“Old Lem Camp,” as he had been called for so many years that there seemed no disrespect in the title, was waking up. Not many mornings was he a lie-abed. And the lines in his forehead seemed to be smoothing out, and his eyes had lost something of their dullness.
It was true that, at first, he wandered about the farmstead muttering to himself in his old way—an endless monologue2 which was a jumble3 of comment, gratitude4, and the brief memories of other days. It took some time to adjust his poor mind to the fact that he had no longer to fear that Poverty which had stalked ever before him like a threatening spirit.
Gratitude spurred him to the use of his hands. He was not a broken man—not bodily. Many light tasks soon fell to his share, and Mrs. Atterson told Hiram and Sister to let him do what he would. To busy himself would be the best thing in the world for the old fellow.
“That's what's been the matter with Mr. Camp for years,” she declared, with conviction. “Because he passed the sixty-year mark, and it was against the practise of the paper company to keep employees on the payroll5 over that age, they turned Lem Camp off.
“Ridiculous! He was just as well able to do the tasks that he had learned to do mechanically as he had been any time for the previous twenty years. He had worked in that office forty years, and more, you understand.
“That's the worst thing about a corporation of that kind—it has no thought beyond its 'rules.' Old Mr. Bundy remembered Lem—that's all. If he hadn't so much stock in the concern they'd turn him off, too. I expect he knows it and that's what softened6 his heart to Old Lem.
“Now, let Lem take hold of whatever he can do, and git interested in it,” declared the practical Mrs. Atterson, “and he'll show you that there's work left in him yet. Yes-sir-ree-sir! And if he'll work in the open air, all the better for him.”
There was plenty for everybody to do, and Hiram would not say the old man nay7. The seed boxes needed a good deal of attention, for they were to be lifted out into the air on warm days, and placed in the sun. And Old Lem could do this—and stir the soil in them, and pull out the grass and other weeds that started.
Hiram had planted early cabbage and cauliflower and egg-plant in other boxes, and the beets8 were almost big enough to transplant to the open ground. Beets are hardy9 and although hair-roots are apt to form on transplanted garden beets, the transplanting aids the growth in other ways and Hiram expected to have table-beets very early.
In the garden itself he had already run out two rows of later beets, the width of the plot. Bunched beets will sell for a fair price the whole season through.
Hiram was giving his whole heart and soul to the work—he was wrapped up in the effort to make the farm pay. And for good reason.
It was “up to him” to not alone turn a profit for his employer, and himself; but he desired—oh, how strongly!—to show the city folk who had sneered10 at him that he could be a success in the right environment.
Besides, and in addition, Hiram Strong was ambitious—very ambitious indeed for a youth of his age. He wanted to own a farm of his own in time—and it was no “one-horse farm” he aimed at.
No, indeed! Hiram had read of the scientific farming of the Middle West, and the enormous tracts11 in the Northwest devoted12 to grain and other staple13 crops, where the work was done for the most part by machinery14.
He longed to see all this—and to take part in it. He desired the big things in farming, nor would he ever be content to remain a helper.
“I'm going to be my own boss, some day—and I'm going to boss other men. I'll show these fellows around here that I know what I want, and when I get it I'll handle it right!” Hiram soliloquized.
“It's up to me to save every cent I can. Henry thinks I'm niggardly15, I expect, because I wouldn't go to town Saturday night with him. But I haven't any money to waste.
“The hundred I'm to get next Christmas from Mrs. Atterson I don't wish to draw on at all. I'll get along with such old clothes as I've got.”
Hiram was not naturally a miser16; he frequently bought some little thing for Sister when he went to town—a hair-ribbon, or the like, which he knew would please the girl; but for himself he was determined17 to be saving.
At the end of his contract with Mrs. Atterson he would have two hundred dollars anyway. But that was not the end and aim of Hiram Strong's hopes.
“It's the clause in our agreement about the profits of our second season that is my bright and shining star,” he told the good lady more than once. “I don't know yet what we had better put in next year to bring us a fortune; but we'll know before it comes time to plant it.”
Meanwhile the wheel-hoe and seeder he had insisted upon Mrs. Atterson buying had arrived, and Hiram, after studying the instructions which came with it, set the machine up as a seed-sower. Later, after the bulk of the seeds were in the ground, he would take off the seeding attachment18 and bolt on the hoe, or cultivator attachments19, with which to stir the soil between the narrower rows of vegetables.
