of early corn and
+examined the ears now rapidly filling out. He was confident that nobody
+ever grew a better corn crop on Sunnyside Farm than he was making.</p>
+
+<p>Sister made her visit to Lettie Bronson and came back to Miss
+Pringle's fairly radiant. She had learned to put up her hair in a more
+attractive fashion and had bought a new summer dress under Lettie's
+tutelage which she said made her other clothes look "countrified" in
+comparison.</p>
+
+<p>"Lettie Bronson is so hospitable and nice, Hiram," Sister said. "I
+let her introduce me as 'Cecilia Cheltenham.' It sounds stylish, and
+I could see it impressed Lettie's friends. Do you think it is wrong,
+Hiram? Maybe 'Cecilia' is my name."</p>
+
+<p>"Just as good as any other, I guess, Sister," Hiram said kindly. "But
+don't for pity's sake name your brother some name that he won't like."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! 'Marvin'?"</p>
+
+<p>"He can stand that better than 'Claude' or 'Percy.' Do give the kid a
+chance."</p>
+
+<p>Hiram had come to consider the lost boy as a little fellow, too,
+although Sister had no particular warrant for that belief.</p>
+
+<p>Sister's visit came to a close. She knew Mother Atterson and Lem Camp
+missed her sorely. She had now been at Miss Pringle's all of two months.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody about the place thought a deal of Sister. Delia Pringle
+declared she was the nicest girl she had ever known. Orrin could not
+do too much for her and treated her with a brotherly affection that
+Hiram thought might breed some confidences on his part. But Orrin
+never touched upon his personal affairs save on one occasion, and then
+lightly enough.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you have any brothers and sisters in all your life, Orrin?"
+Sister asked, pointblank, in Hiram's hearing.</p>
+
+<p>"I had a sister," Orrin replied shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Didn't you love her, Orrin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very much indeed." He spoke in a low voice and turned away his head so
+that she might not read the expression in his face. "I never talk about
+her," he added in a tone that precluded further questioning on the
+girl's part.</p>
+
+<p>This single reference to his past life was practically all Hiram had
+ever heard Orrin make. Sometimes curiosity burned so hotly in Hiram's
+thoughts that he was tempted to demand of Orrin who he was and what his
+real name was. Was he the "Theodore Chester" the bewhiskered farmer
+from the other side of Pringleton and the lawyer, Eben Craddock, were
+searching for back there in the winter?</p>
+
+<p>There was one thing Hiram did not want to do, however; he did not wish
+to say or do anything to offend Orrin, so that the latter would leave
+him. More and more had the young farm manager come to depend on this
+helper who had been with him so long. He was paying Orrin bigger
+wages than anybody else on the place. But, as he told Mr. Bronson, if
+anything happened, he could depend upon Orrin to go ahead with the
+work and carry out the plans already formulated for the improvement of
+Sunnyside.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing did happen—of any unlucky nature, at least—not even to Yancey
+Battick's wheat. Battick had watched the grain from the threshing with
+quite as keen apprehension as before.</p>
+
+<p>However, if Adam Banks—or any other ill-disposed person—wished to
+ruin the yield of seed wheat, he did not succeed in such plans. The
+new wheat was spread upon the floor of the attic of the new house at
+Sunnyside, and that dwelling had been built mouse and rat proof!</p>
+
+<p>Samples sent to various experimental farmers and agricultural stations
+with the well-written claims for the new wheat prepared by Yancey
+Battick attracted wide attention. Photographs of the growing wheat
+which Mr. Bronson had had taken were reproduced and printed in some of
+the farm papers. Every wheat grower who saw the grain and heard of its
+development was enthusiastic.</p>
+
+<p>But the partners in the Staff of Life Wheat determined to sell none
+of the surplus of this present crop in large lots. Battick got up a
+catchy advertisement headed: "Grow it in Your Garden," showing how any
+farmer might develop seed enough from one fifty-cent packet to plant
+an acre of the new wheat in a year's time and so, in two years, gain a
+forty-acre crop.</p>
+
+<p>The advertisement brought almost immediate returns, and the orders grew
+in number daily. At this packet rate the partners were getting for the
+seed wheat a hundred and twenty-eight dollars per bushel!</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! there is no money in the seed business is there?" said Mr.
