“I've sure got plenty of time now to look for a job,” observed Hiram Strong when he was two blocks away from Dwight's Emporium. “But I declare I don't know where to begin.”
For his experience in talking with the farmers around the market had rather dashed Hiram's hope of getting a place in the country at once. It was too early in the season. Nor did it look so much like Spring as it had a week ago. Already Hiram had to turn up the collar of his rough coat, and a few flakes of snow were settling on his shoulders as he walked.
“It's winter yet,” he mused. “If I can't get something to do in the city for a few weeks to tide me over, I'm afraid I shall have to find a cheaper place to board than at Mother Atterson's.”
After half an hour of strolling from street to street, however, Hiram decided that there was nothing in that game. He must break in somewhere, so he turned into the very next warehouse.
“Want a job? I'll be looking for one myself pretty soon, if business isn't better,” was the answer he got from the first man he approached.
But Hiram kept at it, and got short answers and long answers, pleasant ones and some that were not so pleasant; but all could be summed up in the single monosyllable:
“No!”
“I certainly am a failure here in town,” Hiram thought, as he walked through the snow-blown streets. “How foolish I was ever to have come away from the country.
“A fellow ought to stick to the job he is fitted for—and that's sure. But I didn't know. I thought there would be forty chances in town to one in the country.
“And there doesn't seem to be a single chance right now. Why, I'll have to leave Mrs. Atterson's, if I can't find a job before next week is out!
“This mean old town is over-crowded with fellows like me looking for work. And when it comes to office positions, I haven't a high-school diploma, nor am I fitted for that kind of a job.
“I want to be out of doors. Working in a stuffy office wouldn't suit me. Oh, as a worker in the city I am a rank failure, and that's all there is about it!”
He went home to supper much more tired than he would have been had he done a full day's work at Dwight's Emporium. Indeed, the job he had lost now loomed up in his troubled mind as much more important than it had seemed when he had desired to change it for another.
Mother Atterson was at home. She hadn't more than taken off her bonnet, however, and had had but a single clash with Chloe in the kitchen.
“I smelled it burnin' the minute I set my foot on the front step!” she declared. “You can't fool my nose when it comes to smelling burned stuff.
“Well, Hiram,” she continued, too full of news to remark that he was at home long before his time, “I saw the poor old soul laid away, at least. I wish now I'd got Chloe in before, and gone to see Uncle Jeptha before he was in his coffin.
“But I didn't think I could afford it, and that's a fact. We poor folks can't have many pleasures in this world of toil and trouble!” added the boarding house mistress, to whom even the break of a funeral, or a death-bed visit, was in the nature of a solemn amusement.
“And there the old man went and made his will years ago, unbeknownst to anybody, and me bein' his only blood relation, as you might say, though it was years since I seen him much, but he remembered my mother with love,” and she began to wipe her eyes.
“Poor old man! And me with a white-faced cow that I'm afraid of my life of, and an old horse that looks like a moth-eaten hide trunk we to have in our garret at home when I was a little girl, and belonged to my great-great-grandmother Atterson——
“And there's a mess of chickens that eat all day long and don't lay an egg as far as I could see, besides a sow and a litter of six pigs that squeal worse than the the switch-engine down yonder in the freight yard——
“And they're all to be fed, and how I'm to do it, and feed the boarders, too, I don't for the life of me see!” finished Mrs. Atterson, completely out of breath.
“What do you mean?” cried Hiram, suddenly waking to the significance of the old lady's chatter. “Do you mean he willed you these things?”
“Of course,” she returned, smoothing down her best black skirt. “They go with the house and outbuildings—`all the chattels and appurtenances thereto', the will read.”
“Why, Mrs. Atterson!” gasped Hiram. “He must have left you the farm.”
“That's what I said,” returned the old lady, complacently. “And what I'm to do with it I've no more idea than the man in the moon.”
“A farm!” repeated Hiram, his face flushing and his eyes beginning to shine.
Now, Hiram Strong was not a particularly handsome youth, but in his excitement he almost looked so.
“Eighty acres, so many rods, and so many perches,” pursued Mrs. Atterson, nodding. “That's the way it reads. The perches is in the henhouse, I s'pose—though why the description included them and not the hens' nests I dunno.”
“Eighty acres of land!” repeated Hiram in a daze.
“All free and clear. Not a dollar against it—only encumbrances is the chickens, the cow, the horse and the pigs,” declared Mrs. Atterson. “If it wasn't for them it might not be so bad. Scoville's an awfully nice place, and the farm's on an automobile road. A body needn't go blind looking for somebody to go by the door occasionally.
