Mr. Peebles had been a fixture at Mother Atterson's for nearly ten years. Only Old Lem Camp had been longer at the place.

The latter was the only boarder who had no adverse criticism for the mistress's new move. Indeed this evening Mr. Camp said nothing whatever; even his usual mumblings to himself were not heard.

He ate slowly, and but little. He was still sitting at the table when all the others had departed.

Mrs. Atterson started into the dining-room with her own supper between two plates when she saw the old man sitting there despondent in looks and attitude, his head resting on one clawlike hand, his elbow on the soiled table cloth.

He did not look up, nor move. The mistress glanced back over her shoulder, and there was Sister, sniffling and occasionally rubbing her wrist into her red eyes as she scraped the tower of plates from the dinner table.

"My soul and body!" gasped Mother Atterson, almost dropping her supper on the floor. "There's Sister—and there's Old Lem Camp! Whatever will I do with 'em?"

Meanwhile Hiram Strong had already left for the farm on the Wednesday previous. The other boarders knew nothing about his agreement with Mother Atterson; he had agreed to go to the place and begin work, and take care of the stock and all, "choring for himself", as the good lady called it, until she could complete her city affairs and move herself and her personal chattels to the farm.

Hiram bore a note to the woman who had promised to care for the Atterson place, and money to pay her what the boarding-house mistress had agreed.

"You can 'bach' it in the house as well as poor old Uncle Jeptha did, I reckon," this woman told the youth.

She showed him where certain provisions were—the pork barrel, ham and bacon of the old man's curing, and the few vegetables remaining from the winter's store.

"The cow was about gone dry, anyway," said the woman, Mrs. Larriper, who was a widow and lived with her married daughter some half-mile down the road toward Scoville, "so I didn't bother to milk her.

"You'll have to go to town to buy grain, if you want to feed her up—and for the chickens and the horse. The old man didn't make much of a crop last year—or them shiftless Dickersons didn't make much for him.

"I saw Sam Dickerson around here this morning. He borrowed some of the old man's tools when Uncle Jeptha was sick, and you'll have to go after 'em, I reckon.

"Sam's the best borrower that ever was; but he never can remember to bring things back. He says it's bad enough to have to borrow; it's too much to expect the same man to return what he borrows.

"Now, Mrs. Dickerson," pursued Mrs. Larriper, "was as nice a girl before she married—she was a Stepney—as ever walked in shoe-leather. And I guess she'd be right friendly with the neighbors if Sam would let her.

"But the poor thing never gits to go out—no, sir! She's jest tied to the house. They lost a child once—four year ago. That's the only time I remember of seeing Sarah Stepney in church since the day she was married—and she's got a boy—Pete—as old as you be.

"Now, on the other side o' ye there's Darrell's tract, and you won't have no trouble there, for there ain't a house on his place, and he lets it lie idle. Waiting for a rise in price, I 'spect.

"Some rich folks is comin' in and buying up pieces of land and making what they calls 'gentlemen's estates' out o' them. A family named Bronson—Mr. Stephen Bronson, with one little girl—bought the Fleigler place only last month.

"They're nice folks," pursued this amiable but talkative lady, "and they don't live but a mile or so along the Scoville road. You passed the place—white, with green shutters, and a water-tower in the back, when you walked up."

"I remember it," said Hiram, nodding.

"They're western folk. Come clear from out in Injiany, or Illiny, or the like. The girl's going to school and she ain't got no mother, so her father's come on East with her to be near the school.

"Well, I can't help you no more. Them hens! Well, I'd sell 'em if I was Mis' Atterson.

"Hens ain't much nowadays, anyhow; and I expect a good many of those are too old to lay. Uncle Jeptha couldn't fuss with chickens, and he didn't raise only a smitch of 'em last year and the year before—just them that the hens hatched themselves in stolen nests, and chanced to bring up alive.

"You better grease the cart before you use it. It's stood since they hauled in corn last fall.

"And look out for Dickerson. Ask him for the things he borrowed. You'll need 'em, p'r'aps, if you're goin' to do any farmin' for Mis' Atterson."

She bustled away. Hiram thought he had heard enough about his neighbors for a while, and he went out to look over the pasture fencing, which was to be his first repair job. He would have that ready to turn the cow and her calf into as soon as the grass began to grow.

He rummaged about in what had been half woodshed and half workshop in Uncle Jeptha's time, and found a heavy claw-hammer, a pair of wire cutters, and a pocket full of fence staples.

With this outfit he prepared to follow the line fence, which was likewise the pasture fence on the west side, between Mrs. Atterson's and Dickerson's.

Where he could, he mended the broken strands of wire. In other places the wires had sagged and were loose. The claw-hammer fixed these like a charm. Slipping the wire into the claw, a single twist of the wrist would usually pick up the sag and make the wire taut again at that point.

He drove a few staples, as needed, as he walked along. The pasture partook of the general conformation of the farm—it was rather long and narrow.

It had grown to clumps of bushes in spots, and there was sufficient shade. But he did not come to the water until he reached the lower end of the lot.

The branch trickled from a spring, or springs, farther east. It made an elbow at the corner of the pasture—the lower south-west corner—and there a water-hole had been scooped out at some past time.

This waterhole was deep enough for all purposes, and was shaded by a great oak that had stood there long before the house belonging to Jeptha Atterson had been built.

Here Hiram struck something that puzzled him. The boundary fence crossed this water-hole at a tangent, and recrossed to the west bank of the outflowing branch a few yards below, leaving perhaps half of the water-hole upon the neighbor's side of the fence.

Some of this wire at the water-hole was practically new. So were the posts. And after a little Hiram traced the line of old postholes which had followed a straight line on the west side of the water-hole.

In other words, this water-privilege for Dickerson's land was of recent arrangement—so recent indeed, that the young farmer believed he could see some fresh-turned earth about the newly-set posts.

"That's something to be looked into, I am afraid," thought Hiram, as he moved along the southern pasture fence.

But the trickle of the branch beckoned him; he had not found the fountain-head of the little stream when he had walked over a part of the timbered land with Henry Pollock, and now he struck into the open woods again, digging into the soil here and there with his heavy boot, marking the quality and age of the timber, and casting-up in his mind the possibilities and expense of clearing these overgrown acres.

"Mrs. Atterson may have a very valuable piece of land here in time," muttered Hiram. "A sawmill set up in here could cut many a hundred thousand feet of lumber—and good lumber, too. But it would spoil the beauty of the farm."

However, as must ever be in the case of the utility farm, the house was set on its ugliest part. The cleared fields along the road had nothing but the background of woods on the south and east to relieve their monotony.

On the brow of the steeper descent, which he had noted on his former visit to the back end of the farm, he found a certain clearing in the wood. Here the pines surrounded the opening on three sides.

To the south, through a break in the wooded hillside, he obtained a far-reaching view of the river valley as it lay, to the east and to the west. The prospect was delightful.

Here and there, on the farther bank of the river, which rose less abruptly there than on this side, lay several cheerful looking farmsteads. The white dwellings and outbuildings dotted the checkered fields of green and brown.

Cowbells tinkled in the distance, for the weather tempted farmers to let their cattle run in the pastures even so early in the season. A horse whinnied shrilly to a mate in a distant field.

The creaking of the heavy wheels of a laden farm-cart was a mellow sound in Hiram's ears. Beyond a fir plantation, high on the hillside, the sharply outlined steeple of a little church lay against the soft blue horizon.

"A beauty-spot!" Hiram muttered. "What a site for a home! And yet people want to build their houses right on an automobile road, and in sight of the rural mail box!"

His imagination began to riot, spurred by the outlook and by the nearer prospect of wood and hillside. The sun now lay warmly upon him as he sat upon a stump and drank in the beauty of it all.

After a time his ear, becoming attuned to the multitudinous voices of the wood, descried the silvery note of falling water. He arose and traced the sound.

Less than twenty yards away, and not far from the bluff, a vigorous rivulet started from beneath the half-bared roots of a monster beech, and fell over an outcropping boulder into a pool so clear that sand on its bottom, worked mysteriously into a pattern by the action of the water, lay revealed.

Hiram knelt on a mossy rock beside the pool, and bending put his lips to the water. It was the sweetest, most satisfying drink, he had imbibed for many a day.

But the morning was growing old, and Hiram wanted to trace the farther line of the farm. He went down to the river, crossed the open meadow again where they had built the campfire the morning before, and found the deeply scarred oak which stood exactly on the boundary line between the Atterson and Darrell tracts.

He turned to the north, and followed the line as nearly as might be. The Darrell tract was entirely wooded, and when he reached the uplands he kept on in the shadowy aisles of the sap-pines which covered his neighbor's property.

He came finally to where the ground fell away again, and the yellow, deeply-rutted road lay at his feet. The winter had played havoc with the automobile track.

The highway was unfenced and the bank dropped fifteen feet to the beaten path. A leaning oak overhung the road and Hiram lingered here, lying on its broad trunk, face upward, with his hat pulled over his eyes to shield them from the sunlight which filtered through the branches.

This land hereabout was beautiful. The boy could appreciate the beauty as well as the utility of the soil. It was so pleasing to the eye that he wished with all his heart it had been his own land he had surveyed.

"And I'll not be a tenant farmer all my life, nor a farm-foreman, as father was," determined the boy. "I'll get ahead. If I work for the benefit of other people for a few years, surely I'll win the chance in time to at last work for myself."