As he made ready to plant seeds such as carrot, parsnip, onion, salsify, and leaf-beet, as well as spring spinach20, early turnips21, radishes and kohlrabi, Hiram worked that part of his plowed22 land over again and again with the spike23 harrow, finally boarding the strips down smoothly24 as he wished to plant them. The seedbed must be as level as a floor, and compact, for good use to be made of the wheel-seeder.
When he had lined out one row with his garden line, from side to side of the plowed strip, the marking arrangement attached to his seeder would mark the following lines plainly, and at just the distance he desired.
Onions, carrots, and the like, he put in fifteen inches apart, intending to do all the cultivating of those extremely small plants with the wheel-hoe, after they were large enough. But he foresaw the many hours of cultivating before him and marked the rows for the bulk of the vegetables far enough apart, as he had first intended, to make possible the use of the horse-hoe.
Meanwhile he spike-harrowed the potato patch, running cross-wise of the rows to break the crust and keep down the quick-springing weed seeds. The early peas were already above ground and when they were two inches high Hiram ran his 14-tooth cultivator—or “seed harrow” as it is called in some localities—close to the rows so as to throw the soil toward the plants, almost burying them from sight again. This was to give the peas deep rootage, which is a point necessary for the quick and stable growth of this vegetable.
In odd moments Hiram had cut and set a few posts, bought poultry25 netting in Scoville, and enclosed Mrs. Atterson's chicken-run. She had taken his advice and sent for eggs, and already had four hens setting and expected to set the remainder of the of the eggs in a few days.
Sister took an enormous interest in this poultry-raising venture. She “counted chickens before they were hatched” with a vengeance26, and after reading a few of the poultry catalogs she figured out that, in three years, from the increase of Mother Atterson's hundred eggs, the eighty-acre farm would not be large enough to contain the flock.
“And all from five dollars!” gasped27 Sister. “I don't see why everybody doesn't go to raising chickens—then there'd be no poor folks, everybody would be rich—Well! I expect there'd always have to be institutions for orphans—and boarding houses!”
The new-springing things from the ground, the “hen industry” and the repairing and beautifying of the outside of the farmhouse28 did not take up all their attention. There were serious matters to be discussed in the evening, after the others had gone to bed, 'twixt Hiram and his employer.
There was the five or six acres of bottom land—the richest piece of soil of the entire eighty. Hiram had not forgotten this, and the second Sunday of their stay at the farm, after the whole family had attended service at a chapel29 less than half a mile up the road, he had urged Mrs. Atterson to walk with him through the timber to the riverside.
“For the Land o' Goshen!” the ex-boarding house mistress had finally exclaimed. “To think that I own all of this. Why, Hi, it don't seem as if it was so. I can't get used to it. And this timber, you say, is all worth money? And if I cut it off, it will grow up again——”
“In thirty to forty years the pine will be worth cutting again—and some of the other trees,” said Hiram, with a smile.
“Well! that would be something for Sister to look forward to,” said the old lady, evidently thinking aloud. “And I don't expect her folks—whoever they be—will ever look her up now, Hiram.”
“But with the timber cut and this side hill cleared, you would have a very valuable thirty acres, or so, of tillage—valuable for almost any crop, and early, too, for it slopes toward the sun,” said the young farmer, ignoring the other's observation.
“Well, well! it's wonderful,” returned Mrs. Atterson.
But she listened attentively30 to what he had to say about clearing the bottom land, which was a much more easily accomplished31 task, as Hiram showed her. It would cost something to put the land into shape for late corn, and so prepare it for some more valuable crop the following season.
“Well, nothing ventured, nothing have!” Mrs. Atterson finally agreed. “Go ahead—if it won't cost much more than what you say to get the corn in. I understand it's a gamble, and I'm taking a gambler's chance. If the river rises and floods the corn in June, or July, then we get nothing this season?”
“That is a possibility,” admitted Hiram.
“Go ahead,” exclaimed Mother Atterson. “I never did know that there was sporting blood in me; but I kinder feel it risin', Hi, with the sap in the trees. We'll chance it!”
Occasionally Hiram had stepped down to the pasture and squinted32 across to the water-hole. The grass was not long enough yet to turn the cow into the field, so he was obliged to make these special trips to the pasture.
He had seen nothing of the Dickersons—to speak to, that is—since his trouble with Pete. And, of a sudden, just before dinner one noon, Hiram took a look ............