ONE SATURDAY AFTERNOON
"The old Atterson place" as it was called in the neighborhood, began to take on a brisk appearance these days. Sister, with the help of Old Lem Camp, had long since raked the dooryard clean and burned the rubbish which is bound to gather during the winter.
Years before there had been flower beds in front; but Uncle Jeptha had allowed the grass to overrun them. It was a month too early to think of planting many flowers; but Hiram had bought some seeds, and he showed Sister how to prepare boxes for them in the sunny kitchen windows, along with the other plant boxes; and around the front porch he spaded up a strip, enriched it well, and almost the first seeds put into the ground on the farm were the sweet peas around this porch. Mother Atterson was very fond of these flowers and had always managed to coax some of them to grow even in the boarding-house back yard.
At the side porch she proposed to have morning-glories and moon- flowers, while the beds in front would be filled with those old-fashioned flowers which everybody loves.
"But if we can't make our own flower-beds, we can go without them, Hi," said the bustling old lady. "We mustn't take you from your other work to spade beds for us. Every cat's got to catch mice on this place, now I tell ye!"And Hiram certainly was busy enough these days. The early seeds were all in, however, and he had run the seed-harrow over the potato rows again, lengthwise, to keep the weeds out until the young plants should get a start.
Despite the raw winds and frosts at night, the potatoes had come up well and, with the steadily warming wind and sun, would now begin to grow. Other farmers' potatoes in the vicinity were not yet breaking the ground.
Early on Monday morning Henry Pollock appeared with bush-axe and grubbing hoe, and Hiram shouldered similar tools and they started for the river bottom. It was so far from the house that Mrs. Atterson agreed tosend their dinner to them.
"Father says he remembers seeing corn growing on this bottom," said Henry, as they set to work, "so high that the ears were as high up as a tall man. It's splendid corn land--if it don't get flooded out.""And does the river often over-ran its banks?" queried Hiram, anxiously.
"Pretty frequent. It hasn't yet this year; there wasn't much snow last winter, you see, and the early spring floods weren't very high. But if we have a long wet spell, as we do have sometimes as late as July, you'll see water here.""That's not very encouraging," said Hiram. Not for corn prospects, at least.""Well, corn's our staple crop. You see, if you raise corn enough you're sure of feed for your team. That's the main point.""But people with bigger farms than they have around here can raise corn cheaper than we can. They use machinery in harvesting it, too. Why not raise a better paying crop, and buy the extra corn you may need?""Why," responded Henry, shaking his head, nobody around here knows much about raising fancy crops. I read about 'em in the farm papers--oh, yes, we take papers--the cheap ones. There is a lot of information in 'em, I guess; but father don't believe much that's printed.""Doesn't believe much that's printed?" repeated Hiram, curiously. "Nope. He says it's all lies, made up out of some man's head. You see,we useter take books out of the Sunday School library, and we had story papers, too; and father used to read 'em as much as anybody.
"But one summer we had a summer boarder--a man that wrote things. He had one of these dinky little merchines with him that you play on like a piano, you know---""A typewriter?" suggested Hiram, with a smile.
"Yep. Well, he wrote stories. Father learnt as how all that stuff was just imaginary, and so he don't take no stock in printed stuff any more.
"That man just sat down at that merchine, and rattled off a story that he got real money for. It didn't have to be true at all.
"So father soured on it. And he says the stuff in the farm papers is justthe same."
"I'm afraid that your father is mistaken there," said Hiram, hiding his amusement. "Men who have spent years in studying agricultural conditions, and experimenting with soils, and seeds, and plants, and fertilizers, and all that, write what facts they have learned for our betterment.
"No trade in the world is so encouraged and aided by Governments, and by private corporations, as the trade of farming. There is scarcely a State which does not have a special agricultural college in which there are winter courses for people who cannot give the open time of the year to practical experiment on the college grounds.
"That is what you need in this locality, I guess," added Hiram. "Some scientific farming.""Book farming, father calls it," said Henry. "And he says it's no good." "Why don't you save your money and take a course next winter in some side line and so be able to show him that he's wrong?" suggested Hiram. "I want to do that myself after I have fulfilled my contract withMrs. Atterson.