In the midst of his ruminations a sound broke upon his ear—a jarring note in the peaceful murmur of the woodland life. It was the thud of a horse's hoofs.

Not the sedate tunk-tunk of iron-shod feet on the damp earth, but an erratic and rapid pounding of hoof-beats which came on with such startling swiftness that Hiram sat up instantly, and craned his neck to see up the road.

"That horse is running away!" gasped the young farmer, and he swung himself out upon the lowest branch of the leaning tree which overhung the carttrack, the better to see along the highway.



CHAPTER XI. A GIRL RIDES INTO THE TALE

There was no bend in the highway for some distance, but the overhanging trees masked the track completely, save for a few hundred yards. The horse, whether driven or running at large, was plainly spurred by fright.

Into the peacefulness of this place its hoof-beats were bringing the element of peril.

Lying prostrate on the sloping trunk, Hiram could see much farther up the road. The outstretched head and lathered breast of a tall bay horse leaped into view, and like a picture in a kinetoscope, growing larger and more vivid second by second, the maddened animal came down the road.

Hiram could see that the beast was not riderless, but it was a moment or two—a long-drawn, anxious space of heart-beaten seconds—ere he realized what manner of rider it was who clung so desperately to the masterless creature.

"It's a girl—a little girl!" gasped Hiram.

She was only a speck of color, with white, drawn face, on the back of the racing horse.

Every plunge of the oncoming animal shook the little figure as though it must fall from the saddle. But Hiram could see that she hung with phenomenal pluck to the broken bridle and to the single horn of her side-saddle.

If the horse fell, or if she were shaken free, she would be flung to instant death, or be fearfully bruised under the pounding hoofs of the big horse.

The young farmer's appreciation of the peril was instant; unused as he was to meeting such emergency, there was neither panic nor hesitancy in his actions.

He writhed farther out upon the limb of the leaning oak until he was direct above the road. The big bay naturally kept to the middle, for there was no obstruction in its path.

To have dropped to the highway would have put Hiram to instant disadvantage; for before he could have recovered himself after the drop the horse would have been upon him.

Now, swinging with both legs wrapped around the tough limb, and his left hand gripping a smaller branch, but with his back to the plunging brute, the youth glanced under his right armpit to judge the distance and the on-rush of the horse and its helpless rider.

He knew she saw him. Swift as was the steed's approach, Hiram had seen the change come into the expression of the girl's face.

"Clear your foot of the stirrup!" he shouted, hoping the girl would understand.

With a confusing thunder of hoofbeats the bay came on—was beneath him—had passed!

Hiram's right arm shot out, curved slightly, and as his fingers gripped her sleeve, the girl let go. She was whisked out of the saddle and the horse swept on without her.

The strain of the girl's slight weight upon his arm lasted but a moment, for Hiram let go with his feet, swung down, and dropped.

They alighted in the roadway with so slight a jar that he scarcely staggered, but set the girl down gently, and for the passing of a breath her body swayed against him, seeking support.

Then she sprang a little away, and they stood looking at each other—Hiram panting and flushed, the girl with wide-open eyes out of which the terror had not yet faded, and cheeks still colorless.

So they stood, for fully half a minute, speechless, while the thunder of the bay's hoofs passed further and further away and finally was lost in the distance.

And it wasn't excitement that kept the boy dumb; for that was all over, and he had been as cool as need be through the incident. But it was unbounded amazement that made him stare so at the slight girl confronting him.

He had seen her brilliant, dark little face before. Only once—but that one occasion had served to photograph her features on his memory.

For the second time he had been of service to her; but he knew instantly—and the fact did not puzzle him—that she did not recognize him.

It had been so dark in the unlighted side street back in Crawberry the evening of their first meeting that Hiram believed (and was glad) that neither she nor her father would recognize him as the boy who had kept their carriage from going into the open ditch.

And he had played rescuer again—and in a much more heroic manner. This was the daughter of the man whom he had thought to be a prosperous farmer, and whose card Hiram had lost.

He had hoped the gentleman might have a job for him; but now Hiram was not looking for a job. He had given himself heartily to the project of making the old Atterson farm pay; nor was he the sort of fellow to show fickleness in such a project.

Before either Hiram or the girl broke the silence—before that silence could become awkward, indeed—there started into hearing the ring of rapid hoofbeats again. But it was not the runaway returning.

The mate of the latter appeared, and he came jogging along the road, very much in hand, the rider seemingly quite unflurried.

This was a big, ungainly, beak-nosed boy, whose sleeves were much too short, and trousers-legs likewise, to hide Nature's abundant gift to him in the matter of bone and knuckle. He was freckled and wore a grin that was not even sheepish.

Somehow, this stolidity and inappreciation of the peril the girl had so recently escaped, made Hiram feel sudden indignation.

But the girl herself took the lout to task—before Hiram could say a word.

"I told you that horse could not bear the whip, Peter!" she exclaimed, with wrathful gaze. "How dared you strike him?"

"Aw—I only touched him up a bit," drawled the youth. "You said you could ride anything, didn't you?" and his grin grew wider. "But I see ye had to get off."

Here Hiram could stand it no longer, and he blurted out:

"She might have been killed! I believe that horse is running yet——"

"Well, why didn't you stop it?" demanded the other youth, "impudently. You had a chance."

"He saved me," cried the girl, looking at Hiram now with shining eyes. "I don't know how to thank him."

"He might have stopped the horse while he was about it," growled the fellow, picking up his own reins again. "Now I'll have to ride after it."

"You'd better," said the little lady, sharply. "If father knew that horse had run away with me he would be dreadfully put out. You hurry after him, Peter."

The lout never said a word in reply, but his horse carried him swiftly out of sight in the wake of the runaway. Then the girl turned again to Hiram and the young farmer knew that he was being keenly examined by her bright black eyes.

"I am very sure father will not keep him," declared the girl, looking at Hiram thoughtfully. "He is too careless—and I don't like him, anyway. Do you live around here?"

"I expect to," replied Hiram, smiling. "I have just come. I am going to stay at this next house, along the road."

"Oh! where the old gentleman died last week?"

"Yes. Mrs. Atterson was left the place by her uncle, and I am going to run it for her."

"Oh, dear! then you've got a place to work?" queried the little lady, with plain disappointment in her tone. "I am sure father would like to have you instead of Peter."

But Hiram shook his head slowly, though still smiling,

"I'm obliged to you," he said; "but I have agreed to stop with Mrs. Atterson for a time."

"I want father to meet you just the same," she declared.

She had a way about her that impressed Hiram with the idea that she seldom failed in getting what she wanted. If she was not a spoiled child, she certainly was a very much indulged one.

But she was pretty! Dark, petite, with a brilliant smile, flashing eyes, and a riot of blue-black curls, she was verily the daintiest and prettiest little creature the young farmer had ever seen.

"I am Lettie Bronson," she said, frankly. "I live down the road toward Scoville. We have only just come here."

"I know where you live," said Hiram, smiling and nodding.

"You must come and see us. I want you to know father. He's the very nicest man there is, I think."

"He came all the way East here so as to live near my school—I go to the St. Beris school in Scoville. It's awfully nice, and the girls are very fashionable; but I'd be too lonely to live if daddy wasn't right near me all the time.

"What is your name?" she asked suddenly.

Hiram told her.

"Why! that's a regular farmer's name, isn't it—Hiram?" and she laughed—a clear and sweet sound, that made an inquisitive squirrel that had been watching them scamper away to his hollow, chattering.

"I don't know about that," returned the young farmer, shaking his head and smiling. "I ought by good rights to be 'a worker in brass', according to the Bible. That was the trade of Hiram, of the tribe of Naphtali, who came out of Tyre to make all the brass work for Solomon's temple."

"Oh! and there was a King Hiram, of Tyre, too, wasn't there," cried Lettie, laughing. "You might be a king, you know."

"That seems to be an unprofitable trade now-a-days," returned the young fellow, shaking his head. "I think I will be the namesake of Hiram, the brass-smith, for it is said of him that he was 'filled with wisdom and understanding' and that is what I want to be if I am going to run Mrs. Atterson's farm and make it pay."

"You're a funny boy," said the girl, eyeing him furiously. "You're—you're not at all like Pete—or these other boys about Scoville."

"And that Pete Dickerson isn't any good at all! I shall tell daddy all about how he touched up that horse and made him run. Here he comes now!"

They had been walking steadily along the road toward the Atterson house, and in the direction the runaway had taken. Pete Dickerson appeared, riding one of the bays and leading the one that had been frightened.

The latter was all of a lather, was blowing hard, and before the horses reached them, Hiram saw that the runaway was in bad shape.

"Hold on!" he cried to the lout. "Breathe that horse a while. Let him stand. He ought to be rubbed down, too. Don't you see the shape he is in?"

"Aw, what's eatin' you?" demanded Pete, eyeing the speaker with much disfavor.

The horse, when he stopped, was trembling all over. His nostrils were dilated and as red as blood, and strings of foam were dripping from his bit.

"Don't let him stand there in the shade," spoke Hiram, more "mildly. He'll take a chill. Here! let me have him."

He approached the still frightened horse, and Pete jerked the bridle-rein. The horse started back and snorted.

"Stand 'round there, ye 'tarnal nuisance!" exclaimed Pete.

But Hiram caught the bridle and snatched it from the other fellow's hand.

"Just let me manage him a minute," said Hiram, leading the horse into the sunshine.

He patted him, and soothed him, and the horse ceased trembling and his ears pricked up. Hiram, still keeping the reins in his hand, loosened the cinches and eased the saddle so that the animal could breathe better.

