A	>>	B	>>	C	>>	D	>>	E
F	>>	G	>>	H	>>	I	>>	J
K	>>	L	>>	M	>>	N	>>	O
P	>>	R	>>	S	>>	T	>>	U
V	>>	W	>>			X	>>	Z

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - "Briefe aus der Schweiz"

Burroughs - "The Monster Men, by Edgar Rice Burroughs"

Myrtle Reed - "Lavender and Old Lace"

Thomas a Kempis - "The Imitation of Christ"

Hiram The Young Farmer

B >> Burbank L. Todd >> Hiram The Young Farmer



HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER

BY BURBANK L. TODD





CONTENTS

I THE CALL OF SPRING
II AT MRS. ATTERSONS
III A DREARY DAY
IV THE LOST CARD
V THE COMMOTION AT MOTHER ATTERSONS
VI THIS DIDN'T GET BY HIRAM
VII HOW HIRAM LEFT TOWM
VIII THE LURE OF GREEN FIELDS
IX THE BARGAIN IS MADE
X THE SOUND OF BEATING HOOFS
XI A GIRL RIDES INTO THE TALE
XII SOMETHING ABOUT A PASTURE FENCE
XIII THE UPROOTING
XIV GETTING IN THE EARLY CROPS
XV TROUBLE BREWS
XVI ONE SATURDAY AFTERNOON
XVII MR. PEPPER APPEARS
XVIII A HEAVY CLOUD
XIX THE REASON WHY
XX AN ENEMY IN THE DARK
XXI THE WELCOME TEMPEST
XXII FIRST FRUITS
XXIII TOMATOES AND TROUBLE
XXIV "CORN THAT'S CORN"
XXV THE BARBECUE
XXVI SISTER'S TURKEYS
XXVII RUN TO EARTH
XXIX HARVEST
XXX ONE SNOWY MIDNIGHT
XXXI "MR. DAMOCLES'S SWORD"
XXXII THE CLOUD IS LIFTED
XXXIII "CELERY MAD"
XXXIV CLEANING UP A PROFIT
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
relatives after his father died. The latter had been a
tenant-farmer only, and when his tools and stock and the few
household chattels had been sold to pay the debts that had
accumulated during his last illness, there was very little money
left for Hiram.

There was nobody to say him nay when he packed his bag and
started for Crawberry, which was the metropolis of his part of
the country. He had set out boldly, believing that he could get
ahead faster, and become master of his own fortune more quickly
in town than in the locality where he was born.

He was a rugged, well-set-up youth of seventeen, not over-tall,
but sturdy and able to do a man's work. Indeed, he had long done
a man's work before he left the farm.

Hiram's hands were calloused, he shuffled a bit when walked, and
his shoulders were just a little bowed from holding the plow
handles since he had been big enough to bridle his father's old
mare.

Yes, the work on the farm had been hard--especially for a growing
boy. Many farm boys work under better conditions than Hiram had.

Nevertheless, after a two years' trial of what the city has
in store for most country boys who cut loose from their old
environment, Hiram Strong felt to-day as though he must get back
to the land.

"There's nothing for me in town. Clerking in Dwight's Emporium
will never get me anywhere," he thought, turning finally away
from the open country and starting down the steep hill.

"Why, there are college boys working on our street cars
here--waiting for some better job to turn up. What chance does a
fellow stand who's only got a country school education?

"And there isn't any clean fun for a fellow in Crawberry--fun
that doesn't cost money. And goodness knows I can't make more
than enough to pay Mrs. Atterson, and for my laundry, and buy a
new suit of overalls and a pair of shoes occasionally.

"No, sir!" concluded Hiram. "There's nothing in it. Not for a
fellow like me, at any rate. I'd better be back on the farm--and
I wish I was there now."

He had been to church that morning; but after the late dinner
at his boarding house had set out on this lonely walk. Now he
had nothing to look forward to as he returned but the stuffy
parlor of Mrs. Atterson's boarding house, the cold supper in the
dining-room, which was attended in a desultory fashion by such
of the boarders as were at home, and then a long, dull evening
in his room, or bed after attending the evening service at the
church around the corner.

