"You'll have to. If you refuse to sign I'll go to the Chancery Court. I'll make you.""Well. Mebbe you will. But I don't know. I never was made to do anything yet. By no man named Pepper--you can take that home with you," she flung after him as he walked out and climbed into the buggy.
But whereas Mrs. Atterson showed anger, Hiram went back to work in the field with a much deeper feeling racking his mind. If the option was all right--and of course it must be--this would settle their occupancy of the farm.
Of course he could not hold Mrs. Atterson to her contract. She could not help the situation that had now arisen.
His Spring's work had gone for nothing. Sixteen hundred dollars, even in cash, would not be any great sum for the old lady. And she had burdened herself with the support of Sister--and with Old Lem Camp, too! "Surely, I can't be a burden on her. I'll have to hustle around and findanother job. I wonder if Mr. Bronson would take me on now?"But he knew that the Westerner already had a man who suited him, since Hiram had refused the chance Bronson offered. And, then, Lettie had shown that she felt he had not appreciated their offer. Perhaps her father felt the same way.
Besides, Hiram had a secret wish not to put himself under obligation to the Bronsons. This feeling may have sprung from a foolish source; nevertheless it was strong with the young farmer.
It looked very much to him as though this sudden turn of circumstances was "a facer". If Mrs. Atterson had to sell the farm he was likely to be thrown on his own resources again.
For his own selfish sake Hiram was worried, too. After all, he would be unable to "make good" and to show people that he could make the old,run-down farm pay a profit to its owner.
But Hiram Strong couldn't believe it.
The more he milled over the thing in his mind, the less he understood why Uncle Jeptha, who was of acute mind right up to the hour of his death, so all the neighbors said, should have neglected to speak about the option he had given Pepper on the farm.
And here they were, right in the middle of the Spring work, with crops in the ground and--as Mrs. Atterson agreed--it would be too late to go hunting a farm for this present season.
But Hiram kept to work. He had Sister and Old Lem Camp out in the garden, hand-weeding and thinning the carrots, onions, and other tender plants. That Saturday he went through the entire garden--that part already planted--with either the horse cultivator, or his wheel-hoe.
In planting parsnips, carrots, and other slow-germinating seeds, he had mixed a few radish seed in the seeding machine; these sprang up quickly and defined the rows, so that the space between rows could be cultivated before the other plants had scarcely broke the surface of the soil.
Now these radish were beginning to be big enough to pull. Hiram brought in a few bunches for their dinner on Saturday--the first fruits of the garden.
"Now, I dunno why it is," said Mrs. Atterson, complacently, after setting her teeth in the first radish and relishing its crispness, "but this seems a whole lot better than the radishes we used to buy in Crawberry. I 'spect what's your very own always seems better than other folks's," and she sighed and shook her head.
She was thinking of the thing she had to face on Monday. Hiram hated to see them all so downhearted. Sister's eyes were red from weeping; Old Lem Camp sat at the table, muttering and playing with his food again instead of eating.
But Hiram felt as though he could not give up to the disaster that had come to them. The thought that--in some way--Pepper was taking an unfair advantage of Mother Atterson knocked continually at the door of his mind.
He went over, to himself, all that had passed in the kitchen the daybefore when the real estate man had come to speak with Mrs. Atterson. How had Pepper spoken about the option? Hadn't there been some hesitancy in the fellow's manner--in his speech, indeed ? Just what had Pepper said? Hiram concentrated his mind upon this one thing. What had the man said?
"The option had--er--one year to run."
Those were the fellow's very words. He hesitated before he pronounced the length of time. And he was not a man who, in speaking, had any stammering of tongue.
Why had he hesitated? Why should it trouble him to state the time limit of the option?
Was it because he was speaking a falsehood?
The thought stung Hiram like a thorn in the flesh. He put away the tool with which he was working, slipped on a coat, and started for Henry Pollock's house, which lay not more than half a mile from the Atterson farm, across the fields.