There were bunches of dried sage-grass growing by the roadside, and the young farmer tore off a couple of these bunches and used them to wipe down the horse's legs. Pretty soon the creature forgot his fright and looked like a normal horse again.

"If he was mine I'd give him whip a-plenty—till he learned better," drawled Pete Dickerson, finally.

"Don't you ever dare touch him with the whip again!" cried the girl, stamping her foot. "He will not stand it. You were told——"

"Aw, well," said the fellow, "'I didn't think he was going to cut up as bad as that. These Western horses ain't more'n half broke, anyway."

"I think he is perfectly safe for you to ride now, Miss Bronson," said Hiram, quietly. "I'll give you a hand up. But walk him home, please."

He had tightened the cinches again. Lettie put her tiny booted foot in his hand (she wore a very pretty dark green habit) and with perfect ease the young farmer lifted her into the saddle.

"Good-bye—and thank you again!" she said, softly, giving him her free hand just as the horse started.

"Say! you're the fellow who's going to live at Atterson's place?" observed Pete. "I'll see you later," and he waved his hand airily as he rode off.

"So that's Pete Dickerson, is it?" ruminated Hiram, as he watched the horses out of sight. "Well, if his father, Sam, is anything like him, we certainly have got a sweet pair of neighbors!"



CHAPTER XII. SOMETHING ABOUT A PASTURE FENCE

That afternoon Hiram hitched up the old horse and drove into town.

He went to see the lawyer who had transacted Uncle Jeptha Atterson's small business in the old man's lifetime, and had made his will—Mr. Strickland. Hiram judged that this gentleman would know as much about the Atterson place as anybody.

"No—Mr. Atterson never said anything to me about giving a neighbor water-rights," the lawyer said. "Indeed, Mr. Atterson was not a man likely to give anything away—until he had got through with it himself.

"Dickerson once tried to buy a right at that corner of the Atterson pasture; but he and the old gentleman couldn't come to terms.

"Dickerson has no water on his place, saving his well and his rights on the river. It makes it bad for him, I suppose; but I do not advise Mrs. Atterson to let that fence stand. Give that sort of a man an inch and he'll take a mile."

"But what shall I do?"

"That's professional advice, young man," returned the lawyer, "smiling. But I will give it to you without charge.

"Merely go and pull the new posts up and replace them on the line. If Dickerson interferes with you, come to me and we'll have him bound over before the Justice of the Peace.

"You represent Mrs. Atterson and are within her rights. That's the best I can tell you."

Now, Hiram was not desirous of starting any trouble—legal or otherwise—with a neighbor; but neither did he wish to see anybody take advantage of his old boarding mistress. He knew that, beside farming for her, he would probably have to defend her from many petty annoyances like the present case.

So he bought the wire he needed for repairs, a few other things that were necessary, and drove back to the farm, determined to go right ahead and await the consequences.

Among his purchases was an axe. In the workshop on the farm was a fairly good grindstone; only the treadle was broken and Hiram had to repair this before he could make much headway in grinding the axe. Henry Pollock lived too far away to be called upon in such a small emergency.

Being obliged to work alone sharpens one's wits. The young farmer had to resort to shifts and expedients on every hand, as he went along.

The day before, while wandering in the wood, he had marked several white oaks of the right size for posts. He would have preferred cedars, of course; but those trees were scarce on the Atterson tract—and they might be needed for some more important job later on.

When he came up to the house at noon to feed the stock and make his own frugal meal in the farm house kitchen, the posts were cut. After dinner he harnessed the horse to the farm wagon, and went down for the posts, taking the rolls of wire along to drop beside the fence.

The horse was a steady, willing creature, and seemed to have no tricks. He did not drive very well on the road, of course; but that wasn't what they needed a horse for.

Driving was a secondary matter.

Hiram loaded his posts and hauled them to the pasture, driving inside the fence line and dropping a post wherever one had rotted out.

Yet posts that had rotted at the ground were not so easy to draw out, as the young farmer very well knew, and he set his wits to work to make the removal of the old posts easy of accomplishment.

He found an old, but strong, carpenter's horse in the shed, to act as a fulcrum, and a seasoned bar of hickory as a lever. There was never an old farm yet that didn't have a useful heap of junk, and Hiram had already scratched over Uncle Jeptha's collection of many years' standng.

He found what he sought in a wrought iron band some half inch in thickness with a heavy hook attached to it by a single strong link. He fitted this band upon the larger end of the hickory bar, wedging it tightly into place.

A short length of trace chain completed his simple post-puller. And he could easily carry the outfit from place to place as it was needed.

When he found a weak or rotting post, he pulled the staples that held the strands of wire to it and and then set the trestle alongside the post. Resting the lever on the trestle, he dropped the end link of the chain on the hook, looped the chain around the post, and hooked on with another link. Bearing down on the lever brought the post out of the ground every time.

With a long-handled spade Hiram cleaned out the old holes, or enlarged them, and set his new posts, one after the other. He left the wires to be tightened and stapled later.

It was not until the next afternoon that he worked down as far as the water-hole. Meanwhile he had seen nothing of the neighbors and neither knew, nor cared, whether they were watching him or not.

But it was evident that the Dickersons had kept tabs on the young farmer's progress, for, he had no more than pulled the posts out of the water-hole and started to reset them on the proper line, than the long-legged Pete Dickerson appeared.

"Hey, you!" shouted Pete. "What are you monkeying with that line fence for?"

"Because I won't have time to fix it later," responded Hiram, calmly.

"Fresh Ike, ain't yer?" demanded young Dickerson.

He was half a head taller than Hiram, and plainly felt himself safe in adopting bullying tactics.

"You put them posts back where you found 'em and string the wires again in a hurry—or I'll make yer."

"This is Mrs. Atterson's fence," said Hiram, quietly. "I have made inquiries about the line, and I know where it belongs."

"No part of this water-hole belongs on your side of the fence, Dickerson, and as long as I represent Mrs. Atterson it's not going to be grabbed."

"Say! the old man gave my father the right to a part of this hole long ago."

"Show your legal paper to that effect," promptly suggested Hiram. "Then we will let it stand until the lawyers decide the matter."

Pete was silent for a minute; meanwhile Hiram continued to dig his hole, and finally set the first post into place.

"I tell you to take that post out o' there, Mister," exclaimed Pete, suddenly approaching the other. "I don't like you, anyway. You helped git me turned off up there to Bronson's yesterday. If you wouldn't have put your fresh mouth in about the horse that gal wouldn't have knowed so much to tell her father. Now you stop foolin' with this fence or I'll lick you."

Hiram Strong's disposition was far from being quarrelsome. He only laughed at first and said:

"Why, that won't do you any good in the end, Peter. Thrashing me won't give you and your father the right to usurp rights at this water-hole.

"There was very good reason, as I can see, for old Mr. Atterson refusing to let you water your stock here. In time of drouth the branch probably furnished no more water than his own cattle needed. And it will be the same with my employer."

"You'd better have less talk about it, and set back them posts," declared Pete, decidedly, laying off his coat and pulling up his shirt sleeves.

"I hope you won't try anything foolish, Peter," said Hiram, resting on his shovel handle.

"Huh!" grunted Pete, eyeing him sideways as might an evil-disposed dog.

"We're not well matched," observed Hiram, quietly, "and whether you thrashed me, or I thrashed you, nothing would be proved by it in regard to the line fence."

"I'll show you what I can prove!" cried Pete, and rushed for him.

In a catch-as-catch-can wrestle Pete Dickerson might have been able to overturn Hiram Strong. But the latter did not propose to give the long-armed youth that advantage.

He dropped the spade, stepped nimbly aside, and as Pete lunged past him the young farmer doubled his fist and struck his antagonist solidly under the ear.

That was the only blow struck—that and the one when Pete struck the ground. The bigger fellow rolled over, grunted, and gazed up at Hiram with amazement struggling with the rage expressed in his features.

"I told you we were not well matched, Peter," spoke Hiram, calmly. "Why fight about it? You have no right on your side, and I do not propose to see Mrs. Atterson robbed of this water privilege."

Pete climbed to his feet slowly, and picked up his coat. He felt of his neck carefully and then looked at his hand, with the idea evidently that such a heavy blow must have brought blood. But of course there was none.

"I'll tell my dad—that's what I'll do," ejaculated the bully, at length, and he started immediately across the field, his long legs working like a pair of tongs in his haste to get over the ground.

But Hiram completed the setting of the posts at the water-hole without hearing further from any member of the Dickerson family.



CHAPTER XIII. THE UPROOTING

These early Spring days were busy ones for Hiram Strong. The mornings were frosty and he could not get to his fencing work until midforenoon. But there were plenty of other tasks ready to his hand.

There were two south windows in the farmhouse kitchen. He tried to keep some fire in the stove there day and night, sleeping as he did in Uncle Jeptha's old bedroom nearby.

Before these two windows he erected wide shelves and on these he set shallow boxes of rich earth which he had prepared under the cart shed. There was no frost under there, the earth was dry and the hens had scratched in it during the winter, so Hiram got all the well-sifted earth he needed for his seed boxes.

He used a very little commercial fertilizer in each box, and planted some of the seeds he had bought in Crawberry at an agricultural warehouse on Main Street.