“And if it got so bad here finally that I couldn't make a livin' keeping boarders,” pursued the lady, “I might go out there and live in the old house—which isn't much, I know, but it's a shelter, and my tastes are simple, goodness knows.”
“But a farm, Mrs. Atterson!” broke in Hiram. “Think what you can do with it!”
“That's what I'd like to have, you, or somebody else tell me,” exclaimed the old lady, tartly. “I ain't got no more use for a farm than a cat has for two tails!”
“But—but isn't it a good farm?” queried Hiram, puzzled.
“How do I know?” snapped the boarding house mistress. “I wouldn't know one farm from another, exceptin' two can't be in exactly the same spot. Oh! do you mean, could I sell it?”
“No——”
“The lawyer advised me not to sell just now. He said something about the state of the real estate market in that section. Prices would be better in a year or two. And then, the old place is mighty run down.”
“That's what I mean,” Hiram hastened to say. “Has it been cropped to death? Is the soil worn out? Can't you run it and make something out of it?”
“For pity's sake!” ejaculated the good lady, “how should I know? And I couldn't run it—I shouldn't know how.
“I've got a neighbor-woman in the house just now to 'tend to things—and that's costin' me a dollar and a half a week. And there'll be taxes to pay, and—and—Well, I just guess I'll have to try and sell it now and take what I can get.
“Though that lawyer says that if the place was fixed up a little and crops put in it would make a thousand dollars' difference in the selling price. That is, after a year or two.
“But bless us and save us” cried Mrs. Atterson, “I'd be swamped with expenses before that time.”
“Mebbe not,” said Hiram Strong, trying to repress his eagerness. “Why not try it?”
“Try to run that farm?” cried she. “Why, I'd jest as lief go up in one o' those aeroplanes and try to run it. I wouldn't be no more up in the air then than I would be on a farm,” she added, grimly.
“Get somebody to run it for you—do the outside work, I mean, Mrs. Atterson,” said Hiram. “You could keep house out there just as well as you do here. And it would be easy for you to learn to milk——”
“That whitefaced cow? My goodness! I'd just as quick learn to milk a switch-engine!”
“But it's only her head that looks so wicked to you,” laughed Hiram. “And you don't milk that end.”
“Well—mebbe,” admitted Mrs. Atterson, doubtfully. “I reckon I could make butter again—I used to do that when I was a girl at my aunt's. And either I'd make those hens lay or I'd have their dratted heads off!
“And my goodness me! To get rid of the boarders—Oh, stop your talkin', Hi Strong! That is too good to ever be true. Don't talk to me no more.”
“But I want to talk to you, Mrs. Atterson,” persisted the youth, eagerly.
“Well, who'd I get to do the outside work—put in crops, and 'tend 'em, and look out for that old horse?”
Hiram almost choked. This opportunity should not get past him if he could help it!
“Let me do it, Mrs. Atterson. Give me a chance to show you what I can do,” he cried. “Let me run the farm for you!”
“Why—why do you suppose that it could be made to pay us, Hi?” demanded his landlady, in wonder.
“Other farms pay; why not this one?” rejoined Hiram, sententiously. “Of course,” he added, his native caution coming to the surface, “I'd want to see the place—to look it over pretty well, in fact—before I made any agreement. And I can assure you, Mrs. Atterson, if I saw no chance of both you and me making something out of it I should tell you so.”
“But—but your job, Hiram? And I wouldn't approve of your going out there and lookin' at the place on a Sunday.”
“I'll take the early train Monday morning,” said the youth, promptly.
“But what will they say at the store? Mr. Dwight——”
“He turned me off to-day,” said Hiram, steadily. “So I won't lose anything by going out there.
“I tell you what I'll do,” he added briskly. “I won't have any too much money while I'm out of a job, of course. And I shall be out there at Scoville a couple of days looking the place over, it's probable.
“So, if you will let me keep this three dollars and a half I should pay you for my next week's board to-night, I'll pay my own expenses out there at the farm and if nothing comes of it, all well and good.”
Mrs. Atterson had fumbled for her spectacles and now put them on to survey the boy's earnest face.
“Do you mean to say you can run a farm, Hi Strong?” she asked.
“I do,” and he smiled confidently at her.
“And make it pay?”
“Perhaps not much profit the first season; but if the farm is fertile, and the marketing conditions are right, I know I can make it pay us both in two years.”
“I've got a little money saved up. I could sell the house in a week, for it's always full and there are always lone women like me with a little driblet of money to exchange for a boarding house—heaven help us for the fools we are!” Mrs. Atterson exclaimed.
