CHAPTER VI
FARMING AND FURBELOWS
The motor-car that came swiftly along the ridge road to the gate of Sunnyside Farm was a big, seven-passenger touring car. Behind the wheel sat a big man in a fur coat. To tell the truth, however, it was not Mr. Bronson, his employer, at whom Hiram Strong first looked.
He had caught sight of a veil trailing upon the wind from the tonneau. A girl sat there—a very winsome looking, bright-faced girl—and before the car stopped she had spied Hiram and waved a gloved hand at him, shouting:
"Oh, Hiram Strong! isn't this a beautiful spot? How are you?"
"I'm all right, Miss Lettie," he said answering the second question first. "I guess it is pretty here at Sunnyside in summer. But look at those wheels and mudguards!"
Mr. Bronson began to chuckle, shutting off his engine.
"Hiram's right, Lettie," he said to his daughter. "You'd better stay in the car and keep out of this mud. What do you think of the drainage hereabout, Hi?"
He stepped out of the car himself and shook hands with Hiram, man to man. It was evident by his manner and look that Mr. Stephen Bronson both liked and respected Hiram Strong.
"I haven't had much time to look about, Mr. Bronson," replied the youth, "only got here an hour ago. But it does look as though that field yonder"—and he pointed to one at the east of the house lot that was covered with shallow puddles—"would be the better for some tiling."
"And yet it is high and should be dry."
"All high land isn't dry—that piece proves it. What's in it?"
"Wheat."
"Thought so. It won't be much of a crop, I fear."
"How much tiling would it need to drain that whole piece properly, do you think? I understand from the farmers about here that that twenty acres has never made heavy crops—neither of corn nor grain. It has been limed well, too."
"The litmus paper test will prove or disprove that," said Hiram. "But it is high, almost level land, and right along the roadside. It ought to grow you a good crop to advertise the farm."
"I presume that's so, Hiram," laughed Mr. Bronson. "But a carload of tiles, and dragged clear up here from the siding at Pringleton, would cost a heap of money."
"Yes," agreed the young farmer. "Perhaps you had better make the better fields pay in advance for the improvements on the poor ones."
"Oh, wait!" cried Lettie Bronson, with a pout. "You men have begun talking farming like a house afire—right at the start! I can't get a word in edgewise, and I've got news for Hiram. You know, Hiram, I only came on from St. Beris yesterday, just to remain at Plympton with father over Sunday."
"And I only got here last night, Miss Lettie," the young fellow said.
"Then we might have traveled together just as well as not!" she cried.
"I guess not," laughed her father. "You went to see that machinery we talked about, didn't you, Hi?"
"Yes, sir. I went all through the Comet Plow Factory and the big agricultural warehouse in Cincinnati."
"You see, Lettie, he was several days coming here from Scoville."
"I don't care," Miss Lettie declared, "I want to tell him something he doesn't know."
"There are a whole lot of things I guess you could tell me that I don't know, Miss Lettie," said Hiram rather ruefully, for he felt his lack of book knowledge most keenly.
"It is about Sister. Cecilia, I suppose her real name is, Hiram?"
"But rather stiff and formal for Sister," said the young fellow, dodging the query.
"I chanced to ride past the Atterson place," pursued Lettie Bronson, "and Mrs. Atterson was on the porch and waved to me. I rode into the yard, and she was full of the news. It seems that Sister has not known just who her people were."
"She was an orphan when Mother Atterson got her," admitted Hiram.
"Well, it seems that she really has some relatives, somewhere. And Mrs. Atterson says she thinks there will be some money coming to Sister—Cecilia. She had just received a letter from a lawyer who had been trying to find Cecilia for some time. It's quite a romance, isn't it?"
"I am awfully glad for Sister's sake," the young farmer said. "But if she finds her folks I hope they will not take her away from Mother Atterson. She needs Sister."