Mrs. Atterson had expressed the hope that he would put in a variety of vegetables for their own use, and Hiram had followed her wishes. When the earth in the boxes had warmed up for several days he put in the long-germinating seeds, like tomato, onions, the salads, leek, celery, pepper, eggplant, and some beet seed to transplant for the early garden. It was too early yet to put in cabbage and cauliflower.

These boxes caught the sun for a good part of the day. In the afternoon when the sun had gone, Hiram covered the boxes with old quilts and did not uncover them again until the sun shone in the next morning. He had decided to start his early plants in this way because he hadn't the time at present to build frames outside.

During the early mornings and late afternoons, too, he began to make the small repairs around the house and outbuildings. Hiram was handy with tools; indeed, a true farmer should be a good mechanic as well. He must often combine carpentry and wheelwrighting and work at the forge, with his agricultural pursuits. Hiram was something better than a "cold-iron blacksmith."

When it came to stretching the wire of the pasture fence he had to resort to his inventive powers. There are plenty of wire stretchers that can be purchased; but they cost money.

The young farmer knew that Mrs. Atterson had no money to waste, and he worked for her just as he would have worked for himself.

One man working alone cannot easily stretch wire and make a good job of it without some mechanism to help him. Hiram's was simple and easily made.

A twelve-inch section of perfectly round post, seven or eight inches through, served as the drum around which to wind the wire, and two twenty-penny nails driven into the side of the drum, close together, were sufficient to prevent the wire from slipping.

To either end of the drum Hiram passed two lengths of Number 9 wire through large screweyes, making a double loop into which the hook of a light timber chain would easily catch. Into one end of the drum he drove a headless spike, upon which the hand-crank of the grindstone fitted, and was wedged tight.

In using this ingenious wire stretcher, he stapled his wire to post number one, carried the length past post number two, looped the chain around post number three, having the chain long enough so that he might tauten the wire and hold the crankhandle steady with his knee or left arm while he drove the holding staple in post number two. And so repeat, ad infinitum.

After he had made this wire-stretcher the young fellow got along famously upon his fencing and could soon turn his attention to other matters, knowing that the cattle would be perfectly safe in the pasture for the coming season.

The old posts he collected on the wagon and drew into the dooryard, piling them beside the woodshed. There was not an overabundant supply of firewood cut and Hiram realized that Mrs. Atterson would use considerable in her kitchen stove before the next winter, even if she did not run a sitting room fire for long this spring.

Using a bucksaw is not only a thankless job at any time, but it is no saving of time or money. There was a good two-handed saw in the shed and Hiram found a good rat-tail file. With the aid of a home-made saw-holder and a monkey wrench he sharpened and set this saw and then got Henry Pollock to help him for a day.

Henry wasn't afraid of work, and the two boys sawed and split the old and well-seasoned posts, and some other wood, so that Hiram was enabled to pile several tiers of stove-wood under the shed against the coming of Mrs. Atterson to her farm.

"If the season wasn't so far advanced, I could cut a lot of wood, draw it up, and hire a gasoline engine and saw to come on the place and saw us enough to last a year. I'll do that next winter," Hiram said.

"That's what we all ought to do," agreed his friend.

Henry Pollock was an observing farmer's boy and through him Hiram gained many pointers as to the way the farmers in that locality put in their crops and cultivated them.

He learned, too, through Henry who was supposed to be the best farmer in the neighborhood, who had special success with certain crops, and who had raised the best seedcorn in the locality.

It was not particularly a trucking community; although, since Scoville had begun to grow so fast and many city people had moved into that pleasant town, the local demand for garden produce had increased.

"It used to be a saying here," said Henry, "that a bushel of winter turnips would supply all the needs of Scoville. But that ain't exactly so now.

"The stores all want green stuff in season, and are beginning to pay cash for truck instead of only offering to exchange groceries for the stuff we raise. I guess if a man understood truck raising he could make something in this market."

Hiram decided that this was so, on looking over the marketing possibilities of Scoville.

There was a canning factory which put up string beans, corn, and tomatoes; but the prices per hundred-weight for these commodities did not encourage Hiram to advise Mrs. Atterson to try and raise anything for the canneries. A profit could not be made out of such crops on a one-horse farm.

For instance, the neighboring farmers did not plant their tomato seeds until it was pretty safe to do so in the open ground. The cannery did not want the tomato pack to come on until late in August. By that time the cream of the prices for garden-grown tomatoes had been skimmed by the early truckers.

The same with sweet corn and green beans. The cannery demanded these vegetables at so late a date that the market-price was generally low.

These facts Hiram bore in mind as he planned his season's work, and especially the kitchen garden. This latter he planned to be about two acres in extent—rather a large plot, but he proposed to set his rows of almost every vegetable far enough apart to be worked with a horse cultivator.

Some crops—for instance onions, carrots, and other "fine stuff"—must be weeded by hand to an extent, and if the soil is rich enough rows twelve or fifteen inches apart show better results.

Between such rows a wheelhoe can be used to good advantage, and that was one tool—with a seed-sowing combination—that Hiram had told Mrs. Atterson she must buy if he was to practically attend to the whole farm for her. Hand-hoeing, in both field and garden crops, is antediluvian.

Thus, during this week and a half of preparation, Hiram made ready for the uprooting of Mrs. Atterson from the boarding house in Crawberry to the farm some distance out of Scoville.

The good lady had but one wagon load of goods to be transferred from her old quarters to the new home. Many of the articles she brought were heirlooms which she had stored in the boarding house cellar, or articles associated with her happy married life, which had been shortened by her husband's death when he was comparatively a young man.

These Mrs. Atterson saw piled on the wagon early on Saturday morning, and she had insisted upon climbing upon the seat beside the driver herself and riding with him all the way.

The boarders gathered on the steps to see her go. The two spinster ladies had already taken possession, and had served breakfast to the disgruntled members of Mother Atterson's family.

"You'll be back again," prophesied Mr. Crackit, shaking the old lady by the hand. "And when you do, just let me know. I'll come and board with you."

"I wouldn't have you in my house again, Fred Crackit, for two farms," declared the ex-boarding house keeper, with asperity.

"I hope you told these people about my hot water, Mrs. Atterson," croaked Mr. Peebles, from the step, where he stood muffled in a shawl because of the raw morning air.

"If I didn't you can tell 'em yourself," returned she, with satisfaction.

And so it went—the good-byes of these unappreciative boarders selfish to the last! Mother Atterson sighed—a long, happy, and satisfying sigh—when the lumbering wagon turned the first corner.

"Thanks be!" she murmured. "I sha'n't care if they don't have a driblet of gravy at supper tonight."

Then she shook herself and stared straight ahead. On the very next corner—she had insisted that none of the other people at the house should observe their flitting—stood two figures, both forlorn.

Old Lem Camp, with a lean suit-case at his feet, and Sister with a bulging carpetbag which she had brought with her months before from the charity institution, and into which she had stuffed everything she owned in the world.

Their faces brightened perceptibly when they beheld Mrs. Atterson perched high beside the driver on the load of furniture and bedding. The driver drew in his span of big horses and the wheels grated against the curb.

"You climb right in behind, Mr. Camp," said the good lady. "There's room for you up under the canvas top—and I had him spread a mattress so't you can take it easy all the way, if you like.

"Sister, you scramble up here and sit in betwixt me and this man. And do look out—you're spillin' things out o' that bag like it was a Christmas cornucopia. Come on, now! Toss it behind us, onto them other things. There! we'll go on—and no more stops, I hope, till we reach the farm."

But that couldn't be. It was a long drive, and the man was good to his team. He rested them at the top of every hill, and sometimes at the bottom. They had to stop two hours for dinner and to "breathe 'em," as the man said.

At that time Mother Atterson produced a goodsized market basket—her familiar companion when she had hunted bargains in the city—and it was filled with sandwiches, and pickles, and crackers, and cookies, and a whole boiled fowl (fowl were cheaper and more satisfying than the scrawny chickens then in market) and hard-boiled eggs, and cheese, with numbers of other less important eatables tucked into corners of the basket to "wedge" the larger packages of food.

The four picnicked in the sun, with the furniture wagon to break the keen wind, passing around hot coffee in a can, from hand to hand, the driver having built a campfire to heat the coffee beside the country road.

But after that stop—for they were well into the country now—there was no keeping Sister on the wagon-seat. She had learned to drop down and mount again as lively as a cricket.

She tore along the edge of the road, with her hair flying, and her hat hanging by its ribbons. She chased a rabbit, and squirrels, and picked certain green branches, and managed to get her hands and the front of her dress all "stuck up" with spruce gum in trying to get a piece big enough to chew.

"Drat the young'un!" exclaimed Mother Atterson. "I can see plainly I'd never ought to brought her, but should have sent her back to the institution. She'll be as wild as Mr. March's hare—whoever he was—out here in the country."

But Old Lem Camp gave her no trouble. He effaced himself just as he had at the boarding house supper table. He seldom spoke—never unless he was spoken to; and he lay up under the roof of the furniture wagon, whether asleep, or no, Mrs. Atterson could not tell.

"He's as odd as Dick's hat-band," the ex-boarding house mistress confided to the driver. "But, bless you! the easiest critter to get along with—you never saw his beat. If I'd a house full of Lem Camps to cook for, I'd think I was next door to heaven."

It was dusk when they arrived in sight of the little house beside the road in which Uncle Jeptha Atterson had lived out his long life. Hiram had a good fire going in both the kitchen and sitting room, and the lamplight flung through the windows made the place look cheerful indeed to the travelers.