“And I expect you could raise vegetables enough to part keep us, Hi, even if the farm wasn't a great success?”
“And eggs, and chickens, and the pigs, and milk from the cow,” suggested Hiram.
“Well! I declare, that's so,” admitted Mrs. Atterson. “I'd been lookin' on all them things as an expense. They could be made an asset, eh?”
“I should hope so,” responded Hiram, smiling.
“And I could get rid of these boarders—My soul and body!” gasped the tired woman, suddenly. “Do you suppose it's true, Hi? Get rid of worryin' about paying the bills, and whether the boarders are all going to keep their jobs and be able to pay regularly—And the gravy!
“Hiram Strong! If you can show me a way out of this valley of tribulation I'll be the thankfullest woman that you ever seen. It's a bargain. Don't you pay me a cent for this coming week. And I shouldn't have taken it, anyway, when you're throwed out of work so. That's a mighty mean man, that Daniel Dwight.
“You go right ahead and look that farm over. If it looks good, you come back and we'll strike a bargain, I know. And—and—Just to think of getting rid of this house and these boarders!” and Mrs. Atterson finished by wiping her eyes again vigorously.
Hiram Strong was up betimes on Monday morning—Sister saw to that. She rapped on his door at four-thirty.
Sometimes Hiram wondered when the girl ever slept. She was still dragging about the kitchen or dining-room when he went to bed, and she was first down in the morning—even earlier than Mrs. Atterson herself.
The boarding house mistress was not intentionally severe with Sister; but the much harassed lady had never learned to make her own work easy, so how should she be expected to be easy on Sister?
Once or twice Hiram had talked with the orphan. Sister had a dreadful fear of returning to the “institution” from which Mrs. Atterson had taken her. And Sister's other fearful remembrance was of an old woman who beat her and drank much gin and water.
Not that she had been ill-treated at the institution; but she had been dressed in an ugly uniform, and the girls had been rough and pulled her “pigtails” like Dan, Junior.
“Once a gentleman came to see me,” Sister confided to Hiram. “He was a lawyer gentleman, the matron told me. He knew my name—but I've forgotten it now.
“And he said that somebody who once belonged to me—or I once belonged to them—had died and perhaps there would be some money coming to me. But it couldn't have been the old woman I lived with, for she never had only money enough for gin!
“Anyhow, I was glad. I axed him how much money—was it enough to treat all the girls in the institution one round of ice-cream soda, and he laffed, he did. And he said yes—just about enough for that, if he could get it for me. And I ran away and told the girls.
“I promised them all a treat. But the man never came again, and by and by the big girls said they believed I storied about it, and one night they came and dragged me out of bed and hung me out of the window by my wrists, till I thought my arms would be pulled right out of the sockets. They was awful cruel—them girls. But when I axed the matron why the man didn't come no more, she put me off. I guess he was only foolin',” decided Sister, with a sigh. “Folks like to fool me—like Mr. Crackit—eh?”
But Mrs. Atterson told Hiram, when he asked about Sister's meagre little story, that the institution had promised to let her know if the lawyer ever returned to make further inquiries about the orphan. Somebody really had died who was of kin to the girl, but through some error the institution had not made a proper record of her pedigree and the lawyer who had instituted the search a seemed to have dropped out of sight.
But Hiram was not troubled by poor Sister's private affairs upon this Monday morning. It was the beginning of a new week, indeed, to him. He had turned over a new leaf of experience. He hoped that he was pretty near to the end of his harsh city existence.
He hurried downstairs, long in advance of the other boarders, and Mrs. Atterson served him some breakfast, although there was no milk for the coffee.
“I dunno where that plague o' my life, Sister's, gone,” sputtered the old lady, fussing about, between dining-room and kitchen. “I sent her out ten minutes ago for the milk. And if you want to get that first train to Scoville you've got to hurry.”
“Never mind the milk,” laughed the young fellow. “The train's more important this morning.”
So he bolted the remainder of his breakfast, swallowed the black coffee, and ran out.
He arrived at Scoville while the morning was still young. It was not his intention to go at once to the Atterson farm. There were matters which he desired to look into in addition to judging the quality of the soil on the place and the possibility of making it pay.
He went to the storekeepers and asked questions about the prices paid for garden truck. He walked about the town and saw the quality of the residences, and noted what proportion of the townsfolk cultivated gardens of their own.
There was a big girls' boarding-school, and two small, but well-patronized hotels. The proprietors of these each owned a farm; but they told Hiram that it was necessary for them to buy much of their table vegetables from city produce men, as the neighboring farmers did not grow much.