"I did not see Cecilia to speak to," Lettie said. Then to her father: "Now, Papa Bronson, I know you and Hiram want to tramp all over this farm, and you certainly shall not leave me here in the car to catch my death of cold. Let Hiram take me over to Miss Pringle's. She will give me shelter till you are ready to go home again."
"Go ahead and take the chatterbox over there, Hiram," said Mr. Bronson. "We'll have no peace until you do."
It could not be said honestly that Hiram Strong found Lettie a nuisance, if her father did. He would have enjoyed talking to the pretty girl at any length. When Lettie hopped out of the automobile, too, resting one hand lightly in his, the young farmer saw that she was, as always, very becomingly dressed. Perhaps her outfit was more expensive and somewhat too "grown-up" for a girl of her age; but Hiram—nor Mr. Bronson—did not realize that defect in the motherless girl's garments. That Lettie was growing up too fast for her own good, perhaps, would not appeal to the masculine mind as it would to a thoughtful woman.
Having been reminded of Sister, Hiram took mental note that the girl whom he had first known as the boarding house slavey in Mother Atterson's kitchen had never in her life dressed anything like Lettie Bronson. Fine feathers do not always make fine birds; but the feathers help!
Lettie chattered as Hiram helped her over the muddy spots in the road to the cottage where Miss Pringle lived. The woman welcomed Lettie vociferously. To Hiram she said, with a smirk:
"Now, don't forget, Mr. Strong, to come over to dinner when Abigail blows the horn."
Hiram saw Lettie's dancing eyes and he could not keep from blushing when Miss Pringle was so urgent and significant in both look and speech.
"I guess Yancey Battick isn't so far out of the way, after all," the young fellow muttered as he went to rejoin Mr. Bronson. "Miss Pringle does rather work on a modest fellow. Lettie Bronson's got the laugh on me, all right."
Mr. Bronson had been going through the poultry houses and Hiram caught him at the house in which he thought to set up housekeeping.
"Perhaps that is a good idea, Hiram," said the gentleman thoughtfully. "I haven't told you what I intend to do here, have I?"
"Only that you intend to farm it," the boy replied with a smile.
"You are to do that, my boy, for me," rejoined Mr. Bronson. "I expect you to bring this farm into such a state of fertility in a few years that I can sell it at a big profit."
"That sounds like a big contract, Mr. Bronson," said Hiram, shaking his head thoughtfully.
"You're equal to it, my boy!" declared Bronson, confidently. "Now, is this the hut you think you can camp in?"
"I can make myself comfortable here for a while—until the spring work really opens, at any rate."
"All right. That suits me. We'll run down to the store at the Forks before I go back to Plympton and buy provisions, bedding and cooking utensils for you."
"No need to go to any great expense," put in Hiram.
"The things I buy will all come in handy later. And that brings me around to what I started to say before, Hiram. It does not pay me to farm this place so far from my headquarters. My other farms are right around Plympton. I can move my tractor and my reapers and my thrashing machine and hay-balers from farm to farm in my Plympton string of places. But Sunnyside is too far away from headquarters to send over many of the machines, unless it is the thrasher. That is why I had you look at the farm machinery on your way out here."
Hiram merely nodded.
"My idea," pursued the man, "is to put Sunnyside Farm in good shape and then sell it at a profit to some man who wants a 'gentleman's farm'—you know, catch one of these city men who wants to retire to the country; the kind the farmers say have more money than brains."
"I know," chuckled Hiram, remembering what Battick had said about Mr. Stephen Bronson himself. "Sometimes those gentlemen farmers show the old timers a thing or two."
"Yes. They can afford to experiment and try out new things. However, that is not just what we were getting at. If I sell this farm for a good price I must have a good house on it. I mean to build on the site of the old house that was burned. I shall have to bring workmen here and lodge and feed them. As there are no neighbors who make a practice of taking boarders, other than their own farm help, I shall have to put up a shack, hire a cook, and feed the gang for three months at least."