"My soul and body!" croaked the good lady, when she got down from the wagon and Hiram caught her in his arms to save her from a fall. "I'm as stiff as a poker—and that's a fact. But I'm glad to get here."

Hiram's amazement when he saw Sister and Old Lem Camp was only expressed in his look. He said nothing. The driver of the wagon backed it to the porch step and then took out his team and, with Hiram's help, led them to the stable, fed them, and bedded them down for the night. He was to sleep in one of the spare beds and go back to town the following day.

Mother Atterson took off her best dress, slipped into a familiar old gingham and bustled around the kitchen as naturally as though she had been there all her life.

She fried ham and eggs, and made biscuit, and opened a couple of tins of peaches she had brought, and finally set before them a repast satisfying if not dainty, and seasoned with a cheerful spirit at least.

"I vum!" she exclaimed, sitting down for the first time in years "at the first table." "If this don't beat Crawberry and them boarders, I'm crazy as a loon. Pour the coffee, Sister—and don't be stingy with the milk. Milk's only five cents a quart here, and it's eight in town. But, gracious, child! sugar don't cost no less."

Old Lem Camp sat beside Hiram, as he had at the boarding-house table. He had scarcely spoken since his arrival; but now, under cover of the talk of Mother Atterson, the driver of the furniture van, and Sister, he began one of his old-time monologues:

"Old, old—nothing to look forward to—then the prospect opens up—just like light breaking through the clouds after a storm—let's see; I want a piece of bread—bread's on Sister's side—I can reach it—hum! no Crackit to-night—fool jokes—silly fellow—ah! the butter—Where's the butterknife?—Sister's forgotten the butter-knife—no! here 'tis—That woman's an angel—nothing less—an angel in a last season's bonnet and a shabby gown—Hah! practical angels couldn't use wings—they'd be in the way in the kitchen—ham and eggs—gravy—fit for gods to eat—and not to worry again where next week's victuals are to come from!"

Hiram noted all the old mail said, and the last phrase enlightened him immensely as to why Old Lem Camp was so "queer." That was the trouble on the old man's mind—the trouble that had stifled him, and made him appear "half cracked" as the boarding-house jester and Peebles had said.

Lem Camp, too old to ever get another job in the city, had for five years been worrying from day to day about his bare existence. And evidently he saw that bogie of the superannuated disappearing in the distance.

After the truck driver had gone to bed, and Camp himself, and Sister had fallen asleep over the last of the dish-wiping, Mother Atterson confided in Hiram, to a degree.

"Now, this gal can be made useful. She can help me in the house, and she can help outside, too.

"She's a poor, unfortunate creature—I know and humbly is no name for her looks! But mebbe we can send her to the school nearby, and she ought to get some color in her face if she's out o' doors some—and some flesh on her skinny body.

"I don't know as I could get along without Sister," ruminated Mother Atterson, shaking her head.

"And as for Lem Camp—bless you! he won't eat more'n a fly, and who else would give him houseroom? Why, Hiram, I just had to bring him with me. If I hadn't, I'd felt just as conscience-stricken as though I'd moved and left a cat behind in an empty house!"



CHAPTER XIV. GETTING IN THE EARLY CROPS

Mother Atterson had breakfast the next morning by lamplight, because the truckman wanted to make an early start.

Hiram had already begun early rising, however, for the farmer who does not get up before the sun in the spring needs must do his chores at night by lantern-light. The eight-hour law can never be a rule on the farm.

But Sister was up, too, and out of the house, running as wild as a rabbit. Hiram caught her in the barnyard trying to clamber on the cow's back to ride her about the enclosure. Sister was afraid of nothing that lived and walked, having all the courage of ignorance.

She found that she could not in safety clamber over the pig-lot fence and catch one of the shoats. Old Mother Hog ran at her with open mouth and Sister came back from that expedition with a torn frock and some new experience.

"I never knew anything so fat could run," she confided to Hiram. "Old Missus Poundly, who lived on our block, and weighed three hundred pounds, couldn't run, I bet!"

Mr. Camp was not disturbed by Mrs. Atterson, but was allowed to sleep as long as he liked, while she kept a little breakfast hot for him and the coffeepot on the back of the stove.

The old lady became interested at once in all Hiram had done toward beginning the spring work. She learned about the seed in the window boxes (some of them were already breaking the soil) about watering them and covering them properly and immediately took those duties off Hiram's hands.

"If Sister an' me can't do the light chores around this place and leave you to 'tend to the bigger things, then we ain't no good and had better go back to the boarding house," she announced.

"Oh, Mis' Atterson! You wouldn't go back to town, would you?" pleaded Sister. "Why, there's real hens—and a cow that will give milk bimeby, Hi says—and a horse that wiggles his ears and talks right out loud when he's hungry, for I heard him—and pigs that squeal and run, an' they're jest as fat as butter——"

"Well, to stay here we've all got to work, Sister," declared her mistress. "So get at them dishes now and be quick about it. There's forty times more chores to do here than there was back in Crawberry—But, thanks be! there ain't no gravy to worry about."

"And there ain't no boarders to make fun of me," said Sister, thoughtfully. Then, she announced, after some rumination: "I like pigs better than I do boarders Mis' Atterson."

"Well, I should think you would!" exclaimed that lady, tartly. "Pigs has got some sense."

Hiram laughed at this. "You'll find the pigs demanding gravy, just the same—and very urgent about it they are, too," he told them.

But he was glad to give the small chores over into their hands, and went to work immediately to prepare for putting in the early crops.

He had already cleared the rubbish off the piece of ground selected for the garden, and had burned it. He hauled out stable manure from the barnyard and gave an acre and a half of this piece of land a good dressing.

The other half-acre was for early potatoes, and he wished to put the manure in the furrow for them, so did not top dress that strip of land. The frost was pretty well out of the ground by now; but even if some remained, plowing this high, well-drained piece would do no harm. Beside, Hiram was eager to get in early crops.

It was a still, hazy morning when he geared the old horse to the plow and headed him into the garden piece. He had determined to plow the entire plot at once, and instead of plowing "around and around" had paced off his lands and started in the middle, plowing "gee" instead of "haw".

This system is a bit more particular, and hard for the careless plowman; but it overcomes that unsightly "dead-furrow" in the middle of a field and brings the "finishing-furrow" on the edge. This insures better surface drainage and is a more scientific method of tillage.

The plow was rusty and the point was not in the very best condition; but after the first few rounds the share was cleaned off, and it began to slip through the moist earth and roll it over in a long, brown ribbon behind him.

Hiram Strong clung to the plow handles, a rope-rein in each hand, and watched the plow and the horse and the land ahead with an eye as keen as that of a river-pilot.

As the strip of turned earth grew wider and longer Sister ran out to see him work. She watched the plow turn the mulch into the furrow and lay the brown, greasy mold upon it, with wide-open eyes.

"Why!" cried she, "wouldn't it be nice if we could go right along with a plow and bury our past like that—cover everything mean and nasty up, and forget it! That institution they put me in—and the old woman I lived with before that, who drank so much gin and beat me—and the boarders—and that boy who used to pull my braids whenever he met me—My that would be fine!"

"I reckon that is what Life does do for us," returned Hiram, thoughtfully, stopping at the end of the furrow to mop his brow and let the old horse breathe. "Yes, sir! Life plows all the experience under, and it ought to enrich our future existence, just as this stuff I'm plowing under here will decay and enrich the soil."

"But the plow don't turn it quite under in spots," said Sister, with a sigh. "Leastways, I can't help remembering the bad things once in a while."

There were certain other individuals who found out very soon that Hiram was plowing, too. Those were the hens. There were not more than fifteen or twenty of the scrubby creatures, and they began to follow the plow and pick up grubs and worms.

"I tell you one thing that I've got to do before we put in much," Hiram told the ex-boarding house mistress at noon.

"What's that, Hi? Don't go very deep down into my pocket, for it won't stand it. After paying my bills, and paying for moving out here, I ain't got much money left—and that's a fact!"

"It won't cost much, but we've got to have a yard for the hens. Hens and a garden will never mix successfully. Unless you enclose them you might as well have no garden in that spot where I'm plowing."

"There warn't but five eggs to-day," said Mrs. Atterson. "Mebbe we'd better chop the heads off 'em, one after the other, and eat 'em."

"They'll lay better as it grows warmer. That henhouse must be fixed before next winter. It's too draughty," said Hi. "And then, hens can't lay well—especially through the winter—if they haven't the proper kind of food."

"But three or four of the dratted things want to stay on the nest all the time," complained the old lady.

"If I was you, Mrs. Atterson," Hiram said, soberly, "I'd spend five dollars for a hundred eggs of well-bred stock.

"I'd set these hens as fast as they get broody, and raise a decent flock of biddies for next year. Scrub hens are just as bad as scrub cows. The scrubs will eat quite as much as full-bloods, yet the returns from the scrubs are much less."

"I declare!" exclaimed Mrs. Atterson, "a hen's always been just a hen to me—one's the same as another, exceptin' the feathers on some is prettier."

"To-night I'll show you some breeders' catalogs and you can think the matter over as to what kind of a fowl you want," said the young farmer.

He went back to his job after dinner and kept steadily at work until three o'clock before there came a break. Then he saw a carriage drive into the yard, and a few moments later a man In a long gray coat came striding across the lot toward him.

