Hiram The Young Farmer

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"So, for some reason, he thought the railroad was going to touch
Uncle Jeptha's farm. O' course, it ain't. It's goin' over the
river by Ayertown.

"I don't see what Pepper wants to take up the option for, anyway.
Unless he sees that you're likely to make suthin' out o' the old
place, and mebbe he's got a city feller on the string, to buy
it."

"It doesn't matter what his reason is. Mrs. Atterson doesn't
want to sell, and if that option is all right, she must," said
Hiram. "And you are sure Uncle Jeptha gave it for twelve
months?"

"Twelve months?" ejaculated Pollock, suddenly. " Why--no--that
don't seem right," stammered the farmer, scratching his head.

"But that's the way the option reads."

"Well--mebbe. I didn't just read it myself--no, sir. They jest
says to me:

"'Come here, Pollock, and witness these signatures' So, I done
it--that's all. But I see Cale put on his specs and read the
durn thing through before he stamped it. Yes, sir. Cale's the
carefulest notary public we ever had around here.

"Say!" said Mr. Pollock. "You go to Cale and ask him. It don't
seem to me the old man give Pepper so long a time."

"For how long was the option to run, then?" queried Hiram,
excitedly.

"Wal, I wouldn't wanter say. I don't wanter git inter trouble
with no neighbor. If Cale says a year is all right, then I'll
say so, too. I wouldn't jest trust my memory."

"But there is some doubt in your mind, Mr. Pollock? "

"There is. A good deal of doubt," the farmer assured him. "But
you ask Cale."

This was all that Hiram could get out of the elder Pollock. It
was not very comforting. The young farmer was of two minds
whether he should see Caleb Schell, or not.

But when he got back to the house for supper, and saw the doleful
faces of the three waiting there, he couldn't stand inaction.

"If you don't mind, I want to go to town tonight, Mrs. Atterson,"
he told the old lady.

"All right, Hiram. I expect you've got to look out for yourself,
boy. If you can get another job, you take it. It's a 'tarnal
shame you didn't take up with that Bronson's offer when he come
here after you."

"You needn't feel so," said Hiram. "You're no more at fault than
I am. This thing just happened--nobody could foretell it. And
I'm just as sorry as I can be for you, Mother Atterson."

The old woman wiped her eyes.

"Well, Hi, there's other things in this world to worry over
besides gravy, I find," she said. "Some folks is born for
trouble, and mebbe we're some of that kind."

It was not exactly Mr. Pollock's doubts that sent Hiram Strong
down to the crossroads store that evening. For the farmer had
seemed so uncertain that the boy couldn't trust to his memory at
all.

No. It was Hiram's remembrance of Pepper's stammering when he
spoke about the option. He hesitated to pronounce the length of
time the option had been drawn for. Was it because he knew there
was some trick about the time-limit?

Had the real estate man fooled old Uncle Jeptha in the beginning?
The dead man had been very shrewd and careful. Everybody said
so.

He was conscious and of acute mind right up to his death. If
there was an option on the farm be surely would have said
something about it to Mr. Strickland, or to some of the
neighbors.

It looked to Hiram as though the old farmer must have believed
that the option had expired before the day of his death.

Had Pepper only got the old man's promise for a shorter length of
time, but substituted the paper reading "one year" when it was
signed? Was that the mystery?

However, Hiram could not see how that would help Mrs. Atterson,
for even testimony of witnesses who heard the discussion between
the dead man and the real estate agent, could not controvert a
written instrument. The young fellow knew that.

He harnessed the old horse to the light wagon and drove to the
crossroads store kept by Caleb Schell. Many of the country
people liked to trade with this man because his store was a
social gathering-place.

Around a hot stove in the winter, and a cold stove at this time
of year, the men gathered to discuss the state of the country,
local politics, their neighbors' business, and any other topic
which was suggested to their more or less idle minds.

On the outskirts of the group of older loafers, the growing crop
of men who would later take their places in the soap-box forum
lingered; while sky-larking about the verge of the crowd were
smaller boys who were learning no good, to say the least, in
attaching themselves to the older members of the company.

There will always be certain men in every community who take
delight in poisoning the minds of the younger generation. We
muzzle dogs, or shoot them when they go mad. The foul-mouthed
man is far more vicious than the dog, and should be impounded.

Hiram hitched his horse to the rack before the store and entered
the crowded place. The fumes of tobacco smoke, vinegar, cheese,
and various other commodities gave a distinctive flavor to Caleb
Schell's store--and not a pleasant one, to Hiram's mind.

