"I can take you to Scoville--or to Miss Bronson's--in the farm wagon," Hiram said, smiling. "You can sit on straw in the bottom and be comfortable.""Oh, a straw ride!" cried Lettie. "What fun!And he can drive us right to St. Beris--And think what the other girls will say and how they'll stare!" The idea seemed a happy one to all the girls save the cry-baby, MyraCarroll. And her complaints were drowned in the laughter and chatter of the others.
Hiram picked up the tools, Sister got the string of fish, and they set out for the Atterson farmhouse. Lettie chatted most of the way with Hiram; but to Sister, walking on the other side of the young farmer, the Western girl never said a word.
At the house it was the same. While Hiram was cleaning the wagon and putting a bed of straw into it, and currying the horse and gearing him to the wagon, Mrs. Atterson brought a crock of cookies out upon the porch and talked with the girls from St. Beris. Sister had run indoors and changed her shabby and soiled frock for a new gingham; but when she came down to the porch, and stood bashfully in the doorway, none of the girls from town spoke to her.
Hiram drove up with the farm-wagon. Most of the girls had accepted the adventure in the true spirit now, and they climbed into the wagon-bed on the clean straw with laughter and jokes. But nobody invited Sister to join the party.
The orphan looked wistfully after the wagon as Hiram drove out of the yard. Then she turned, with trembling lip, to Mother Atterson: "She-- she's awfully pretty," she said, "and Hiram likes her. But she--they're all proud, and I guess they don't think much of folks like us, after all.""Shucks, Sister! we're just good as they be, every bit," returned Mrs. Atterson, bruskly.
"I know; mebbe we be," admitted Sister, slowly. But it don't feel so."And perhaps Hiram had some such thought, too, after he had driven the girls to the big boarding. school in Scoville. For they all got out without even thanking him or bidding him good-bye--all save Lettie.
"Really, we are a thousand times obliged to you, Hiram Strong," she said, in her very best manner, and offering him her hand. "As the girls were my guests I felt I must get them home again safely--and you were indeed a friend in need."But then she spoiled it utterly, by adding:
"Now, how much do I owe you, Hiram?" and took out her purse. "Is two dollars enough?" This put Hiram right in his place. He saw plainlythat, friendly as the Bronsons were, they did not look upon a common farm-boy as their equal--not in social matters, at least.
"I could not take anything for doing a neighbor a favor, Miss " Bronson, said Hiram, quietly. "Thank you. Good-day. "Hiram drove back home feeling quite as depressed as Sister, perhaps. Finally he said to himself:
"Well, some day I'll show 'em!"
After that he put the matter out of his mind and refused to be troubled by thoughts of Lettie Bronson, or her attitude toward him.
Spring was advancing apace now. Every day saw the development of bud, leaf and plant. Slowly the lowland was cleared and the brush and roots were heaped in great piles, ready for the torch.
Hiram could not depend upon this six acres as their only piece of corn, however. There was the four-acre lot between the barnyard and the pasture in which he proposed to plant the staple crop.
He drew out the remainder of the coarse manure and spread it upon this land, as far as it would go. For enriching the remainder of the corn crop he would have to depend upon a commercial fertilizer. He drew, too, a couple of tons of lime to be used on this corn land, and left it in heaps to slake.
And then, out of the clear sky of their progress, came a bolt as unexpected as could be. They had been less than a month upon the farm. Uncle Jeptha had not been in his grave thirty days, and Hiram was just getting into the work of running the place, with success looming ahead.
He had refused Mr. Bronson's offer of a position and had elected to stick by Mrs. Atterson. He had looked forward to nothing to disturb the contract between them until the time should be fulfilled.
Yet one afternoon, while he was at work in the garden, Sister came out to him all in a flurry.
"Mis' Atterson wants you! Mis' Atterson wants you!" cried the girl. "Oh, Hiram! something dreadful's going to happen. I know, by the way Mis' Atterson looks. And I don' like the looks o' that man that's come to see her."Hiram unhooked the horse at the end of the row and left Sister to leadhim to the stable. He went into the house after knocking the mud off his boots.
There, sitting in the bright kitchen, was the sharp-featured, snaky- looking man with whom Hiram had once talked in town. He knew his name was Pepper, and that he did something in the real estate line, and insurance, and the like.
"Jest listen to what this man says, Hiram," said Mrs. Atterson, grimly. "My name's Pepper," began the man, eyeing Hiram curiously.
"So I hear," returned the young farmer.
"Before old Mr. Atterson died we got to talking one day when he was in town about his selling.""Well?" returned Hiram. "You didn't say anything about that when you offered twelve hundred for this place.""Well," said the man, stubbornly, "that was a good offer."Hiram turned to Mrs. Atterson. "Do you want to sell for that price?" "No, I don't, Hi," she said.
"Then that settles it, doesn't it? Mrs. Atterson is the owner, and she knows her own mind.""I made Uncle Jeptha a better offer," said Mr. Pepper, "and I'll make Mrs. Atterson the same--sixteen hundred dollars. It's a run-down farm, of course---""If Mrs. Atterson doesn't want to sell," interrupted Hiram, but here his employer intervened.
"There's something more, Hi," she said, her face working "strangely. Tell him, you Pepper!""Why, the old man gave me an option on the place, and I risked a twenty dollar bill on it. The option had--er--a year to run; dated February tenth last; and I've decided to take the option up," said Mr. Pepper, his shrewd little eyes dancing in their gaze from Hiram to the old lady and back again.