+Bronson, widely smiling.</p>
+
+<p>And they were giving something of value for the fifty-cent orders that
+came in with a rush. With care any gardener could raise seed enough for
+an acre of grain, just as their advertisement said. The Staff of Life
+Wheat was a really wonderful variety.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, the advertising cost a good deal and the exploitation of the
+wheat in this way entailed much work. But the profit was enticing.</p>
+
+<p>The Rural Free Delivery mail carrier began to object to handling
+the traffic of Sunnyside Farm, and Battick was obliged to drive to
+Pringleton three times a week to mail packets of seed and get the
+money orders cashed. Mr. Bronson banked the money in a special account
+at the Plympton National Bank, and the seed selling business grew in
+importance.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Pringle had learned to use a typewriter, and Battick had to hire
+her to help with the correspondence. This pleased Hiram immensely, for
+it put Yancey Battick in a position where he had to associate with the
+good-hearted spinster. The man did not have much show to continue a
+woman hater when he was associated daily with Delia Pringle!</p>
+
+<p>"I told you," chuckled Orrin, "that Delia had set her cap for a
+particular person in this vicinity. And it is not you or me or Jimmy
+Larry. Yancey Battick is in much more danger right now from Delia, than
+his wheat ever was from the plottings of Adam Banks, believe me!"</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">KING CORN</p>
+
+
+<p>Hiram Strong had grown taller corn with bigger ears on it in the East
+than any of the now ripening crop on Sunnyside Farm. But in bulk of
+shelled corn he knew he had never equaled this present crop.</p>
+
+<p>One small field he had prepared especially for his seed corn. By this
+time he had come strongly to believe in the yellow-red strain of corn
+he had originally obtained from Daniel Brown, and this special field
+had been planted to that variety exclusively.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram had from the very start prepared this field in a particular way.
+It had been a fallow piece on which had been thrown with the manure
+spreader during the winter about ten tons of fertilizer to the acre.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he could get on the field with his heavy horses he disked
+the piece both ways. This enabled him to plow at least eight inches
+deep, and he put three of the Percherons on the plow.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram disked the field again after plowing, and harrowed it twice,
+making the soil as loose in the end as a garden plot. With this
+preparation, the bottom of the seed bed was as loose as the top and the
+plant roots when they got to growing, found plenty of room to develop.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram did not put this corn in until the first of May. He planted it
+one grain to the hill, sixteen inches apart in the row, and the seed
+had been so carefully selected that he had an almost perfect stand all
+over the field. Hiram was no friend to replanting in any case.</p>
+
+<p>At the time he put the corn in he sowed in the row fifty pounds
+of commercial fertilizer to the acre. When the corn was up a few
+inches and the root system began to develop, the young manager of
+Sunnyside Farm sowed a hundred pounds to the acre of a special forcing
+fertilizer—straddling the row with the cornplanter and sowing this
+special fertilizer in rows down the middle.</p>
+
+<p>One day, about the time the bulk of Hiram's crop was hardening, Mr.
+Brown drove along and Hiram hailed him and asked him to walk with him
+through this field of seed corn. The grizzled old fellow noted the
+strong stalks, the wide blades, and the heavy ears with brightening
+visage. He loved corn! On Hiram's invitation to do so, he tore the
+husk away from several ears.</p>
+
+<p>"By gum!" exclaimed the old man, "I thought I raised good corn. I
+always have raised good corn—the best in this county, if I say it who
+shouldn't. But you've got me beat, Mr. Strong—you've got me beat.</p>
+
+<p>"This variety here, wherever you got it, is better than my best, and
+how even it runs! I never saw the like before. Where'd you get it? I
+thought you were raising corn from seed you bought of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am," Hiram told him with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Where'd you get it? I'd like to compare this new variety with my kind
+of corn," went on the farmer, not heeding Hiram's assurance.</p>
+
+<p>"This is your corn you've got hold of, Mr. Brown," Hiram said.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't tell me!"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly do. I consider it the best corn for this soil that I
+could find. It is only better than yours because I take more pains in
+selecting and testing the seed than you do."</p>
+
+<p>"By gum! I can't believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"Every hill of this corn, and the main part of my crop, came from the
+two baskets of corn I bought of you a year ago last March. Half of that
+I discarded. Probably two-thirds of this whole field I shall feed to
+the cattle. Out of the rest I will sell you what you may need for six
+dollars a basket, Mr. Brown."</p>
+
+<p>"By gum! I want it," exclaimed the old fellow. "Some of it, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"It takes but about fourteen ears of corn, you know, to plant an acre.