Ordinarily he would have made any purchases he had to make, and
gone out at once. But Schell was busy with several customers at
the counter and he was forced to wait a chance to speak with the
old man.

One of the first persons Hiram saw in the store was young Pete
Dickerson, hanging about the edge of the crowd. Pete scowled at
him and moved away. One of the men holding down a cracker-keg
sighted Hiram and hailed him in a jovial tone:

"Hi, there, Mr. Strong! What's this we been hearin' about you?
They say you had a run-in with Sam Dickerson. We been tryin'
to git the pertic'lars out o' Pete, here, but he don't seem ter
wanter talk about it," and the man guffawed heartily.

"Hear ye made Sam give back the tools he borrowed of the old
man?" said another man, whom Hiram knew to be Mrs. Larriper's
son-in-law.

"You are probably misinformed," said Hiram, quietly. "I know no
reason why Mr. Dickerson and I should have trouble--unless other
neighbors make trouble for us."

"Right, boy--right!" called Cale Schell, from behind the counter,
where he could hear and comment upon all that went on in the
middle of the room, despite the attention he had to give to his
customers.

"Well, if you can git along with Sam and Pete, you'll do well,"
laughed another of the group.

The Dickersons seemed to be in disfavor in the community, and
nobody cared whether Pete repeated what was said to his father,
or not.

"I was told," pursued the first speaker, screwing up one eye and
grinning at Hiram," that you broke Sam's gun over his head and
chased Pete a mile. That right, son?"

"You will get no information from me," returned Hiram, tartly.

"Why, Pete ought to be big enough to lick you alone, Strong,"
continued the tantalizer. "Hey, Pete! Don't sneak out. Come and
tell us why you didn't give this chap the lickin' you said you
was going to?"

Pete only glared at him and slunk out of the store. Hiram turned
his back on the whole crowd and waited at the end of the counter
for Mr. Schell. The storekeeper was a tall, portly man, with a
gray mustache and side-whiskers, and a high bald forehead.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Strong?" he asked, finally having got
rid of the customers who preceded Hiram.

Hiram, in a low voice, explained his mission. Schell nodded his
head at once.

"Oh, yes," he said; "I remember about the option. I had
forgotten it, for a fact; but Pepper was in here yesterday
talking about it. He had been to your house."

"Then, sir, to the best of your remembrance, the option is all
right?"

"Oh, certainly! Pollock witnessed it, and I put my seal on it.
Yes, sir; Pepper can make the old lady sell. It's too bad, if
she wants to remain there; but the price he is to pay isn't so
bad---"

"You have no reason to doubt the validity of the option?" cried
Hiram, in desperation.

"Assuredly not."

"Then why didn't Uncle Jeptha speak of it to somebody before he
died, if the option had not run out at that time?"

"Humph!"

"You grant the old man was of sound mind?"

"Sound as a pine knot," agreed the storekeeper, still reflective.

"Then how is it he did not speak to his lawyer about the option
when he saw Mr. Strickland within an hour of his death?"

"That does seem peculiar," admitted the storekeeper, slowly.

"And Mr. Pollock says he thinks there is something wrong about
the option," went on Hiram, eagerly.

"Oh, Pollock! Pah!" returned Schell. "I don't suppose he even
read it."

"But you did?"

"Assuredly. I always read every paper. If they don't want me
to know what the agreement is, they can take it to some other
Notary," declared the storekeeper with a jolly laugh.

"And you are sure that the option was to run a year?"

"Of course the option's all right--Hold on! A year, did you say?
Why--seems to me--let's look this thing up," concluded Caleb
Schell, suddenly.

He dived into his little office and produced a ledger from the
safe. This he slapped down on the counter between them.

"I'm a careful man, I am," he told Hiram. "And I flatter myself
I've got a good memory, too. Pepper was in here yesterday
sputtering about the option and I remember now that he spoke of
its running a year.

"But it seems to me," said Schell, pawing over the leaves of his
ledger, "that the talk between him and old Uncle Jeptha was for a
short time. The old man was mighty cautious--mighty cautious."

"That's what Mr. Pollock says," cried Hiram, eagerly.

"But you've seen the option?

"Yes."

"And it reads a year?

"Oh, yes."

"Then how you going to get around that?" demanded Schell, with
conviction.

"But perhaps Uncle Jeptha signed the option thinking it was for a
shorter time."

"That wouldn't help you none. The paper was signed. And why
should Pepper have buncoed him--at that time?"

"Why should he be so eager to get the farm now?" asked Hiram.