Hiram even shrank from meeting the same faces at the boarding
house table, hearing the same stale jokes or caustic remarks
about Mrs. Atterson's food from Fred Crackit and the young men
boarders of his class, or the grumbling of Mr. Peebles, the
dyspeptic invalid, or the inane monologue of Old Lem Camp.

And Mrs. Atterson herself--good soul though she was--had gotten
on Hiram Strong's nerves, too. With her heat-blistered face,
near-sighted eyes peering through beclouded spectacles, and her
gown buttoned up hurriedly and with a gap here and there where
a button was missing, she was the typically frowsy, hurried,
nagged-to-death boarding house mistress.

And as for "Sister," Mrs. Atterson's little slavey and
maid-of-all-work---

"Well, Sister's the limit!" smiled Hiram, as he turned into the
street, with its rows of ugly brick houses on either hand. "I
believe Fred Crackit has got it right. Mrs. Atterson keeps
Sister instead of a cat--so there'll be something to kick."

The half-grown girl--narrow-chested, round shouldered, and
sallow--had been taken by Mrs. Atterson from some charity
institution. "Sister," as the boarders all called her, for
lack of any other cognomen, would have her yellow hair in four
attenuated pigtails hanging down her back, and she would shuffle
about the dining-room in a pair of Mrs. Atterson's old shoes---

"By Jove! there she is now," exclaimed the startled youth.

At the corner of the street several "slices" of the brick
block had been torn away and the lot cleared for the erection
of some business building. Running across this open space
with wild shrieks and spilling the milk from the big pitcher
she carried--milk for the boarders' tea, Hi knew--came
Mrs. Atterson's maid.

Behind her, and driving her like a horse by the ever present
"pigtails," bounded a boy of about her own age--a laughing,
yelling imp of a boy whom Hiram knew very well.

"That Dan Dwight is the meanest little scamp at this end of the
town!" he said to himself.

The noise the two made attracted only the idle curiosity of a few
people. It was a locality where, even on Sundays, there was more
or less noise.

Sister begged and screamed. She feared she would spill the milk
and told Dan, Junior, so. But he only drove her the harder,
yelling to her to "Get up!" and yanking as hard as he could on
the braids.

"Here! that's enough of that!" called Hiram, stepping quickly
toward the two.

For Sister had stopped exhausted, and in tears.

"Be off with you!" commanded Hiram. "You've plagued the girl
enough."

"Mind your business, Hi-ram-Lo-ram!" returned Dan, Junior,
grabbing at Sister's hair again.

Hiram caught the younger boy by the shoulder and whirled him
around.

"You run along to Mrs. Atterson, Sister," he said, quietly. "No,
you don't!" he added, gripping Dan, Junior, more firmly. "You'll
stop right here."

"Lemme be, Hi Strong!" bawled the other, when he found he could
not easily jerk away. "It'll be the worse for you if you don't."

"Just you wait until the girl is home," returned Hiram, laughing.
It was an easy matter for him to hold the writhing Dan, Junior.

"I'll fix you for this!" squalled the boy. "Wait till I tell my
father."

"You wouldn't dare tell your father the truth," laughed Hi.

"I'll fix you," repeated Dan, Junior, and suddenly aimed a
vicious kick at his captor.

Had the kick landed where Dan, Junior, intended--under Hi's
kneecap--the latter certainly would have been "fixed." But the
country youth was too agile for him.

He jumped aside, dragged Dan, Junior, suddenly toward him, and
then gave him a backward thrust which sent the lighter boy
spinning.

Now, it had rained the day before and in a hollow beside the path
was a puddle several inches deep. Dan, Junior, lost his balance,
staggered back, tripped over his own clumsy heels, and splashed
full length into it.

"Oh, oh!" he bawled, managing to get well soaked before he
scrambled out. " I'll tell my father on you, Hi Strong. You'll
catch it for this!"

"You'd better run home before you catch cold," said Hiram, who
could not help laughing at the young rascal's plight. "And let
girls alone another time."

To himself he said: "Well, the goodness knows I couldn't be much
more in bad odor with Mr. Dwight than I am already. But this
escapade of his precious son ought to about 'fix' me, as Dan,
Junior, says.

"Whether I want to, or not, I reckon I will be looking for
another job in a very few days."