In talking with one storekeeper Hiram mentioned the fact that he was going to look at the Atterson place with a view to farming it for its new owner. When he walked out of the store he found himself accosted by a lean, snaky-looking man who had stood within the store the moment before.
“What's this widder woman goin' to do with the farm old Jeptha left her?” inquired the man, looking at Hiram slyly.
“We don't know yet, sir, what we shall do with it,” the young fellow replied.
“You her son?”
“No. I may work for her—can't tell till I've looked at the place.”
“It ain't much to look at,” said the man, quickly. “I come near buying it once, though. In fact—”
He hesitated, still eyeing Hiram sideways. The boy waited for him to speak again. He did not wish to be impolite; but he did not like the man's appearance.
“What do y' reckon this Mis' Atterson would sell for?” finally demanded the man.
“She has been advised not to sell—at present.”
“Who by?”
“Mr. Strickland, the lawyer.”
“Humph! Mebbe I'd buy it—and give her a good price for it—right now.”
“What do you consider a good price?” asked Hiram, quietly.
“Twelve hundred dollars,” said the man.
“I will tell her. But I do not think she would sell for that price—nothing like it, in fact.”
“Well, mebbe she'll feel different when she comes to think it over. No use for a woman trying to run a farm. And if she has to pay for everything to be done, she'll be in a hole at the end of the season. I guess she ain't thought of that?”
“It wouldn't be my place to point it out to her,” returned Hiram, “coolly, if it were so, and I wanted to work for her.”
“Humph! Mebbe not. Well, my name's Pepper. Mebbe I'll be out to see her some day,” he said, and turned away.
“He's one of the people who will discourage Mrs. Atterson,” thought Hiram. “And he has an axe to grind. If I decide to take the job of making this farm pay, I'm going to have the agreement in black and white with Mrs. Atterson; for there will be a raft of Job's comforters, perhaps when we get settled on the place.”
It was late in the afternoon before Hiram was ready to start for the farm itself. He had made some enquiries, and had decided to stop at a neighbor's for overnight, instead of going to the house where a lone woman had been left in charge by Mrs. Atterson.
The Pollocks had been recommended to Hiram, and by leaving the road within half a mile of the Atterson farm, and cutting across the fields, he came into the dooryard of the Pollock place. A well-grown boy, not much older than himself, was splitting some chunks at the woodpile. He stopped work to gaze at the visitor with much curiosity.
“From what they told me in town,” Hi said, holding out his hand with a smile, “you must be Henry Pollock?”
The boy blushed, but awkwardly took and shook Hi's hand.
“That's what they call me—Henry Pollock—when they don't call me Hen.”
“Well, I'll make a bargain with you, Henry,” laughed Hiram. “I don't like to have my name cut off short, either. My name's Hiram Strong. So if you'll agree to always call me `Hiram' I'll always call you `Henry.'”
“It's a go!” returned the other, shaking hands again. “You going to live around here? Or are you jest visiting?”
“I don't know yet,” confessed Hiram, sitting down beside the boy. “You see, I've come out to look at the Atterson place.”
“That's right over yonder. You can see the roof if you stand up,” said Henry, quickly.
Hiram stood up and, in the light of the early sunset, he caught a glimpse of the roof in question.
“Your folks going to buy it of the old lady Uncle Jeptha left it to?” asked Henry, with pardonable curiosity. “Or are you going to rent it?”
“What do you think of renting it?” queried Hiram, showing that he had Yankee blood in him by answering one question with another.
“Well—it's pretty well run down, and that's a fact. The old man couldn't do much the last few years, and them Dickersons who farmed it for him ain't no great shakes of farmers, now I tell you!”
“Well, I want to look the farm over before I decide what I'll do,” said Hiram, slowly. “And of course I can't do that to-night. They told me in town that sometimes you take boarders?”
“In the summer we do,” returned Henry.
“Do you think your folks will put me up overnight?”
“Why, I reckon so—Hiram Strong, did you say your name was? Come right in,” added Henry, hospitably, “and I'll ask mother.”
The Pollocks proved to be a neighborly family—and a large one. As Henry said, there was a “whole raft of young 'uns” younger than he was. They made Hiram very welcome at the supper table, and showed much curiosity about his personal affairs.
But the young fellow had been used to just such people before. They were not a bad sort, and if they were keenly interested in the affairs of other people, it was because they had few books and newspapers, and small chance to amuse themselves in the many ways which city people have.
Hiram slept with Henry that night, and Henry agreed to show the visitor over the Atterson place the next day.
