



Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer





HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER

By Burbank L. Todd


CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. THE CALL OF SPRING

CHAPTER II. AT MRS. ATTERSON'S

CHAPTER III. A DREARY DAY

CHAPTER IV. THE LOST CARD

CHAPTER V. THE COMMOTION AT MOTHER ATTERSON'S

CHAPTER VI. THIS DIDN'T GET BY HIRAM

CHAPTER VII. HOW HIRAM LEFT TOWN

CHAPTER VIII. THE LURE OF GREEN FIELDS

CHAPTER IX. THE BARGAIN IS MADE

CHAPTER X. THE SOUND OF BEATING HOOFS

CHAPTER XI. A GIRL RIDES INTO THE TALE

CHAPTER XII. SOMETHING ABOUT A PASTURE FENCE

CHAPTER XIII. THE UPROOTING

CHAPTER XIV. GETTING IN THE EARLY CROPS

CHAPTER XV. TROUBLE BREWS

CHAPTER XV. ONE SATURDAY AFTERNOON

CHAPTER XVII. MR. PEPPER APPEARS

CHAPTER XVIII. A HEAVY CLOUD

CHAPTER XIX. THE REASON WHY

CHAPTER XX. AN ENEMY IN THE DARK

CHAPTER XXI. THE WELCOME TEMPEST

CHAPTER XXII. FIRST FRUITS

CHAPTER XXIII. TOMATOES AND TROUBLE

CHAPTER XXIV. "CORN THAT'S CORN"

CHAPTER XXV. THE BARBECUE

CHAPTER XXVI. SISTER'S TURKEYS

CHAPTER XXVII. RUN TO EARTH

CHAPTER XXVIII. HARVEST

CHAPTER XXIX. LETTIE BRONSON'S CORN HUSKING

CHAPTER XXX. ONE SNOWY MIDNIGHT

CHAPTER XXXI. "MR. DAMOCLES'S SWORD"

CHAPTER XXXII. THE CLOUD IS LIFTED

CHAPTER XXXIII. "CELERY MAD"

CHAPTER XXXIV. CLEANING UP A PROFIT

CHAPTER XXXV. LOOKING AHEAD




CHAPTER I. THE CALL OF SPRING

"Well, after all, the country isn't such a bad place as some city folk
think."

The young fellow who said this stood upon the highest point of the Ridge
Road, where the land sloped abruptly to the valley in which lay the
small municipality of Crawberry on the one hand, while on the other open
fields and patches of woodland, in a huge green-and-brown checkerboard
pattern, fell more easily to the bank of the distant river.

Dotted here and there about the farming country lying before the youth
as he looked westward were cottages, or the more important-looking
homesteads on the larger farms; and in the distance a white church spire
behind the trees marked the tiny settlement of Blaine's Smithy.

A Sabbath calm lay over the fields and woods. It was mid-afternoon of
an early February Sunday--the time of the mid-winter thaw, that false
prophet of the real springtime.

Although not a furrow had been turned as yet in the fields, and the snow
lay deep in some fence corners and beneath the hedges, there was, after
all, a smell of fresh earth--a clean, live smell--that Hiram Strong had
missed all week down in Crawberry.

"I'm glad I came up here," he muttered, drawing in great breaths of
the clean air. "Just to look at the open fields, without any brick and
mortar around, makes a fellow feel fine!"

He stretched his arms above his head and, standing alone there on the
upland, felt bigger and better than he had in weeks.

For Hiram Strong was a country boy, born and bred, and the town stifled
him. Besides, he had begun to see that his two years in Crawberry had
been wasted.

"As a hustler after fortune in the city I am not a howling success,"
mused Hiram. "Somehow, I'm cramped down yonder," and he glanced back
at the squalid brick houses below him, the smoky roofs, and the ugly
factory chimneys.

"And I declare," he pursued, reflectively, "I don't believe I can stand
Old Dan Dwight much longer. Dan, Junior, is bad enough--when he is
around the store; but the boss would drive a fellow to death."

He shook his head, now turning from the pleasanter prospect of the
farming land and staring down into the town.

"Maybe I'm not a success because I don't stick to one thing. I've had
six jobs in less'n two years. That's a bad record for a boy, I believe.
But there hasn't any of them suited me, nor have I suited them.

"And Dwight's Emporium beats 'em all!" finished Hiram, shaking his head.

He turned his back upon the town once more, as though to wipe his
failure out of his memory. Before him sloped a field of wheat and
clover.

It had kept as green under the snow as though winter was an unknown
season. Every cloverleaf sparkled and the leaves of wheat bristled like
tiny spears.

Spring was on the way. He could hear the call of it!

Two years before Hiram had left the farm. He had no immediate