"Well, I'll tell you. It ain't out yet. But two or three days
ago the railroad board abandoned the route through Ayertown and
it is agreed that the new bridge will be built along there by
your farm somewhere.

"The river is as narrow there as it is anywhere for miles up and
down, and they will stretch a bridge from the high bank on your
side, across the meadows, to the high bank on the other side. It
will cut out grades, you see. That's what has started Pepper up
to grab off the farm while the option is valid."

"But, Mr. Schell, is the option valid?" cried Hiram, anxiously.

"I don't see how you're going to get around it. Ah! here's the
place. When I have sealed a paper I make a note of it--what the
matter was about and who the contracting parties were. I've done
that for years. Let--me--see."

He adjusted his spectacles. He squinted at the page, covered
closely with writing. Hiram saw him whispering the words he read
to himself. Suddenly the blood flooded into the old man's face,
and he looked up with a start at his interrogator.

"Do you mean to say that option's for a year? he demanded.

"That is the way it reads--now," whispered Hiram, watching him
closely.

The old man turned the book around slowly on the counter. His
stubbed finger pointed to the two or three scrawled lines written
in a certain place.

Hiram read them slowly, with beating heart.

CHAPTER XX

AN ENEMY IN THE DARK

The whispered conference between Hiram Strong and the storekeeper
could not be heard by the curious crowd around the cold stove;
nor did it last for long.

Caleb Schell finally closed his ledger and put it away. Hiram
shook hands with him and walked out.

On the platform outside, which was illuminated by a single smoky
lantern, a group of small boys were giggling, and they watched
Hiram unhitch the old horse and climb into the spring wagon with
so much hilarity that the young farmer expected some trick.

The horse started off all right, he missed nothing from the
wagon, and so he supposed that he was mistaken. The boys had
merely been laughing at him because he was a stranger.

But as Hiram got some few yards from the hitching rack, the seat
was suddenly pulled from under him, and he was left sprawling on
his back in the bottom of the wagon.

A yell of derision from the crowd outside the store assured him
that this was the cause of the boys' hilarity. Luckily his old
horse was of quiet disposition, and he stopped dead in his tracks
when the seat flew out of the back of the wagon.

A joke is a joke. No use in showing wrath over this foolish
amusement of the crossroads boys. But Hiram got a little the
best of them, after all.

The youngsters had scattered when the "accident" occurred.
Hiram, getting out to pick up the seat, found the end of a strong
hemp line fastened to it. The other end was tied to the hitching
rack in front of the store.

Instead of casting off the line from the seat, Hiram walked back
to the store and cast that end off.

"At any rate, I'm in a good coil of hemp rope," he said to one of
the men who had come out to see the fun. "The fellow who owns it
can come and prove property; but I shall ask a few questions of
him."

There was no more laughter. The young farmer walked back to his
wagon, set up the seat again, and drove on.

The roadway was dark, but having been used all his life to
country roads at night, Hiram had no difficulty in seeing the
path before him. Besides, the old horse knew his way home.

He drove on some eighth of a mile. Suddenly he felt that the
wagon was not running true. One of the wheels was yawing. He
drew in the old horse; but he was not quick enough.

The nigh forward wheel rolled off the end of the axle, and down
came the wagon with a crash!

Hiram was thrown forward and came sprawling--on hands and
knees--upon the ground, while the wheel rolled into the ditch.
He was little hurt, although the accident might have been
serious.

And in truth, he knew it to be no accident. A burr does not
easily work off the end of an axle. He had greased the old wagon
just before he started for the store, and he knew he had replaced
each nut carefully.

This was a deliberately malicious trick--no boy's joke like the
tying of the rope to his wagon seat. And the axle was broken.
Although he had no lantern he could see that the wagon could not
be used again without being repaired.

"Who did it?" was Hiram's unspoken question, as he slowly
unharnessed the old horse, and then dragged the broken wagon
entirely out of the road so that it would not be an obstruction
for other vehicles.

His mind set instantly upon Pete Dickerson. He had not seen the
boy when he came out of the crossroads store. If the fellow had
removed this burr, he had done it without anybody seeing him, and
had then run home.

The young farmer, much disturbed over this incident, mounted
the back of the old horse, and paced home. He only told
Mrs. Atterson that he had met with an accident and that the light
wagon would have to be repaired before it could be used again.

That necessitated their going to town on Monday in the heavy
wagon. And Hiram dragged the spring wagon to the blacksmith shop
for repairs, on the way.

But before that, the enemy in the dark had struck again. When
Hiram went to the barnyard to water the stock, Sunday morning, he
found that somebody had been bothering the pump.