“I know every stick and stone of it as well as I do ourn,” declared Henry. “And Dad won't mind my taking time now. Later—Whew! I tell you, we hafter just git up an' dust to make a crop. Not much chance for fun after a week or two until the corn's laid by.”
“You know all the boundaries of the Atterson farm, do you?” Hiram asked.
“Yes, sir!” replied Henry, eagerly. “And say! do you like to fish?”
“Of course; who doesn't?”
“Then we'll take some lines and hooks along—and mother'll lend us a pan and kettle. Say! We'll start early—'fore anybody's a-stir—and I bet there'll be a big trout jumping in the pool under the big sycamore.”
“That certain-sure sounds good to me!” cried Hiram, enthusiastically.
So it was agreed, and before day, while the mist was yet rolling across the fields, and the hedge sparrows were beginning to chirp, the two set forth from the Pollock place, crossed the wet fields, and the road, and set off down the slope of a long hill, following, as Henry said, near the east boundary of the Atterson farm—the line running from the automobile road to the river.
It was a dull spring morning. The faint breeze that stirred on the hillside was damp, but odorous with new-springing herbs. As Hiram and Henry descended the aisle of the pinewood, the treetops whispered together as though curious of these bold humans who disturbed their solitude.
“It doesn't look as though anybody had been here at the back end of old Jeptha Atterson's farm for years,” said Hiram.
“And it's a fact that nobody gets down this way often,” Henry responded.
The brown tags sprung under their feet; now and then a dew-wet branch swept Hiram's cheek, seeking with its cold fingers to stay his progress. It was an enchanted forest, and the boy, heart-hungry from his two years of city life, was enchanted, too!
Hiram learned from talking with his companion that at one time the piece of thirty-year-old timber they were walking through had been tilled—after a fashion. But it had never been properly cleared, as the hacked and ancient stumpage betrayed.
Here and there the lines of corn rows which had been plowed when the last crop was laid by were plainly revealed to Hiram's observing eye. Where corn had grown once, it should grow again; and the pine timber would more than pay for being cut, for blowing out the big stumps with dynamite, and tam-harrowing the side hill.
Finally they reached a point where the ground fell away more abruptly and the character of the timber changed, as well. Instead of the stately pines, this more abrupt declivity was covered with hickory and oak. The sparse brush sprang out of rank, black mold.
Charmed by the prospect, Hiram and Henry descended this hill and came suddenly, through a fringe of brush, to the border of an open cove, or bottom.
At some time this lowland, too, had been cleared and cultivated; but now young pines, quick-springing and lush, dotted the five or six acres of practically open land which was as level as one's palm.
It was two hundred yards, or more, in width and at the farther side a hedge of alders and pussywillows grew, with the green mist of young leaves upon them, and here and there a ghostly sycamore, stretching its slender bole into the air, edged the course of the river.
Hiram viewed the scene with growing delight. His eyes sparkled and a smile came to his lips as he crossed, with springy steps, the open meadow on which the grass was already showing green in patches.
Between the line of the wood they had left and the breadth of the meadow was a narrow, marshy strip into which a few stones had been cast, and on these they crossed dry shod. The remainder of the bottom-land was firm.
“Ain't this jest a scrumptious place?” demanded Henry, and Hiram agreed.
At the river's edge they parted the bushes and looked down upon the oily-flowing brown flood. It was some thirty feet broad and with the melting of the snows in the mountains was so deep that no sign was apparent here of the rocks which covered its bed.
Henry led the way up the bank of the stream toward a huge sycamore that leaned lovingly over the water. An ancient wild grape vine, its butt four inches through and its roots fairly in the water, had a strangle-hold upon this decrepit forest monarch, its tendrils reaching the sycamore's topmost branch.
Under the tree was a deep hole where flotsam leaves and twigs performed an endless treadmill dance in the grasp of the eddy.
Suddenly, while their gaze clung to the dimpling water, there was a flash of a bronze body—a streak of light along the surface of the pool—and two widening circles showed where the master of the hole had leaped for some insect prey.
“See him?” called Henry, but under his breath.
Hiram nodded, but squeezed his companion's hand for silence. He almost held his own breath for the moment, as they moved back from the pool with the soundless step of an Indian.
“That big feller is my meat,” declared Henry.
“Go to it, boy!” urged Hiram, and set about preparing the camp.
He cut with his big jack-knife and set up a tripod of green rods in a jiffy, skirmished for dry wood, lit his fire, filled the kettle from the river at a little distance from the eddy, and hung it over the blaze to boil.