+I'll sell you the same quantity I bought of you, if you like, at the
+price stated. I think it is worth that to raise seed like this, don't
+you, Mr. Brown?"</p>
+
+<p>"Boy, if what you tell me is true—if this is my corn—then I don't
+know much about corn growing, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you know about all there is to know about corn growing to
+date," laughed Hiram. "But you certainly do not know how to select and
+test your seed. And then, as I told you back there when I bought of
+you, you were too good to the rats and the mice. Many a kernel of corn
+is planted the germ of which the sharp little teeth of the rodents have
+emasculated."</p>
+
+<p>Daniel Brown was not the only enthusiastic spectator of Hiram's corn.
+And the harvest bore out the promise, in spite of a heavy wind-storm
+that knocked down some of it. This that was blown down had glazed and
+was well matured. Hiram harvested it at once and sold it to fatten hogs
+at the market price.</p>
+
+<p>This was a small loss compared to the value of the entire crop. This
+year Sunnyside followed the methods of big corn growers, and most
+of the corn was husked on the standing stalk, the eager cattle being
+turned in to graze on the fodder.</p>
+
+<p>Fifty head of cattle marched off the farm that fall, stuffed with the
+cheapest kind of foods, and brought just as good a price as they would
+had they been winter-fattened with corn.</p>
+
+<p>It was agreed that only the new wheat should be raised on Sunnyside
+the coming year. The partnership in the Staff of Life Wheat still
+continued, and they expected to sell the crop for seed as high as ten
+dollars a bushel to the big wheat growers. Hiram's share of the profits
+of the first crop had been a little over four thousand dollars. He felt
+that he was actually a wealthy man!</p>
+
+<p>But he was thinking larger, and his mental view was much wider than
+when he had arrived at Sunnyside Farm. He wrote Sister that no small
+contract would ever satisfy him again. He heard of and saw farmers all
+through this corn belt making thirty and forty thousand dollars on a
+single crop.</p>
+
+<p>At the County Fair he met and talked with a young man no older than
+Orrin Post who had cleared that season more than ten thousand dollars
+from raising corn on shares!</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>"If a man can get hold of a thousand acres, work it with tractors and
+have ordinary good luck, in one season he can pay for his land,"
+Hiram wrote to his friends in the East. "It sounds big. It almost
+staggers one to think of it. It is a gamble!</p>
+
+<p>"But I feel that I have in me the pluck to take that gambler's chance.
+I am going to bide my time, but have my money ready. The money is in
+the great wheat fields of the Northwest. America must feed the world,
+and I want to do my part. Ten years of raising wheat in a big way will
+enable me to retire, if I wish to.</p>
+
+<p>"My father worked for other men all his life. I am going to be my own
+man before I get through. To this I set my hand and seal,</p>
+
+<p class="ph4">"Hiram Strong."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There was a wee note of anxiety, if not sorrow, in the return letter
+which Sister wrote. Those on the Atterson Eighty feared that Hiram
+Strong was getting altogether too far away from them.</p>
+
+<p>But there was something else in Sister's letter that struck Hiram much
+more sharply. It suggested a possibility that startled him, to say
+the least, and roused in his mind again much suspicion regarding the
+bewhiskered farmer, whose name, he believed, was "Orrin Post," and his
+own Orrin's connection with this man.</p>
+
+<p>Sister wrote:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>"What do you think, Hiram? My lawyer wrote me from Boston that perhaps
+I might have been near to my dear little lost brother when I was
+out there to see you and Miss Pringle. He writes that he traced poor
+little Marvin (or whatever his name may be) to the Middle West, and
+that a correspondent of his, whom he put on the case, writes that he
+believes the boy has been in your neighborhood. The western lawyer is
+named Eben Craddock."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">WHO IS THEODORE CHESTER?</p>
+
+
+<p>By this time the great corn crop was in the cribs and Sunnyside Farm
+was down to a winter basis. The crop had averaged sixty-five bushels
+of shelled corn to the acre, and only one other farm belonging to Mr.