Hiram knew the gentleman at once—it was Mr. Bronson, the father of the girl he had saved from the runaway. To tell the truth, the boy had rather wondered about his non-appearance during the days that had elapsed. But now he came with hand held out, and his first words explained the seeming omission:

"I've been away for more than a week, my boy, or I should have seen you before. You're Hiram Strong, aren't you—the boy my little girl has been talking so much about?"

"I don't know how much Miss Lettie has been talking about me," laughed Hiram. "Full and plenty, I expect."

"And small blame to her," declared Mr. Bronson. "I won't waste time telling you how grateful I am. I had just time to turn that boy of Dickerson's off before I was called away. Now, my lad, I want you to come and work for me."

"Why, much as I might like to, sir, I couldn't do that," said Hiram.

"Now, now! we'll fix it somehow. Lettie has set her heart on having you around the place.

"You're the second young man I've been after whom I was sure would suit me, since we moved on to the old Fleigler place. The first fellow I can't find; but don't tell me that I am going to be disappointed in you, too."

"Mr. Bronson," said Hiram, gravely, "I'm sorry to say 'No.' A little while ago I'd have been delighted to take up with any fair offer you might have made me. But I have agreed with Mrs. Atterson to run her place for two seasons."

"Two years!" exclaimed Mr. Bronson.

"Yes, sir. Practically. I must put her on her feet and make the old farm show a profit."

"You're pretty young to take such responsibility upon your shoulders, are you not?" queried the gentleman, eyeing him curiously.

"I'm seventeen. I began to work with my father as soon as I could lift a hoe. I love farm work. And I've passed my word to stick to Mrs. Atterson."

"That's the old lady up to the house?"

"Yes, sir."

"But she wouldn't hold you to your bargain if she saw you could better yourself, would she?"

"She would not have to," Hiram said, firmly, and he began to feel a little disappointed in his caller. "A bargain's a bargain—there's no backing out of it."

"But suppose I should make it worth her while to give you up?" pursued Mr. Bronson. "I'll sound her a bit, eh? I tell you that Lettie has set her heart on having you, as we cannot find another chap whom we were looking for."

Now, Hiram knew that this referred to him; but he said nothing. Besides, he did not feel too greatly pleased that the strongest reason for Mr. Bronson's wishing to hire him was his little daughter's demand. It was just a fancy of Miss Lettie's. And another day, she might have the fancy to turn him off.

"No, sir," spoke Hiram, more firmly. "It is useless. I am obliged to you; but I must stick by Mrs. Atterson."

"Well, my lad," said the Westerner, putting out his hand again. "I am glad to see you know how to keep a promise, even if it isn't to your advantage. And I am grateful to you for turning that trick for my little girl the other day."

"I hope you'll come over and see us—and I shall watch your work here. Most of these fellows around here are pretty slovenly farmers in my estimation; I hope you will do better than the average."

He went back across the field and Hiram returned to his plowing. The young farmer saw the bay horses driven slowly out of the yard and along the road.

He saw the flutter of a scarf from the carriage and knew that Lettie Bronson was with her father; but she did not look out at him as he toiled behind the old horse in the furrow.

However, there was no feeling of disappointment in Hiram Strong's mind—and this fact somewhat surprised him. He had been so attracted by the girl, and had wished in the beginning so much to be engaged by Mr. Bronson, that he had considered it a mighty disappointment when he had lost the Westerner's card.

However, his apathy in the matter was easily explained. He had taken hold of the work on the Atterson place. His plans were growing in his mind for the campaign before him. His interest was fastened upon the contract he had made with the old lady.

His hand was, literally now, "to the plow"—and he was not looking back.

He finished the piece that day, and likewise drew out some lime that he had bought at Scoville and spread it broadcast upon all the garden patch save that in which he intended to put potatoes.

Although it is an exploded doctrine that the application of lime to potato ground causes scab, it is a fact that it will aid in spreading the disease. Hiram was sure enough—because of the sheep-sorrel on the piece—that it all needed sweetening, but he decided against the lime at this time.

As soon as Hiram had drag-harrowed the piece he laid off two rows down the far end, as being less tempting to the straying hens, and planted early peas—the round-seeded variety, hardier than the wrinkled kinds. These pea-rows were thirty inches apart, and he dropped the peas by hand and planted them very thickly.

It doesn't pay to be niggardly with seed in putting in early peas, at any rate—the thicker they come up the better, and in these low bush varieties the thickly growing vines help support each other.

This garden piece—almost two acres—was oblong in shape. An acre is just about seventy paces square. Hiram's garden was seventy by a hundred and forty paces, or thereabout.

Therefore, the young farmer had two seventy-yard rows of peas, or over four hundred feet of drill. He planted two quarts of peas at a cost of seventy cents.

With ordinary fortune the crop should be much more than sufficient for the needs of the house while the peas were in a green state, for being a quick growing vegetable, they are soon past.

Hiram, however, proposed putting in a surplus of almost everything he planted in this big garden—especially of the early vegetables—for he believed that there would be a market for them in Scoville.

The ground was very cold yet, and snow flurries swept over the field every few days; but the peas were under cover and were off his mind; Hiram knew they would be ready to pop up above the surface just as soon as the warm weather came in earnest, and peas do not easily rot in the ground.

In two weeks, or when the weather was settled, he proposed planting other kinds of peas alongside these first two rows, so as to have a succession up to mid-summer.

Next the young farmer laid off his furrows for early potatoes. He had bought a sack of an extra-early variety, yet a potato that, if left in the ground the full length of the season, would make a good winter variety—a "long keeper."

His potato rows he planned to have three feet apart, and he plowed the furrows twice, so as to have them clean and deep.

Henry Pollock happened to come by while he was doing this, and stopped to talk and watch Hiram. To tell the truth, Henry and his folks were more than a little interested in what the young farmer would do with the Atterson place.

Like other neighbors they doubted if the stranger knew as much about the practical work of farming as he claimed to know. "That feller from the city," the neighbors called Hiram behind his back, and that is an expression that completely condemns a man in the mind of the average countryman.

"What yer bein' so particular with them furrers for, Hiram?" asked Henry.

"If a job's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well, isn't it?" laughed the young farmer.

"We spread our manure broadcast—when we use any at all—for potatoes," said Henry, slowly. "Dad says if manure comes in contact with potatoes, they are apt to rot."

"That seems to be a general opinion," replied Hiram. "And it may be so under certain conditions. For that reason I am going to make sure that not much of this fertilizer comes in direct contact with my seed."

"How'll you do that?" "I'll show you," said Hiram.

Having run out his rows and covered the bottom of each furrow several inches deep with the manure, he ran his plow down one side of each furrow and turned the soil back upon the fertilizer, covering it and leaving a well pulverized seed bed for the potatoes to lie in.

"Well," said Henry, "that's a good wrinkle, too."

Hiram had purchased some formalin, mixed it with water according to the Government expert's instructions, and from time to time soaked his seed potatoes two hours in the antiseptic bath. In the evening he brought them into the kitchen and they all—even Old Lem Camp—cut up the potatoes, leaving two or three good eyes in each piece.

"I'd ruther do this than peel 'em for the boarders," remarked Sister, looking at her deeply-stained fingers reflectively. "And then, nobody won't say nothin' about my hands to me when I'm passin' dishes at the table."

The following day she helped Hiram drop the seed, and by night he had covered them by running his plow down the other side of the row and then smoothed the potato plat with a home-made "board" in lieu of a land-roller.

It was the twentieth of March, and not a farmer in the locality had yet put in either potatoes, or peas. Some had not as yet plowed for early potatoes, and Henry Pollock warned Hiram that he was "rushing the season."

"That may be," declared the young farmer to Mrs. Atterson. "But I believe the risk is worth taking. If we do get 'em good, we'll get 'em early and skim the cream of the local market. Now, you see!"



CHAPTER XV. TROUBLE BREWS

"Old Lem Camp," as he had been called for so many years that there seemed no disrespect in the title, was waking up. Not many mornings was he a lie-abed. And the lines in his forehead seemed to be smoothing out, and his eyes had lost something of their dullness.

It was true that, at first, he wandered about the farmstead muttering to himself in his old way—an endless monologue which was a jumble of comment, gratitude, and the brief memories of other days. It took some time to adjust his poor mind to the fact that he had no longer to fear that Poverty which had stalked ever before him like a threatening spirit.

Gratitude spurred him to the use of his hands. He was not a broken man—not bodily. Many light tasks soon fell to his share, and Mrs. Atterson told Hiram and Sister to let him do what he would. To busy himself would be the best thing in the world for the old fellow.

"That's what's been the matter with Mr. Camp for years," she declared, with conviction. "Because he passed the sixty-year mark, and it was against the practise of the paper company to keep employees on the payroll over that age, they turned Lem Camp off.

"Ridiculous! He was just as well able to do the tasks that he had learned to do mechanically as he had been any time for the previous twenty years. He had worked in that office forty years, and more, you understand.

"That's the worst thing about a corporation of that kind—it has no thought beyond its 'rules.' Old Mr. Bundy remembered Lem—that's all. If he hadn't so much stock in the concern they'd turn him off, too. I expect he knows it and that's what softened his heart to Old Lem.

"Now, let Lem take hold of whatever he can do, and git interested in it," declared the practical Mrs. Atterson, "and he'll show you that there's work left in him yet. Yes-sir-ree-sir! And if he'll work in the open air, all the better for him."

There was plenty for everybody to do, and Hiram would not say the old man nay. The seed boxes needed a good deal of attention, for they were to be lifted out into the air on warm days, and placed in the sun. And Old Lem could do this—and stir the soil in them, and pull out the grass and other weeds that started.