CHAPTER TWO

AT MRS. ATTERSON'S

When you came into "Mother" Atterson's front hall (the young men
boarders gave her that appellation in irony) the ghosts of many
ancient boiled dinners met you with--if you were sensitive and
unused to the odors of cheap boarding houses--a certain shock.

He was starting up the stairs, on which the ragged carpet
threatened to send less agile persons than Mrs. Atterson's
boarders headlong to the bottom at every downward trip, when the
clang of the gong in the dining-room announced the usual cold
spread which the landlady thought due to her household on the
first day of the week.

Hiram hesitated, decided that he would skip the meal, and started
up again. But just then Fred Crackit lounged out of the parlor,
with Mr. Peebles following him. Dyspeptic as he was, Mr. Peebles
never missed a meal himself, and Crackit said:

"Come on, Hi-Low-Jack! Aren't you coming down to the usual feast
of reason and flow of soul?"

Crackit thought he was a natural humorist, and he had to keep
up his reputation at all times and seasons. He was rather a
dissipated-looking man of thirty years or so, given to gay
waistcoats and wonderfully knit ties. A brilliant as large as
a hazel-nut--and which, in some lights, really sparkled like a
diamond--adorned the tie he wore this evening.

"I don't believe I want any supper," responded Hiram, pleasantly.

"What's the matter? Got some inside information as to what
Mother Atterson has laid out for us? You're pretty thick with
the old girl, Hi."

"That's not a nice way to speak of her, Mr. Crackit," said Hi, in
a low voice.

The other boarders--those who were in the house-straggled into
the basement dining-room one after the other, and took their
places at the long table, each in his customary manner.

That dining-room at Mother Atterson's never could have been a
cheerful place. It was long, and low-ceiled, and the paper on
the walls was a dingy red, so old that the figure on it had
retired into the background--been absorbed by it, so to speak.

The two long, dusty, windows looked upon an area, and were
grilled half way up by wrought-iron screens which, too, helped to
shut out the light of day.

The long table was covered by a red figured table cloth. The
"castors" at both ends and in the middle were the ugliest--Hiram
was sure--to be found in all the city of Crawberry. The
crockery was of the coarsest kind. The knives and forks were
antediluvian. The napkins were as coarse as huck towels.

But Mrs. Atterson's food--considering the cost of provisions and
the charge she made for her table--was very good. Only it had
become a habit for certain of the boarders, led by the jester,
Crackit, to criticise the viands.

Sometimes they succeeded in making Mrs. Atterson angry; and
sometimes, Hiram knew, she wept, alone in the dining-room, after
the harumscarum, thoughtless crowd had gone.

Old Lem Camp--nobody save Hiram thought to put "Mr." before the
old gentleman's name--sidled in and sat down beside the country
boy, as usual. He was a queer, colorless sort of person--a
man who never looked into the face of another if he could help
it. He would look all around Hiram when he spoke to him--at his
shoulder, his shirtfront, his hands, even at his feet if they
were visible, but never at his face.

And at the table he kept up a continual monologue. It was
difficult sometimes for Hiram to know when he was being
addressed, and when poor Mr. Camp was merely talking to himself.

"Let's see--where has Sister put my napkin--Oh! here it
is--You've been for a walk, have you, young man?--No, that's not
my napkin; I didn't spill any gravy at dinner--Nice day out,
but raw--Goodness me! can't I have a knife and fork?--Where's
my knife and fork?--Sister certainly has forgotten my knife and
fork.--Oh! Here they are--Yes, a very nice day indeed for this
time of year."

And so on. It was quite immaterial to Mr. Camp whether he got an
answer to his remarks to Hiram, or not. He went on muttering to
himself, all through the meal, sometimes commenting upon what the
others said at the table--and that quite shrewdly, Hiram noticed;
but the other boarders considered him a little cracked.

Sister smiled sheepishly at Hiram as she passed the tea. She
drowned his tea with milk and put in no less than four spoonfuls
of sugar. But although the fluid was utterly spoiled for Hiram's
taste he drank it with fortitude, knowing that the girl's
generosity was the child of her gratitude; for both sugar and
milk were articles very scantily supplied at Mother Atterson's
table.

The mistress herself did not appear. Now that he was down here
in the dining-room, Hiram lingered. He hated the thought of
going up to his lonely and narrow quarters at the top of the
house.