+Bronson—and that a very well tilled one indeed—had done better, or as
+well.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram's success with corn (which was, indeed, the principal reason for
+his having been put in charge of the farm by Mr. Bronson) was all the
+more to be commended because of the conditions under which the young
+fellow had undertaken this present contract. Hiram had been obliged to
+change radically the methods of corn growing he had followed in the
+East.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the old-time farmer who hand-hoed his cornfield learned to
+throw away the hoe and use the cultivator, horse-hoe, and fluke-harrow,
+so these big corn growers had developed a method of cultivation quite
+at variance with that of the small farmer cultivating but a few acres.</p>
+
+<p>Hiram had discovered that by rotation of crops which kept down the
+weeds corn could be cultivated with a riding harrow drawn by two
+or three Percherons that could do twice the work in a day of three
+ordinary horses worked to single cultivators, and with the saving of
+two men's time.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to learning and following these new methods and in some
+cases improving on them, Hiram had kept more than a rough farm account.
+He knew his overhead charges against each crop. It cost him more per
+acre, for instance, to prepare his field for the seed corn he had shown
+Daniel Brown; but that particular field paid him in increased yield. It
+ran ten bushels per acre over the remainder of the farm.</p>
+
+<p>The cribs were bursting with corn. Mr. Bronson had long since got over
+his first objection to the red ear and the occasional mottled one.
+This corn would ship to any distance after it was well dried and lose
+practically no weight in the journey.</p>
+
+<p>He proposed to hold Hiram's crop this year until mid-winter, or later,
+when the price would certainly advance.</p>
+
+<p>"I am satisfied that your methods have made me money, Hiram," said his
+employer, on one occasion. "You don't know everything. Nobody does. But
+there is one very good thing about you. You are not too old to learn!"
+and Mr. Bronson laughed.</p>
+
+<p>However, all this occurred before that letter came from Sister which
+so excited Hiram's curiosity. That the same Cincinnati lawyer should
+have to do with the search for the lost Cheltenham boy and for the
+mysterious Theodore Chester, was a coincidence that, Hiram decided,
+must needs be looked into.</p>
+
+<p>"Strayed boys are not so common as all that," he thought.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down and wrote to Mr. Eben Craddock at the address the lawyer
+had given him, asking if he had found Theodore Chester, just who that
+mysterious individual was, and if the lost Cheltenham boy—first name
+unknown—had any connection with Mr. Craddock's former inquiry at
+Sunnyside Farm.</p>
+
+<p>As it chanced, another matter came up before Hiram received any reply
+from Craddock, which proved to be a very surprising incident and one
+that for the time being quite drove thought of his letter to Craddock
+out of Hiram's mind.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bronson was buying young stock—calves and yearlings—all the time
+to swell the number of the herd Hiram was feeding, and with which he
+was so successfully enriching Sunnyside. Sometimes the farm's owner, or
+one of his men, brought the new live stock to Hiram. At other times
+the former owners of the calves delivered them.</p>
+
+<p>It was on a day early in December that a big farm wagon with a
+cattle-rack in it was driven into the yard. The boys were living again
+in the house, and had the furnace fire going, for Mr. Bronson had just
+had the house decorated and wished it to be kept well heated. Hiram
+left his comfortable seat before the dining room register, and went out
+to meet the wagon. Orrin and Jim were both down at the cattle sheds.</p>
+
+<p>The moment Hiram drew near the wagon in which the calves bawled he
+recognized the driver and the latter knew him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well!" exclaimed the bewhiskered man whom Hiram believed to have
+been the employer of his assistant whom he knew as "Orrin Post." "Are
+you still here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am on the job still," answered Hiram smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"I was told to ask for Mr. Strong."</p>
+
+<p>"That is my name."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you do run this here Sunnyside Farm?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are correctly informed, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"And they tell me you've grown the biggest crop of corn and the
+heaviest wheat ever seen on this land," said the bearded man from
+beyond Pringleton.</p>
+
+<p>"We've done right well here this year."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well! Well, I've got six calves here, Mr. Stephen Bronson bought
+and told me to deliver to you."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Drive down that road beside the barn, if you will. We will
+unload them at the calf pens."</p>
+
+<p>He jumped upon the wagon at the rear to look at the calves and ride
+down to the place indicated. All the time he was wondering what would
+happen if the bewhiskered man should spy Orrin—if the real Orrin Post
+should confront the young man who claimed that name.</p>
+
+<p>Ought he to have prepared his friend for this meeting? Should he
+inquire of the farmer what the mystery was all about, anyway?</p>
+
+<p>Hiram remembered how Orrin had slipped out of the house and kept away
+when this farmer and the lawyer had appeared at Sunnyside the previous
+winter. What would he do now?</p>
+
+<p>And just then the teamster turned the trotting horses into the paddock
+and brought them to a standstill with a flourish.</p>
+
+<p>"Whoa, there!" he shouted. "Where do you want these calves put, Mr.