Meanwhile Henry fished out a line and an envelope of hooks from an inner pocket, cut a springy pole back on the hillside, rigged his line and hook, and kicked a hole in the soft, rich soil until he unearthed a fat angleworm.
With this impaled upon the hook he cautiously approached the pool under the sycamore and cast gently. The struggling worm sank slowly; the water wrinkled about the line; but there followed no tug at the hook, although Henry stood patiently for several moments. He cast again, and yet again, with like result.
“Ah, ba!” muttered Hiram, in his ear; “this fellow's appetite needs tickling. He is being fed too well and turns up his nose at a common earthworm, does he? Let me show you a wrinkle, Henry.”
Henry drew the line ashore again and shook off the useless bait.
“You're, not fishing,” Hiram continued with a grim smile. “You've just been drowning a worm. But I'll show that old fellow sulking down below there that he is no match this early in the spring for a pair of hungry boys!”
He recrossed the meadow, and the stepping stones, to the wood. He had noticed a log lying in the path as he descended the hillside. With the toe of his boot he kicked a patch of bark from the log, and thereby lay bare the wavering trail of a busy grub. Following the trail he quickly found the fat, juicy insect, which immediately took the earthworm's place upon the hook.
Again Henry cast and this time, before the grub even touched the surface of the pool, the fish leaped and swallowed the tempting morsel, hook and all!
There was no playing of the fish on Henry's part. A quick jerk and the gasping spotted beauty, a pound and a quarter, or more, in weight, lay upon the sward beside the crackling fire.
“Whoop-ee!” called Henry, excitedly. “That's Number One!”
While Hiram dexterously scaled and cleaned the first trout, Henry caught a couple more. Hiram brought forth, too, the coffee, salt and pepper, sugar, a piece of fat salt pork and two table knives and forks.
He raked a smooth bed in the glowing coals, sliced the pork thin, laid some slices in the pan and set that upon the coals, where the pork began to sputter almost at once.
The water in the kettle was boiling and he made the coffee. Then he laid the trout upon the pan with three slices of pork upon each, and sat back upon his haunches beside Henry enjoying the delicious odor in anticipation of the more solid delights of breakfast.
They had hard crackers and with these, and drinking the coffee from the kettle itself, when it was cool enough, the two boys feasted like monarchs.
“By Jo!” exclaimed Henry. “This beats maw's soda biscuit and fat meat gravy!”
But as he ate, Hiram's gaze traveled again and again across the scrub-grown meadow. The lay of the land pleased him. The richness of the soil had been revealed when they dug the earthworm.
For thousands of years the riches of yonder hillside had been washing down upon the bottom, and this alluvial was rich beyond computation.
Here were several acres, the young farmer knew, which, however over-cropped the remainder of Uncle Jeptha's land had been, could not be impoverished in many seasons.
“It's as rich as cream!” muttered he, thoughtfully. “Grubbing out these young pines wouldn't take long. There's a heavy sod and it would have to be ploughed deeply. Then a crop of corn this year, perhaps—late corn for fear the river might overflow it in June. And then——
“Great Scot!” ejaculated Hiram, slapping his knee, “what wouldn't grow on this bottom land?”
“Yes, it's mighty rich,” agreed Henry. “But it's a long way from the house—and then, the river might flood it over. I've seen water running over this bottom two feet deep—once.”
They finished the al fresco meal and Hiram leaped up, inspired by his thoughts to brisker movements.
“Whatever else this old farm has on it, I vow and declare,” he said, “this five or six acres alone might be made to pay a profit on the whole investment!”
Henry showed Hiram the “branch”, a little stream flowing into the river, which marked the westerly boundary of the farm for some ways, and they set off up the steep bank of this stream.
This back end of the farm—quite forty acres, or half of the whole tract—had been entirely neglected by the last owner of the property for a great many years. It was some distance from the house, for the farm was a long and narrow strip of land from the highway to the river, and Uncle Jeptha had had quite all he could do to till the uplands and the fields adjacent to his home.
They came upon these open fields—many of them filthy with dead weeds and littered with sprouting bushes—from the rear. Hiram saw that the fences were in bad repair and that the back of the premises gave every indication of neglect and shiftlessness.
Perhaps not exactly the latter; Uncle Jeptha had been an old man and unable to do much active work for some years. But he had cropped certain of his fields “on shares” with the usual results—impoverished soil, illy-tilled crops, and the land left in a slovenly condition which several years of careful tillage would hardly overcome.
Now, although Hiram's father had been of the tenant class, he had farmed other men's land as he would his own. Owners of outlying farms had been glad to get Mr. Strong to till their fields.