The bucket, or pump-valve, was gone. He had to take it apart,
cut a new valve out of sole leather, and put the pump together
again.

"We'll have to get a cross dog, if we remain here," he told
"Mrs. Atterson. There is somebody in the neighborhood who means
"us harm."

"Them Dickersons!" exclaimed Mrs. Atterson.

"Perhaps. That Pete, maybe. If I once caught him up to his
tricks I'd make him sorry enough."

"Tell the constable, Hi," cried Sister, angrily.

"That would make trouble for his folks. Maybe they don't know
just how mean Pete is. A good thrashing--and the threat of
another every time he did anything mean--would do him lots more
good."

This wasn't nice Sunday work, but it was too far to carry water
from the house to the horse trough, so Hiram had to repair the
pump.

On Monday morning he routed out Sister and Mr. Camp at daybreak.
He had been up and out for an hour himself, and on a bench under
the shed he had heaped two or three bushels of radishes which he
had pulled and washed, ready for bunching.

He showed his helpers how the pretty scarlet balls were to be
bunched, and found that Sister took hold of the work with nimble
fingers, while Mr. Camp did very well at the unaccustomed task.

"I don't know, Hi," said Mrs. Atterson, despondently, "that it's
worth while your trying to sell any of the truck, if we're going
to leave here so soon."

"We haven't left yet," he returned, trying to speak cheerfully.
"And you might as well get every penny back that you can.
Perhaps an arrangement can be made whereby we can stay and
harvest the garden crop, at any rate."

"You can make up your mind that that Pepper man won't give us
any leeway; he isn't that kind," declared Mother Atterson, with
conviction.

Hiram made a quick sale of the radishes at several of the stores,
where he got eighteen cents a dozen bunches; but some he sold at
the big boarding-school--St. Beris--at a retail price.

"You can bring any other fresh vegetables you may have from time
to time," the housekeeper told him. "Nobody ever raised any
early vegetables about Scoville before. They are very welcome."

"Once we get a-going," said Hiram to Mrs. Atterson, "you or
Sister can drive in with the spring wagon and dispose of
the surplus vegetables. And you might get a small canning
outfit--they come as cheap as fifteen dollars--and put up
tomatoes, corn, peas, beans, and other things. Good canned stuff
always sells well."

"Good Land o' Goshen, Hiram!" exclaimed the old lady, in
"desperation. You talk jest as though we were going to stay on
"the farm."

"Well, let's go and see Mr. Strickland," replied the young
farmer, and they set out for the lawyer's office.

Mrs. Atterson sat in the ante-room while Hiram asked to speak
with the old lawyer in private for a minute. The conference was
not for long, and when Hiram came back to his employer he said:

"Mr. Strickland has sent his junior clerk out for Pepper. He
thinks we'd better talk the matter over quietly. And he wants to
see the option, too."

"Oh, Hiram! There ain't no hope, is there?" groaned the old
lady.

"Well, I tell you what!" exclaimed the young fellow, " we won't
give in to him until we have to. Of course, if you refuse to
sign a deed he can go to chancery and in the end you will have to
pay the costs of the action.

"But perhaps, even at that, it might be well to hold him off
until you have got the present crop out of the ground."

"Oh, I won't go to law," said Mrs. Atterson, decidedly. "No good
ever come of that."

After a time Mr. Strickland invited them both into his private
office. The attorney spoke quietly of other matters while they
waited for Pepper.

But the real estate man did not appear. By and by
Mr. Strickland's clerk came back with the report that Pepper had
been called away suddenly on important business.

"They tell me he went Saturday," said the clerk. "He may not be
back for a week. But he said he was going to buy the Atterson
place when he returned--he's told several people around town so."

"Ah!" said Mr. Strickland, slowly. "Then he has left that threat
hanging, like the Sword of Damocles--over Mrs. Atterson's head?"

"I don't know nothin' about that sword, Mr. Strickland, nor no
other sword, 'cept a rusty one that my father carried when he
was a hoss-sodger in the Rebellion," declared Mother Atterson,
nervously. "But if that Pepper man's got one belonging to
Mr. Damocles, I shouldn't be at all surprised. That Pepper looked
to me like a man that would take anything he could lay his hands
on--if he warn't watched!"

"Which is a true and just interpretation of Pepper's character, I
believe," observed the lawyer, smiling.

"And we've got to give up the farm at his say-so--at any time?"
demanded the old lady.

"If his option is good," said Mr. Strickland. "But I want to
see the paper--and I can assure you, Mrs. Atterson, that I shall
subject it to the closest possible scrutiny.