Hiram had planted early cabbage and cauliflower and egg-plant in other boxes, and the beets were almost big enough to transplant to the open ground. Beets are hardy and although hair-roots are apt to form on transplanted garden beets, the transplanting aids the growth in other ways and Hiram expected to have table-beets very early.

In the garden itself he had already run out two rows of later beets, the width of the plot. Bunched beets will sell for a fair price the whole season through.

Hiram was giving his whole heart and soul to the work—he was wrapped up in the effort to make the farm pay. And for good reason.

It was "up to him" to not alone turn a profit for his employer, and himself; but he desired—oh, how strongly!—to show the city folk who had sneered at him that he could be a success in the right environment.

Besides, and in addition, Hiram Strong was ambitious—very ambitious indeed for a youth of his age. He wanted to own a farm of his own in time—and it was no "one-horse farm" he aimed at.

No, indeed! Hiram had read of the scientific farming of the Middle West, and the enormous tracts in the Northwest devoted to grain and other staple crops, where the work was done for the most part by machinery.

He longed to see all this—and to take part in it. He desired the big things in farming, nor would he ever be content to remain a helper.

"I'm going to be my own boss, some day—and I'm going to boss other men. I'll show these fellows around here that I know what I want, and when I get it I'll handle it right!" Hiram soliloquized.

"It's up to me to save every cent I can. Henry thinks I'm niggardly, I expect, because I wouldn't go to town Saturday night with him. But I haven't any money to waste.

"The hundred I'm to get next Christmas from Mrs. Atterson I don't wish to draw on at all. I'll get along with such old clothes as I've got."

Hiram was not naturally a miser; he frequently bought some little thing for Sister when he went to town—a hair-ribbon, or the like, which he knew would please the girl; but for himself he was determined to be saving.

At the end of his contract with Mrs. Atterson he would have two hundred dollars anyway. But that was not the end and aim of Hiram Strong's hopes.

"It's the clause in our agreement about the profits of our second season that is my bright and shining star," he told the good lady more than once. "I don't know yet what we had better put in next year to bring us a fortune; but we'll know before it comes time to plant it."

Meanwhile the wheel-hoe and seeder he had insisted upon Mrs. Atterson buying had arrived, and Hiram, after studying the instructions which came with it, set the machine up as a seed-sower. Later, after the bulk of the seeds were in the ground, he would take off the seeding attachment and bolt on the hoe, or cultivator attachments, with which to stir the soil between the narrower rows of vegetables.

As he made ready to plant seeds such as carrot, parsnip, onion, salsify, and leaf-beet, as well as spring spinach, early turnips, radishes and kohlrabi, Hiram worked that part of his plowed land over again and again with the spike harrow, finally boarding the strips down smoothly as he wished to plant them. The seedbed must be as level as a floor, and compact, for good use to be made of the wheel-seeder.

When he had lined out one row with his garden line, from side to side of the plowed strip, the marking arrangement attached to his seeder would mark the following lines plainly, and at just the distance he desired.

Onions, carrots, and the like, he put in fifteen inches apart, intending to do all the cultivating of those extremely small plants with the wheel-hoe, after they were large enough. But he foresaw the many hours of cultivating before him and marked the rows for the bulk of the vegetables far enough apart, as he had first intended, to make possible the use of the horse-hoe.

Meanwhile he spike-harrowed the potato patch, running cross-wise of the rows to break the crust and keep down the quick-springing weed seeds. The early peas were already above ground and when they were two inches high Hiram ran his 14-tooth cultivator—or "seed harrow" as it is called in some localities—close to the rows so as to throw the soil toward the plants, almost burying them from sight again. This was to give the peas deep rootage, which is a point necessary for the quick and stable growth of this vegetable.

In odd moments Hiram had cut and set a few posts, bought poultry netting in Scoville, and enclosed Mrs. Atterson's chicken-run. She had taken his advice and sent for eggs, and already had four hens setting and expected to set the remainder of the of the eggs in a few days.

Sister took an enormous interest in this poultry-raising venture. She "counted chickens before they were hatched" with a vengeance, and after reading a few of the poultry catalogs she figured out that, in three years, from the increase of Mother Atterson's hundred eggs, the eighty-acre farm would not be large enough to contain the flock.

"And all from five dollars!" gasped Sister. "I don't see why everybody doesn't go to raising chickens—then there'd be no poor folks, everybody would be rich—Well! I expect there'd always have to be institutions for orphans—and boarding houses!"

The new-springing things from the ground, the "hen industry" and the repairing and beautifying of the outside of the farmhouse did not take up all their attention. There were serious matters to be discussed in the evening, after the others had gone to bed, 'twixt Hiram and his employer.

There was the five or six acres of bottom land—the richest piece of soil of the entire eighty. Hiram had not forgotten this, and the second Sunday of their stay at the farm, after the whole family had attended service at a chapel less than half a mile up the road, he had urged Mrs. Atterson to walk with him through the timber to the riverside.

"For the Land o' Goshen!" the ex-boarding house mistress had finally exclaimed. "To think that I own all of this. Why, Hi, it don't seem as if it was so. I can't get used to it. And this timber, you say, is all worth money? And if I cut it off, it will grow up again——"

"In thirty to forty years the pine will be worth cutting again—and some of the other trees," said Hiram, with a smile.

"Well! that would be something for Sister to look forward to," said the old lady, evidently thinking aloud. "And I don't expect her folks—whoever they be—will ever look her up now, Hiram."

"But with the timber cut and this side hill cleared, you would have a very valuable thirty acres, or so, of tillage—valuable for almost any crop, and early, too, for it slopes toward the sun," said the young farmer, ignoring the other's observation.

"Well, well! it's wonderful," returned Mrs. Atterson.

But she listened attentively to what he had to say about clearing the bottom land, which was a much more easily accomplished task, as Hiram showed her. It would cost something to put the land into shape for late corn, and so prepare it for some more valuable crop the following season.

"Well, nothing ventured, nothing have!" Mrs. Atterson finally agreed. "Go ahead—if it won't cost much more than what you say to get the corn in. I understand it's a gamble, and I'm taking a gambler's chance. If the river rises and floods the corn in June, or July, then we get nothing this season?"

"That is a possibility," admitted Hiram.

"Go ahead," exclaimed Mother Atterson. "I never did know that there was sporting blood in me; but I kinder feel it risin', Hi, with the sap in the trees. We'll chance it!"

Occasionally Hiram had stepped down to the pasture and squinted across to the water-hole. The grass was not long enough yet to turn the cow into the field, so he was obliged to make these special trips to the pasture.

He had seen nothing of the Dickersons—to speak to, that is—since his trouble with Pete. And, of a sudden, just before dinner one noon, Hiram took a look at the pasture and beheld a figure seemingly working down in the corner.

Hiram ran swiftly in that direction. Half-way there he saw that it was Pete, and that he had deliberately cut out a panel of the fence and was letting a pair of horses he had been plowing with, drink at the pool, before he took them home to the Dickerson stable.

Hiram stopped running and recovered his breath before he reached the lower corner of the pasture. Pete saw him coming, and grinned impudently at him.

"What are you doing here, Dickerson?" demanded the young farmer, indignantly.

"Well, if you wanter keep us out, you'd better keep up your fences better," returned Pete. "I seen the wires down, and it's handy——"

"You cut those wires!" interrupted Hiram, angrily.

"You're another," drawled Pete, but grinning in a way to exasperate the young farmer.

"I know you did so."

"Wal, if you know so much, what are you going to do about it?" demanded the other. "I guess you'll find that these wires will snap 'bout as fast as you can mend 'em. Now, you can put that in your pipe an' smoke it!"

"But I don't smoke." Hiram observed, growing calm immediately. There was no use in giving this lout the advantage of showing anger with him.

"Mr. Smartie!" snarled Pete Dickerson. "Now, you see, there's somebody just as smart as you be. These horses have drunk there, and they're going to drink again."

"Is that your father yonder?" demanded Hiram, shortly.

"Yes, it is."

"Call him over here."

"Why, if he comes over here, he'll eat you alive!" cried Pete, laughing. "You don't know my dad."

"I don't; but I want to," Hiram said, calmly. "That's why you'd better call him over. I have got pretty well acquainted with you, and the rest of your family can't be any worse, as I look at it. Call him over," and the young farmer stepped nearer to the lout.

"You call him yourself!" cried Pete, beginning to back away, for he remembered how he had been treated at his previous encounter with Hiram.

Hiram seized the bridles of the work horses, and shook them out of Pete's clutch.

"Tell your father to come here," commanded the young farmer, fire in his eyes. "We'll settle this thing here and now.

"These horses are on Mrs. Atterson's land. I know the county stock law as well as you do. You cut this fence, and your cattle are on her ground.

"It will cost you a dollar a head to get them off again—if Mrs. Atterson wishes to demand it. Now, call your father."

Pete raised a yell which startled the long-legged man striding over the hill toward the Dickerson farmhouse. Hiram saw the older Dickerson turn, stare, and then start toward them.

Pete continued to beckon, and began to yell:

"Dad! Dad! He won't let me have the hosses!"

Sam Dickerson came striding down to the waterhole—a lean, long, sour-looking man he was, with a brown face knotted into a continual scowl, and hard, bony hands. Yet Hiram was not afraid of him.

"What's the trouble here?" growled the farmer.