+Strong? Here, you—By crippity! how the deuce did you come here, Ted
+Chester?"</p>
+
+<p>Hiram jumped off the rear of the wagon and ran around. Leaning on a
+fork the young man he knew as Orrin Post confronted the farmer.</p>
+
+<p>"So it is you, is it, Mr. Post?" the younger man said.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to say you've been here all this time? And that lawyer and me
+have been right here and asked—"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he swung to look at Hiram. He shook a finger at him.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you mean by telling me and that lawyer you didn't know this
+fellow?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not. You did not make me understand that this was the man you
+were looking for," declared Hiram without looking at his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"You were holding out on us," said the farmer. "You made me lose a
+fifty-dollar note."</p>
+
+<p>"How is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"That lawyer promised it to me if we found Ted, here. And now I don't
+suppose he'll give a cent."</p>
+
+<p>"Anybody would be mighty foolish to give fifty dollars for me," broke
+in the man who appeared to be the missing Theodore Chester.</p>
+
+<p>"What do they want you for, anyway?" Hiram demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know?" Hiram asked the original Orrin Post.</p>
+
+<p>"That lawyer did not tell me. But if this fellow, Ted Chester, hadn't
+left me flat—"</p>
+
+<p>"If you hadn't put me out when I was taken sick, I suppose you would
+have got the reward," said the accused.</p>
+
+<p>"But why should anybody offer a reward for you?" Hiram asked him again.</p>
+
+<p>"Because they want me, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"What do they want you for? And who wants you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Humph! I'm not going to tell everybody that," said the other, with a
+side glance at the bearded man, indicating that Post was the person he
+did not care to confide in.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, is your name Theodore Chester?" Hiram asked in some desperation.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it is. At least, that is what I have always called myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Now you know, Ted, I always treated you right," began the bearded man.</p>
+
+<p>But Hiram stopped him. He waved a commanding hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Get those calves into that pen. If Ted wants to talk to you, he can
+do so afterward. But it doesn't seem to me as though it was any of our
+business whether he is Ted Chester or somebody else."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I tell you right now," growled the farmer. "I ain't going to
+lose that fifty if I can help it."</p>
+
+<p>When the calves were unloaded and the real Orrin Post had driven away
+grumbling, Ted Chester—if that was his name—turned to look at Hiram
+in rather a sheepish fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you think it's up to me to explain, Strong?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I am curious," admitted Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, you, thinking my name was Orrin Post until now—"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I might as well tell you that I suspected you had been known as
+Ted Chester about a year ago," interrupted Hiram, and he told him how
+he had come to that belief.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it is a fact. That was Orrin Post. I worked for him. He is
+the man who chased me when I was sick. I don't know how I came to
+give you his name, unless it was because he was on my mind. And in my
+opinion—then, at least—one name was as good as another."</p>
+
+<p>"Was there any reason why you were afraid to use this one of Chester?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only that I did not want to be traced."</p>
+
+<p>"By whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"By anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you knew," said Hiram thoughtfully, "that somebody was after you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was told so."</p>
+
+<p>"Who does that lawyer represent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hang it all, Hiram!" exclaimed the other, "I have been in a reform
+school. Back East. I ran away. I never had any bringing up—much. Only
+for a couple of years I lived with nice people. Then I got into trouble
+and was arrested. I stayed in the reform school some time."</p>
+
+<p>"This must have happened a good while ago," guessed Hiram shrewdly.</p>
+
+<p>"I was only nineteen when I ran away from the institution."</p>
+
+<p>"The authorities cannot be searching for you through that lawyer,"
+declared Hiram. "It must be for something else you are wanted."</p>
+
+<p>"I—I never thought of that," murmured his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Who were your people?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. First I remember I was in an orphanage."</p>
+
+<p>"Just like Sister."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so," said the other.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know 'Theodore Chester' is your name?" demanded Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that is what they called me. No! Not altogether," he added. "I
+saw the books once and I know they had me down as 'Ted C.' They always
+called me Ted. I named myself Chester."</p>
+
+<p>"Just as Sister names her brother—and herself for that matter,"
+muttered Hiram. "Say, Orrin—I mean, Ted! Suppose your name should be
+the same as Sister's?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, Strong?" cried the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose your real name is 'Cheltenham,' too?" propounded Hiram Strong
+shrewdly. "Stranger things have happened, don't you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me? You mean that I may be Sister's brother?" demanded Ted. "What
+nonsense! Why, she told me her brother was a little boy—younger than
+she is."</p>
+
+<p>"Lots she knows about it!" rejoined Hiram excitedly. "She doesn't
+know anything more about her brother than you know about yourself.