"I see," said Hiram. "And I can get my meals with them."
"Yes. That is my idea. So if you can get along alone for a while—"
"Of course I can, Mr. Bronson."
"I will have a shack built and a kitchen and bunks established just as soon as the weather is warm enough. Meanwhile my trucks, when not otherwise in use, can be hauling the frame and lumber for the new house."
"One word, Mr. Bronson," said Hiram Strong quickly. "As long as you must build a shed, why not build one that will afterward house these new tools you propose to buy for my use? I see there is no storage room for such things save on the barn floor, and in time they will be in the way there."
A gleam of approval flashed into Mr. Bronson's eyes.
"Good idea, Hiram! And you are as full of good ideas as an egg is of meat," said Mr. Bronson with enthusiasm. "Have you thought of any particular way in which this farm should be run—for the biggest profit, I mean?" and the man smiled at Hiram curiously.
"I'll tell you what struck me right off the reel, Mr. Bronson," said the youth thoughtfully. "But it is only a thought."
"Let's have it," urged Mr. Bronson.
"This land has been worked by tenants only for some years. Tenant farmers usually supply commercial fertilizer to some extent, but not enough humus. The land needs humus—and that in the form of stable manure. Especially the manure from cattle—from cows—if you want to raise bumper crops of corn."
"I presume that is so, Hiram."
"The barn yonder is arranged for the keeping of cattle. You should at least drive some young stock up here right away to eat up the roughage that is going to waste. We want to make all the fertilizer possible and spread it on the land as fast as it can be made and carted out of the barn basement."
"But we can't handle milch cows here, Hiram, before we have a house in which to put a family to look after the cows and the milk."
"That is why I say buy some young stock for the present. I can attend to them myself. They can be fattening at practically no expense. And all the time they will be making fertilizer for the place."
"Well, Hiram, what is going to happen," asked Mr. Bronson, quizzically, "when we give up farming with horses and mules entirely and use only tractors?"
"A hundred tractors won't put back into the soil the fertility that one horse will," the young farmer said. "That is sure. Soiling crops are all right. But in the end, the only farms run by tractor power that are not going to be injured beyond repair are the dairy farms. And I believe the easiest and quickest way to get this half run-down farm into shape is by putting cattle on it."
"Young stock—yes. I agree with you that can be done at once. In fact," said Mr. Bronson, "I should not be surprised if I could pick up a score of head of stock to send up here within the week from my other farms."
"Good! That will be a beginning. But two score will be better. Pasture them later if the pasture is any good here."
"There is good pasture and the fences are in good condition. I looked them over before I bought the place."
"All right, sir. You agree with me, then, that we should aim in the end to make Sunnyside a dairy farm?"
"That seems to be the idea, Hiram. I fancy you are right."
"That being the case, Mr. Bronson, there is one thing you must do. There is only one really profitable way to feed dairy cattle. That is from the silo."
"Oh! Oh! Hiram, you hurt!" exclaimed his employer, and his smile was very rueful. "Do you realize that any kind of silo runs into money?"
"Yes, sir. But it will cost you less to put up a silo now, while you have workmen on the place building your house, than at a later time. If you are going to make Sunnyside fertile, you must have cattle; if you are going to feed cattle cheaply you must cut your corn green and shred it and blow it into the silo. It is the safest and the cheapest way."
"I suppose I have got to admit all you say as true. But your suggestions, are all expensive. The first outlay will be enormous. Here you want to tile that twenty acres of upland. And goodness knows what you may want to do with some of the lowland."
"Make it grow good crops—bumper crops if possible—that is all," said Hiram smiling. "And about that twenty acres along the county road that is now in wheat—"
"Well?"
"I've an idea about underdraining that! but I won't tell you what it is until I have looked over the ground a little. I am convinced that that particular piece should be as fertile as any acreage around here."
"It never has been, they tell me."
"That is no reason why we shouldn't make it the best, is it?" and the young farmer laughed again.