"He's got the hosses. I told you the fence was down and I was goin' to water 'em——"

"Shut up!" commanded his father, eyeing Hiram. "I'm talking to this fellow: What's the trouble here?"

"Your horses are on Mrs. Atterson's land," Hiram said, quietly. "You know that stock which strays can be held for a dollar a head—damage or no damage to crops. I warn you, keep your horses on your own land."

"That's your fence; if you don't keep it up, who's fault is it if my horses get on your land?" growled Dickerson, evidently making the matter a personal one with Hiram.

"Your boy here cut the wires."

"No I didn't, Dad!" interposed Pete.

Quick as a flash Hiram dropped the bridle reins, sprang for Pete, seized him in a wrestler's grip, twisted him around, and tore from his pocket a pair of heavy wire-cutters.

"What were you doing with these in your pocket, then?" demanded Hiram, disdainfully, tossing the plyers upon the ground at Pete's feet, and stepping back to keep the restless horses from leaving the edge of the water-hole.

Sam Dickerson seemed to take a grim pleasure in his son's overthrow. He growled:

"He's got you there, Pete. You'd better stop monkeyin' around here. Pick up them bridles and come on."

He turned to depart without another word to Hiram; but the latter did not propose to be put off that way.

"Hold on!" he called. "Who's going to mend this fence, Mr. Dickerson?"

Dickerson turned and eyed him coldly again.

"What's that to me? Mend your own fence," he said.

"Then I shall take these horses up to our barn. You can come and settle the matter with Mrs. Atterson—unless you wish to pay me two dollars here and now," said the young farmer, his voice carrying clearly to where the man stood upon the rising ground above him.

"Why, you young whelp!" roared Dickerson, suddenly starting down the slope.

But Hiram Strong neither moved nor showed fear. Somehow, this sturdy young fellow, in the high laced boots, with his flannel shirt open at the throat, raw as was the day, his sleeves rolled back to his elbows, was a figure to make even a more muscular man than Sam Dickerson hesitate.

"Pete!" exclaimed the farmer, harshly, still eyeing Hiram. "Run up to the house and bring my shotgun. Be quick about it."

Hiram said never a word, and the horses, yoked together, began to crop the short grass springing upon the bank of the water-hole.

"You'll find out you're fooling with the wrong man, you whippersnapper!" promised Dickerson.

"You can pay me two dollars and I'll mend the fence; or you can mend the fence and we'll call it square," said Hiram, slowly, and evenly. "I'm a boy, but I'm not to be frightened with a threat——"

Pete's long legs brought him flying back across the fields. Nothing he had done in a long while pleased him quite as much as this errand.

Hiram turned, jerked at the horses' bridle-reins, turned them around, and with a sharp slap on the nigh one's flank, sent them both trotting up into the Atterson pasture.

"Stop that, you rascal!" cried Dickerson, grabbing the gun from his hopeful son, and losing his head now entirely. "Bring that team back!"

"You mend the fence, and I will," declared Hiram, unshaken.

The angry man sprang down to his level, flourishing the gun in a way that would have been dangerous indeed had Hiram believed it to be loaded. And as it was, the young farmer was very angry.

The right was on his side; if he allowed these Dickersons, father and son, to browbeat him this once, it would only lead to future trouble.

This thing had to be settled right here and now. It would never do for Hiram to show fear. And if both of the long-legged Dickersons pitched upon him, of course, he would be no match for them.

But Sam Dickerson stumbled and almost fell as he reached the edge of the water-hole, and before he could recover himself, Hiram leaped upon him, seized the shotgun, and wrenched it from his hands.

He reversed the weapon in a flash, clubbed it, and raised it over his head with a threatening swing that made Pete yell from the top of the bank:

"Look out, Dad! He's a-goin' ter swat yer!"

Sam tried to scramble out of the way. But down came the gun butt with all the force of Hiram's good muscle, and—the stock was splintered and the lock shattered upon the big stone that here cropped out of the bank.

"There's your gun—what's left of it," panted the young farmer, tossing the broken weapon from him. "Now, don't you ever threaten me with a gun again, for if you do I'll have you arrested.

"We've got to be neighbors, and we've got to get along in a neighborly manner. But I'm not going to allow you to take advantage of Mrs. Atterson, because she is a woman.

"Now, Mr. Dickerson," he added, as the man scrambled up, glaring at him evidently with more surprise than anger, "if you'll make Pete mend this fence, you can have your horses. Otherwise I'm going to 'pound' them according to the stock law of the county."

"Pete," said his father, briefly, "go get your hammer and staples and mend this fence up as good as you found it."

"And now," said Hiram, "I'm going home to gear the horse to the wagon, and I'll drive over to your house, Mr. Dickerson. From time to time you have borrowed while Uncle Jeptha was alive quite a number of tools. I want them. I have made inquiries and I know what tools they are. Just be prepared to put them into my wagon, will you?"

He turned on his heel without further words and left the Dickersons to catch their horses, and to repair the fence—both of which they did promptly.

Not only that, but when Hiram drove into the Dickerson dooryard an hour later he had no trouble about recovering the tools which the neighbor had borrowed and failed to return.

Pete scowled at him and muttered uncomplimentary remarks; but Sam phlegmatically smoked his pipe and sat watching the young farmer without any comment.

"And so, that much is accomplished," ruminated Hiram, as he drove home. "But I'm not sure whether hostilities are finished, or have just begun."



CHAPTER XV. ONE SATURDAY AFTERNOON

"The old Atterson place" as it was called in the neighborhood, began to take on a brisk appearance these days. Sister, with the help of Old Lem Camp, had long since raked the dooryard clean and burned the rubbish which is bound to gather during the winter.

Years before there had been flower beds in front; but Uncle Jeptha had allowed the grass to overrun them. It was a month too early to think of planting many flowers; but Hiram had bought some seeds, and he showed Sister how to prepare boxes for them in the sunny kitchen windows, along with the other plant boxes; and around the front porch he spaded up a strip, enriched it well, and almost the first seeds put into the ground on the farm were the sweet peas around this porch. Mother Atterson was very fond of these flowers and had always managed to coax some of them to grow even in the boarding-house back yard.

At the side porch she proposed to have morning-glories and moon-flowers, while the beds in front would be filled with those old-fashioned flowers which everybody loves.

"But if we can't make our own flower-beds, we can go without them, Hi," said the bustling old lady. "We mustn't take you from your other work to spade beds for us. Every cat's got to catch mice on this place, now I tell ye!"

And Hiram certainly was busy enough these days. The early seeds were all in, however, and he had run the seed-harrow over the potato rows again, lengthwise, to keep the weeds out until the young plants should get a start.

Despite the raw winds and frosts at night, the potatoes had come up well and, with the steadily warming wind and sun, would now begin to grow. Other farmers' potatoes in the vicinity were not yet breaking the ground.

Early on Monday morning Henry Pollock appeared with bush-axe and grubbing hoe, and Hiram shouldered similar tools and they started for the river bottom. It was so far from the house that Mrs. Atterson agreed to send their dinner to them.

"Father says he remembers seeing corn growing on this bottom," said Henry, as they set to work, "so high that the ears were as high up as a tall man. It's splendid corn land—if it don't get flooded out."

"And does the river often over-ran its banks?" queried Hiram, anxiously.

"Pretty frequent. It hasn't yet this year; there wasn't much snow last winter, you see, and the early spring floods weren't very high. But if we have a long wet spell, as we do have sometimes as late as July, you'll see water here."

"That's not very encouraging," said Hiram. "Not for corn prospects, at least."

"Well, corn's our staple crop. You see, if you raise corn enough you're sure of feed for your team. That's the main point."

"But people with bigger farms than they have around here can raise corn cheaper than we can. They use machinery in harvesting it, too. Why not raise a better paying crop, and buy the extra corn you may need?"

"Why," responded Henry, shaking his head, "nobody around here knows much about raising fancy crops. I read about 'em in the farm papers—oh, yes, we take papers—the cheap ones. There is a lot of information in 'em, I guess; but father don't believe much that's printed."

"Doesn't believe much that's printed?" repeated Hiram, curiously.

"Nope. He says it's all lies, made up out of some man's head. You see, we useter take books out of the Sunday School library, and we had story papers, too; and father used to read 'em as much as anybody."

"But one summer we had a summer boarder—a man that wrote things. He had one of these dinky little merchines with him that you play on like a piano, you know——"

"A typewriter?" suggested Hiram, with a smile.

"Yep. Well, he wrote stories. Father learnt as how all that stuff was just imaginary, and so he don't take no stock in printed stuff any more."

"That man just sat down at that merchine, and rattled off a story that he got real money for. It didn't have to be true at all.

"So father soured on it. And he says the stuff in the farm papers is just the same."

"I'm afraid that your father is mistaken there," said Hiram, hiding his amusement. "Men who have spent years in studying agricultural conditions, and experimenting with soils, and seeds, and plants, and fertilizers, and all that, write what facts they have learned for our betterment.

"No trade in the world is so encouraged and aided by Governments, and by private corporations, as the trade of farming. There is scarcely a State which does not have a special agricultural college in which there are winter courses for people who cannot give the open time of the year to practical experiment on the college grounds.

"That is what you need in this locality, I guess," added Hiram. "Some scientific farming."

"Book farming, father calls it," said Henry. "And he says it's no good."

"Why don't you save your money and take a course next winter in some side line and so be able to show him that he's wrong?" suggested Hiram. "I want to do that myself after I have fulfilled my contract with Mrs. Atterson.