+Orrin—Ted—whatever your name is. This matter has got to be looked
+into! Right away, too!"</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">LOOKING AHEAD</p>
+
+
+<p>Later the reticent Ted opened his heart to his friend and told him of
+all his checkered life previous to his coming to Sunnyside Farm.</p>
+
+<p>It was by no means a strange story; except that he was forced to live
+in a public institution, the management of which chanced to be in
+rather hard, unsympathetic hands.</p>
+
+<p>Theodore could remember a little of what had happened to him before he
+was incarcerated in that first institution with its stone walls and
+strict discipline, and a government scarcely paternal.</p>
+
+<p>He could remember that he had had a little sister, too, whom he loved
+very much and whom he looked after and carried about in his arms. But
+they had taken her from him in the orphanage and he had become "Ted C."
+He never was allowed to see his little sister again.</p>
+
+<p>At twelve years old he was taken by a family who treated him well and
+who sent him to school and taught him for a few short years what the
+"worth while" things in life were. Then illness and death in the family
+cost the boy his home, and he had to struggle for himself. He was soon
+picked up by the police and the magistrate sent him to the reform
+school, as there was nobody to speak for him.</p>
+
+<p>How Ted had kept a clean heart during these troubled years was a
+mystery. There was something, Hiram believed, innately good in the
+fellow. Like Sister, he possessed traits of character that disposed him
+toward good rather than toward evil.</p>
+
+<p>But his experiences made him reticent and suspicious. After he ran away
+from the reform school he never wholly trusted people he met. In the
+city he was always in fear of the police, as well as of his associates
+in the reform school who likewise had got out. He was afraid they would
+get him into further trouble. So he went out into the country and
+worked his way west from farm to farm.</p>
+
+<p>That he really was Theodore Cheltenham was soon established through
+letters from the Eastern lawyer who had the matter in charge. At
+Christmas time both he and Hiram were relieved from duty, and they went
+to Scoville to spend the holidays at the Atterson farm and to settle
+with the lawyer about the legacy left to Ted and his sister.</p>
+
+<p>Sister's name, by the way, was Mary, but she always called herself
+"Mary Cecilia."</p>
+
+<p>"Now I've got money and a brother, both," Sister said to Hiram, "I am
+somebody. I wish Mr. Fred Crackit and Mr. Peebles and all those others
+at the boarding house in Crawberry knew about it—and that boy who used
+to pull my pigtails so.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me, Hiram Strong, what a lucky girl I am."</p>
+
+<p>She would have been glad to keep her brother with her in the East, for
+she was very fond of him already. But Theodore's thoughts were set on
+Sunnyside. He had immediately written to Mr. Bronson, making an offer
+for the farm, having money enough as his share of his grandmother's
+legacy to make a first payment on the place. And, in time, Sunnyside
+Farm became Ted Cheltenham's property.</p>
+
+<p>The two young fellows returned to Pringleton after New Year's to take
+up their work. Hiram's contract with Mr. Bronson had still some months
+to run, and it was arranged that he should put in the corn crop and
+continue a personal oversight of the farm until after wheat harvest.
+For Hiram had a stake in that wheat crop; and while he was making
+arrangements for his own great venture, the particulars of which will
+be related in "Hiram in the Great Northwest," he intended to keep a
+sharp eye on Yancey Battick's famous wheat.</p>
+
+<p>That winter, whenever it was open weather, both Hiram and Battick
+searched the fields for the pest that had attacked the Staff of Life
+Wheat during the previous season. Some of the farmers around the Banks
+place had their grain well-nigh eaten up by the pest, but none appeared
+again on Sunnyside. There was no danger of Adam Banks spreading the
+grain louse to other fields, if he had been guilty of it before, for
+Banks had finally come to the attention of the police and had been put
+in jail.</p>
+
+<p>"And the right place for him," declared Miss Pringle. "He has made
+trouble enough about here."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Pringle's own interest in the new wheat was abiding since she had
+helped in its sale during the summer. And by this time she showed an
+inordinate interest in everything belonging to Yancey Battick.</p>
+
+<p>The latter had "spruced up," as Hiram called it, a good deal of late.