The other boarders trailed out of the room and up stairs, one
after another, Old Lem Camp being the last to go. Sister brought
in a dish of hot toast between two plates and set it at the upper
end of the table. Then Mrs. Atterson appeared.

Hiram knew at once that something had gone wrong with the
boarding house mistress. She had been crying, and when a woman
of the age of Mrs. Atterson indulges in tears, her personal
appearance is never improved.

"Oh, that you, Hi?" she drawled, with a snuffle. "Did you get
enough to eat?"

"Yes, Mrs. Atterson," returned the youth, starting to get up. "I
have had plenty."

"I'm glad you did," said the lady. "And you're easy 'side of
most of 'em, Hiram. You're a real good boy."

"I reckon I get all I pay for, Mrs. Atterson," said her youngest
boarder.

"Well, there ain't many of 'em would say that. And they was
awful provokin' this noon. That roast of veal was just as
good meat as I could find in market; and I don't know what any
sensible party would want better than that prune pie.

"Well! I hope I won't have to keep a boarding house all my life.
It's a thankless task. An' it ties a body down so.

"Here's my uncle--my poor mother's only brother and about the
only relative I've got in the world--here's Uncle Jeptha down
with the grip, or suthin', and goodness knows if he'll ever get
over it. And I can't leave to go and see him die peaceable."

"Does he live far from here?" asked Hiram, politely, although he
had no particular reason for being interested in Uncle Jeptha.

"He lives on a farm out Scoville way. He's lived there most all
his life. He used to make a right good living off'n that farm,
too; but it's run down some now.

"The last time I was out there, two years ago, he was just
keepin' along and that's all. And now I expect he's dying,
without a chick or child of his own by him," and she burst out
crying again, the tears sprinkling the square of toast into which
she continued to bite.

Of course, it was ridiculous. A middle-aged woman weeping and
eating toast and drinking strong boiled tea is not a romantic
picture. But as Hiram climbed to his room he wished with all his
heart that he could help Mrs. Atterson.

He wasn't the only person in the world who seemed to have got
into a wrong environment--lots of people didn't fit right into
their circumstances in life.

"We're square pegs in round holes--that's what we are," mused
Hiram. "That's what I am. I wish I was out of it. I wish I was
back on the farm."



CHAPTER III

A DREARY DAY

Daniel Dwight's Emporium, the general store was called, and it
was in a very populous part of the town of Crawberry. Old Daniel
was a driver, he seldom had clerks enough to handle his trade
properly, and nobody could suit him. As general helper and
junior clerk, Hiram Strong had remained with the concern longer
than any other boy Daniel had hired in years.

When the early Monday morning rush was over, and there was
moment's breathing space, Hiram went to the door to re-arrange
the trays of vegetables which were his particular care. Hiram
had a knack of making a bank of the most plebeian vegetable and
salads look like the display-window of a florist.

Now the youth looked out upon a typical city street, the
dwellings on either side being four and five story tenement
houses, occupied by artisans and mechanics.

A few quarreling children paddled sticks, or sailed chip boats,
in the gutters.

"Come on, now! Get a move on you, Hi!" sounded the raucous voice
of Daniel Dwight the elder, behind him in the store.

Hiram went at his task with neither interest nor energy.

All about him the houses and the street were grimy and
depressing. It had been a gray and murky morning; but overhead
a patch of sky was as blue as June. He suddenly saw a flock of
pigeons wheeling above the tunnel of the street, and the boy's
heart leaped at the sight.

He longed for freedom. He wished he could fly, up, up, up above
the housetops and the streets, like those feathered fowl.

He knew he was stagnating here in this dingy store; the deadly
sameness of his life chafed him sorely.

"I'd take another job if I could find one," he muttered, stirring
up the bunches of yellowing radish leaves and trying to make them
look fresh. "And Old Daniel is likely to give me a chance to
hunt a job pretty sudden--the way he talks. But if Dan, Junior,
told him what happened yesterday, I wonder the old gentleman
hasn't been after me with a sharp stick."

From somewhere--out of the far-distant open country where it
had been breathing all night the quivering pines, and brown
swamps, and the white and gray checkered fields that would soon
be upturned by the plowshares--a vagrant wind wandered into the
city street.