"There is a possibility that Pepper's option may be questioned
before the courts. Do not build too many hopes on this," he
added, quickly, seeing the old lady's face light up.

"You have a very good champion in this young man," and the lawyer
nodded at Hiram.

"He suspected all was not right with the option and he has dug up
the fact that the witness to your uncle's signature, and the man
before whom the paper was attested, both believed the option was
for a short time.

"Caleb Schell's book shows that it was for thirty days. Uncle
Jeptha undoubtedly thought it was for that length of time and
therefore the option expired several days before he died.

"Mr. Pepper may have fallen under temptation. He considered
heretofore, like everybody else, that the railroad would pass
us by in this section. Pepper gambled twenty dollars on its
coming along the boundary of the Atterson farm--between you and
Darrell's tract--and thought he had lost.

"Then suddenly the railroad board turned square around and voted
for the condemnation of the original route. Pepper remembered
the option he had risked twenty dollars on. If it was originally
for thirty days, it was void, of course; but Uncle Jeptha is
dead, and he hopes perhaps, that nobody else will dispute the
validity of it."

"It's a forgery, then?" cried Mrs. Atterson.

"It may be a forgery. We do not know," said the lawyer, hastily.
"At any rate, he has the paper, and he is a shrewd rascal."

Mrs. Atterson's face was a study.

"Do you mean to tell me we have got to lose the farm?" she
demanded.

"My dear lady, that I cannot tell you. I must see this option.
We must put it to the test---"

"But Schell and Pollock will testify that the option was for
thirty days," cried Hiram.

"Perhaps. To the best of their remembrance and belief, it was
for thirty days. A shrewd lawyer, however--and Pepper would
employ a shrewd one--would turn their evidence inside out.

"No evidence--in theory, at least--can controvert a written
instrument, signed, sealed, and delivered. Even Cale Schell's
memoranda book cannot be taken as evidence, save in a
contributory way. It is not direct. It is the carelessly
scribbled record, in pencil, of a busy man.

"No. If Pepper puts forward the option we have got to see if
that option has been tampered with--the paper itself, I mean. If
the fellow substituted a different instrument, at the time of
signing, from the one Uncle Jeptha thought he signed, you have no
case--I tell you frankly, my dear lady."

"Then, it ain't no use. We got to lose the place, Hiram," said
Mrs. Atterson, when they left the lawyer's office.

"I wouldn't lose heart. If Pepper is scared, he may not trouble
you again."

It's got ten months more to run," said she. "He can keep us
guessin' all that time."

"That is so," agreed Hiram, nodding thoughtfully. "But, of
course, as Mr. Strickland says, by raising a doubt as to the
validity of the option we can hold him off for a while--maybe
until we have made this year's crop."

"It's goin' to make me lay awake o' nights," sighed the old lady.
"And I thought I'd got through with that when I stopped worryin'
about the gravy."

"Well, we won't talk about next year," agreed Hiram. "I'll do
the best I can for you through this season, if Pepper will let us
alone. We've got the bottom land practically cleared; we might
as well plough it and put in the corn there. If we make a crop
you'll get all your money back and more. Mr. Strickland told me
privately that the option, unless it read that way, would not
cover the crops in the ground. And I read the option carefully.
Crops were not mentioned."

So it was decided to go ahead with the work as already planned;
but neither the young farmer, nor his employer, could look
forward cheerfully to the future.

The uncertainty of what Pepper would eventually do was bound to
be in their thought, day and night.

CHAPTER XXI

THE WELCOME TEMPEST

To some youths this matter of the option would have been such
a clog that they would have lost interest and slighted the
work. But not so with Hiram Strong.

He counted this day a lost one, however; he hated to leave the
farm for a minute when there was so much to do.

But the next morning he got the plow into the four-acre corn lot;
and he did nothing but the chores that week until the ground
was entirely plowed. Then Henry Pollock came over and gave him
another day's work and they finished grubbing the lowland.

The rubbish was piled in great heaps down there, ready for
burning. As long as the rain held off, Hiram did not put fire to
the bush-heaps.

But early in the following week the clouds began to gather in a
quarter for rain, and late in the afternoon, when the air was
still, he took a can of coal oil, and with Sister and Mr. Camp,
and even Mrs. Atterson, at his heels, went down to the riverside
to burn the brush heaps.

"There's not much danger of the fire spreading to the woods; but
if it should," Hiram said, warningly, "it might, at this time
of year, do your timber a couple of hundred dollars' worth of
damage."

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