+He was no longer playing the hermit. His success with the Staff of Life
+Wheat made him forget his failure with the Mortgage Lifter Oats, and
+really made a new man of Yancey Battick.</p>
+
+<p>"And mark my words," Ted Cheltenham said, laughing, when Hiram said
+this, "that new man is looking for a new woman. I can't go over to
+Delia's in the evening without finding Yancey Battick occupying her
+best rocker. I don't know but Abigail will leave Miss Pringle flat. She
+still believes Battick has the evil eye."</p>
+
+<p>This winter did not pass without Hiram being invited to one of Lettie
+Bronson's parties. This time the young girl saw to it that Ted was
+asked too, for she rode up to Sunnyside herself to deliver the
+invitation to the social function by word of mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Of course they agreed to go. Hiram would not have hurt Lettie's
+feelings for anything, and she was much in earnest. As for Ted, he
+seemed to have prepared for this very occasion while he was East.</p>
+
+<p>At least, he displayed a handsome suit of evening clothes and asked
+Hiram if he was not going to wear his own dress suit. Hiram hauled the
+suit in question out of his trunk and carefully examined it. In his
+eyes the clothes looked just the same as they had when he laid them
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Jim," he said to Larry. "You and I are about of a size. I make
+you a free-will offering of these—pants, coat and vest! Somehow, I
+don't fancy my appearance in the 'soup to nuts.' My figure is not built
+right for such garments. I am sure no tailor could make Hiram Strong
+look as though he belonged in a suit of this kind."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps he was right. At least, nobody considered him out of place when
+he arrived at the Bronson house and appeared as one of the few men who
+were not in evening dress.</p>
+
+<p>In another matter Hiram showed wisdom on this occasion. Lettie was just
+as kind to him as she always had been. He might have had three or four
+dances with her. He accepted two, and sat them out with her in a corner
+of the conservatory, although Ted Cheltenham danced with every girl he
+could find—and danced well.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a funny boy, Hiram Strong," said Lettie, looking at him
+curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"How so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, preferring to sit here rather than to getting out on that
+beautifully waxed floor," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I would be 'funnier' there than I look here," he replied grimly. "I
+know my failings better than I used to, Lettie."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Hiram!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I do. I am only going to tackle in the future what I have a fair
+chance to accomplish."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot imagine you as a failure in anything, Hiram," she, told him
+very prettily.</p>
+
+<p>"No? I can imagine myself failing in lots of things."</p>
+
+<p>"But not in this new venture you are making? Father says you have
+wonderful pluck to attempt to go out into that strange country and risk
+your last cent on a wheat ranch."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it does look like a gamble," admitted Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>"And father says he would be glad to help you get started here, as
+Orrin—I mean, Theodore—is starting."</p>
+
+<p>"It is kind of your father, I know," agreed Hiram. "But I guess I am
+in a hurry. I may be glad to come back and take a job with your father
+again. But it will only be after I have spent every cent I own on this
+new venture."</p>
+
+<p>"And you have made good here, Hiram," she said, with some wistfulness
+in her voice and her look. "Don't you think you would better stay?"</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't think of it, Lettie. My plans are all made."</p>
+
+<p>"Not—not if all your friends here asked you to?" she ventured.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I am sure," Hiram laughed, but remembering in secret how Sister
+had finally wished him Godspeed, "that none of my real friends would
+want to keep me back from this thing, when I am so set on it and have
+been so long planning for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, perhaps not," she sighed. "Here comes Theodore, looking for me,
+Hiram. I have promised him the next dance."</p>
+
+<p>She arose, and Hiram watched her float away in the arms of his friend.
+For a moment he felt a stab of—was it jealousy? Or was it just a
+feeling of homesickness as he contemplated so soon leaving everybody
+he knew and cared for, to lose himself in the vast wheat fields of the
+Great Northwest?</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph3">THE END</p>
+
+<p class="ph3">[Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation left as printed.]</p>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75408 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #75408 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75408)