The lingering, but faint perfume wafted here from God's open
world to die in this man-made town inspired in the youth thoughts
and desires that had been struggling within him for expression
for days past.

"I know what I want," said Hiram Strong, aloud. "I want to get
back to the land!"

The progress of the day was not inducive to a hopeful outlook
for Hiram. When closing time came he was heartily sick of the
business of storekeeping, if he never had been before.

And when he dragged himself home to the boarding house, he
found the atmosphere there as dreary as the street itself. The
boarders were grumpy and Mrs. Atterson was in a tearful state
again.

Hiram could not stay in his room. It was a narrow, cold place at
the end of the back hall at the top of the house. There was a
little, painted bureau in it, one leg of which had been replaced
by a brick, and the little glass was so blue and blurred that he
never could see in it whether his tie was straight or not.

There was a chair, a shelf for books, and a narrow folding bed.
When the bed was dropped down for his occupancy at night, he
could not get the door open. Had there ever been a fire at
Atterson's at night, Hiram's best chance for escape would have
been by the window.

So this evening, to kill the miserable stretch of time until
sleep should come to him, the boy went out and walked the
streets.

Two things had saved Hiram Strong from getting into bad company
on these evening rambles. One was the small amount of money he
earned, and the other was the naturally clean nature of the boy.
The cheap amusements which lured on either hand did not attract
him.

But the dangers are there in every city, and they lurk for every
boy in a like position.

The main thoroughfare in this part of the town where Hiram
boarded was brightly lighted, gaudy electric signs attracting
notice to cheap picture shows, catch-penny arcades, cheap jewelry
stores, and the ever present saloons and pool rooms.

It looked bright, and warm, and lively in many of these places;
but the country-bred boy was cautious.

Now and then a raucous-voiced automobile shot along the street;
the electric cars made their usual clangor, and there was still
some ordinary traffic of the day dribbling away into the side
streets, for it was early in the evening.

Hiram was about to turn into one of these side streets on his way
back to Mrs. Atterson's. Turning the corner was a handsome span
of horses attached to a comfortable but mud-bespattered carriage.
It was plainly from the country.

The light at the corner of the street shone brightly into the
carriage. Hiram saw a well-built man in a gray greatcoat and
slouch hat, holding the reins over the backs of the spirited
horses.

Beside him sat a girl. She could have been no more than twelve
or fourteen--not so old as Sister, by a year or two. But how
different she was from the starved-looking, boarding house
slavey!

She was framed in furs--rich, gray and black furs that muffled
her from top to toe, only leaving her brilliant, dark little face
with its perfect features shining like a jewel in its setting.

She was talking laughingly to the big man beside her, and he was
looking down at her. Perhaps this was why he did not see what
lay just ahead--or perhaps the glare of the street light blinded
him, as it must have the horses, as the equipage turned into the
darker side street.

But Hiram saw their peril. He sprang into the street with a cry
of warning. And he was lucky enough to seize the nigh horse by
the bridle and pull both the high-steppers around.

There was an excavation--an opening for a water-main--in this
street. The workmen had either neglected to leave a red lantern,
or malicious boys had stolen it.

Another moment and the horses would have been in this excavation
and even now the carriage swayed. One forward wheel went over
the edge of the hole, and for the minute it was doubtful whether
Hiram had saved the occupants of the carriage by his quick
action, or had accelerated the catastrophe.



CHAPTER IV

THE LOST CARD

Had Hiram Strong not been a muscular youth for his age, and
sturdy withal, the excited horses would have broken away from him
and the carriage would certainly have gone into the ditch.

But he had a grip on the bridle reins now that could not be
broken, although the horses plunged and struck fire from the
stones of the street with their shoes. He dragged them forward,
the carriage pitched and rolled for a moment, and then stood
upright again, squarely on its four wheels.

"All right, lad! I've got 'em!" exclaimed the gentleman in the
carriage.

He had a hearty, husky sort of voice--a voice that came from deep
down in his chest and was more than a little hoarse. But there
was no quiver of excitement in it. Indeed, he who had been in
peril was much less disturbed by the incident than was Hiram
himself.

Nor had the girl screamed, or otherwise voiced her terror. Now
Hiram heard her say, as he stepped back from the plunging horses:

Copyright (c) 2007. fullstories.net. All rights reserved.