He had known how to work, he knew the reasons for every bit of labor he performed, and he had not kept his son in ignorance of them. As they worked together the father had explained to the son what he did, and why he did it, The results of their work spoke for themselves, and Hiram had a retentive memory.
Mr. Strong, too, had been a great, reader—especially in the winter when the farmer naturally has more time in-doors.
Yet he was a “twelve months farmer”; he knew that the winter, despite the broken nature of the work, was quite as valuable to the successful farmer as the other seasons of the year.
The elder Strong knew that men with more money, and more time for experimenting than he had, were writing and publishing all the time helps for the wise farmer. He subscribed for several papers, and read and digested them carefully.
Hiram, even during his two years in the city, had continued his subscription (although it was hard to find the money sometimes) to two or three of those publications that his father had most approved. And the boy had read them faithfully.
He was as up-to-date in farming lore now, if not in actual practise, as he had been when he left the country to try his fortune in Crawberry.
Beyond the place where the branch turned back upon itself and hid its source in the thicker timber, Hiram saw that the fields were open on both sides of this westerly line of the farm.
“Who's our neighbor over yonder, Henry?” he asked.
“Dickerson—Sam Dickerson,” said Henry. “And he's got a boy, Pete, no older than us. Say, Hiram, you'll have trouble with Pete Dickerson.”
“Oh, I guess not,” returned the young farmer, laughing. “Trouble is something that I don't go about hunting for.”
“You don't have to hunt it when Pete is round,” said Henry with a wry grin. “But mebbe he won't bother you, for he's workin' near town—for that new man that's moved into the old Fleigler place. Bronson's his name. But if Pete don't bother you, Sam may.”
“Sam's the father?”
“Yep. And one poor farmer and mean man, if ever there was one! Oh, Pete comes by his orneriness honestly enough.”
“Oh, I hope I'll have no trouble with any neighbor,” said Hiram, hopefully.
They came briskly to the outbuildings belonging to Mrs. Atterson's newly acquired legacy. Hiram glanced into the hog lot. She looked like a good sow, and the six-weeks-old shoats were in good condition. In a couple of weeks they would be big enough to sell if Mrs. Atterson did not care to raise them.
The shoats were worth six dollars a pair, too; he had inquired the day before about them. There was practically eighteen dollars squealing in that pen—and eighteen dollars would go a long way toward feeding the horse and cow until there was good pasturage for them.
These animals named were in the small fenced barnyard. In the fall and winter the old man had fed a good deal of fodder and other roughage, and during the winter the horse and cow had tramped this coarse material, and the stable scrapings, into a mat of fairly good manure.
He looked the horse and cow over with more care. It was a fact that the horse looked pretty shaggy; but he had been used little during the winter, and had been seldom curried. A ragged coat upon a horse sometimes covers quite as many good points as the same quality of garment does upon a man.
When Hiram spoke to the beast it came to the fence with a friendly forward thrust of its ears, and the confidence of a horse that has been kindly treated and looks upon even a strange human as a friend.
It was a strong and well-shaped animal, more than twelve years old, as Hiram discovered when he opened the creature's mouth, but seemingly sound in limb. Nor was he too large for work on the cultivator, while sturdy enough to carry a single plow.
Hiram passed him over with a satisfactory pat on the nose and turned to look at the white-faced cow that had so terrified Mrs. Atterson. She wasn't a bad looking beast, either, and would freshen shortly. Her calf would be worth from twelve to fifteen dollars if Mrs. Atterson did not wish to raise it. Another future asset to mention to the old lady when he returned.
The youth turned his attention to the buildings themselves—the barn, the cart shed, the henhouse, and the smaller buildings. That famous old decorating firm of Wind & Weather had contracted for all painting done around the Atterson place for the many years; but the buildings were not otherwise in a bad state of repair.
A few shingles had been blown off the roofs; here and there a board was loose. With a hammer and a few nails, and in a few hours, many of these small repairs could be accomplished. And a coat or two of properly mixed and applied whitewash would freshen up the whole place and—like charity—cover a multitude of sins.
Henry bade him good-bye now, they shook hands, and Hiram agreed to let his new friend know at once if he decided to come with Mrs. Atterson to the farm.
“We can have heaps of fun—you and me,” declared Henry.
“It isn't so bad,” soliloquized the young farmer when he was alone. “There'd be time to put the buildings and fences in good shape before the spring work came on with a rush. There's fertilizer enough in the barnyard and the pig pen and the hen run—with the help of a few pounds of salts and some bone meal, perhaps—to enrich a right smart kitchen garden and spread for corn on that four acre lot yonder.
