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.
On Monday morning Mrs. Atterson put her house in the agent's hands. On Wednesday a pair of spinster ladies came to look at it. They came again on Thursday and again on Friday.
Friday being considered an “unlucky” day they did not bind the bargain; but on Saturday money was passed, and the new keepers of the house were to take possession in a week. Not until then were the boarders informed of Mother Atterson's change of circumstances, and the fact that she was going to graduate from the boarding house kitchen to the farm.
After all, they were sorry—those light-headed, irresponsible young men. There wasn't one of them, from Crackit down the line, who could not easily remember some special kindness that marked the old lady's intercourse with him.
As soon as the fact was announced that the boarding house had changed hands, the boarders were up in arms. There was a wild gabble of voices, over the supper table that night. Crackit led the chorus.
“It's a mean trick. Mother Atterson has sold us like so many cattle to the highest bidder. Ungrateful—right down ungrateful, I call it,” he declared. “What do you say, Feeble?”
“It is particularly distasteful to me just now,” complained the invalid. “When Sister has learned to give me my hot water at just the right temperature,” and he took a sip of that innocent beverage. “Don't you suppose we could prevail upon the old lady to renig?”
“She's bound to put us off with half rations for the rest of the time she stays,” declared Crackit, shaking his head wisely. “She's got nothing to lose now. She don't care if we all up and leave—after she gets hers.”
“That's always the way,” feebly remarked Mr. Peebles. “Just as soon as I really get settled down into a half-decent lodging, something happens.”
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.
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!”
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.