“Of course, this land up here on the hill needs humus. If it has been cropped on shares, as Henry says, all the enrichment it has received has been from commercial fertilizers. And necessarily they have made the land sour. It probably needs lime badly.
“Yes, I can't encourage Mrs. Atterson to look for a profit in anything this year. It will take a year to get that rich bottom into shape for—for what, I wonder? Onions? Celery? It would raise 'em both. I'll think about that and look over the market prospects more fully before I decide.”
For already, you see, Hiram had come to the decision that this old farm could be made to pay. Why not? The true farmer has to have imagination as well as the knowledge and the perseverance to grow crops. He must be able in his mind's eye to see a field ready for the reaping before he puts in a seed.
He did not go to the house on this occasion, but after casually examining the tools and harness, and the like, left by the old man, he cut off across the upper end of the farm and gave the neglected open fields of this upper forty a casual examination.
“If she had the money to invest, I'd say buy sheep and fence these fields and so get rid of the weeds. They've grown very foul through neglect, and cultivating them for years would not destroy the weeds as sheep would in two seasons.
“But wire fencing is expensive—and so are good sheep to begin with. No. Slow but sure must be our motto. I mustn't advise any great outlay of money—that would scare her to death.
“It will be hard enough for her to put out money all season long before there are any returns. We'll go, slow,” repeated Hiram.
But when he left the farm that afternoon he went swiftly enough to Scoville and took the train for the not far distant city of Crawberry. This was Tuesday evening and he arrived just about supper time at Mrs. Atterson's.
The reason for Hiram's absence, and the matter of Mrs. Atterson's legacy altogether, had been kept from the boarders. And there was no time until after the principal meal of the day was off the lady's mind for Hiram to say anything to her.
“She's a good old soul,” thought Hiram. “And if it's in my power to make that farm pay, and yield her a competency for her old age, I'll do it.”
Meanwhile he was not losing sight of the fact that there was something due to him in this matter. He was bound to see that he got his share—and a just share—of any profits that might accrue from the venture.
So, after the other boarders had scattered, and Mrs. Atterson had eaten her own late supper, and Sister was swashing plates and knives and forks about in a big pan of hot water in the kitchen sink, (between whiles doing her best to listen at the crack of the door) the landlady and Hiram Strong threshed out the project fully.
It was not all one-sided; for Mrs. Atterson, after all, had been bargaining all her life and could see the “main chance” as quickly as the next one. She had not bickered with hucksters, chivvied grocerymen, fought battles royal with butchers, and endured the existence of a Red Indian amidst allied foes for two decades without having her wits ground to a razor edge.
On the other hand, Hiram Strong, although a boy in years, had been his own master long enough to take care of himself in most transactions, and withal had a fund of native caution. They jotted down memoranda of the points on which they were agreed, which included the following:
Mrs. Atterson, as “party of the first part”, agreed to board Hiram until the crops were harvested the second year. In addition she was to pay him one hundred dollars at Christmas time this first year, and another hundred at the conclusion of the agreement—i. e., when the second year's crop was harvested.
Beside, of the estimated profits of the second year's crop, Hiram was to have twenty-five per cent. This profit was to be that balance in the farm's favor (if such balance there was) over and above the actual cost of labor, seed, and such purchased fertilizer or other supplies as were necessary. Mrs. Atterson agreed likewise to supply one serviceable horse and such tools as might be needed, for the place was to be run as “a one-horse farm.”
On the other hand Hiram agreed to give his entire time to the farm, to work for Mrs. Atterson's interest in all things, to make no expenditures without discussing them first with her, and to give his best care and attention generally to the farm and all that pertained thereto. Of course, the old lady was taking Hiram a good deal on trust. But she had known the boy almost two years and he had been faithful and prompt in discharging his debts to her.
But it was up to the young fellow to “make good.” He could not expect to make any profit for his employer the first year; but he would be expected to do so the second season, or “show cause.”
When these matters were all discussed and the little memorandum signed, Hiram Strong, in his own room, thought the situation over very seriously. He was facing the biggest responsibility that he had obliged to assume in his whole life.
This was no boyish job; it was man's work. He had put his hand to an agreement that might influence his whole future, and certainly would make or break his credit as a trustworthy youth and one of his word.
During these past days Hiram had determined to “get back to the soil” and to get back to it in a business-like way. He desired to make good for Mrs. Atterson so that he might some time have the chance to make good for somebody else on a bigger scale.
He did not propose to be “a one-horse farmer” all his days.