CHAPTER XXIX
EXPLOITING THE WHEAT
The wheat threshing was past. The plows were going again, and following the raking and smoothing of the fields Hiram Strong put in either ensilage corn and peas, or a mixture of grass seeds for new mowing.
There were more than a hundred head of young stock on Sunnyside by midsummer, for Mr. Bronson was continually adding to the herd. Sunnyside was bound to wax fat in another year with all this kine to enrich the acres. Whoever Mr. Bronson sold the farm to would get, after all, one of the most productive farms in the Pringleton district.
Orrin Post (Hiram always thought of him by that name, whether it was rightfully his or not) was fairly in love with the place. He often said to Hiram:
"Strong, it would be the height of my ambition to own this place. I could settle down here in happiness for life."
"And marry Miss Pringle?" suggested Hiram chuckling.
"Delia has her cap set for another fellow," returned Orrin, grinning widely. "Believe me, she will get him, too."
"What are you talking about?" snapped Hiram, thinking the tables were being turned upon him and not liking it after all.
"Nothing personal. You are not the fellow, Strong," said Orrin.
"It must be Jim Larry, then, that she is after," sniffed the farm manager. "But if you like it, Orrin, I should say Sunnyside would make a mighty nice homestead. But, I tell you truly, Mr. Bronson isn't writing anything much on the credit side of the ledger yet. It takes time to bring back an abused farm like this to a paying basis. This new wheat of Battick's will put Mr. Bronson ahead of the game. Yet that ought not to be charged to the profits of the farm, for it was entirely a side issue."
The prospect for a bountiful corn harvest was, however, plain. When the corn was in the cribs they might easily count a clean slate, at least, without referring to the Staff of Life Wheat.
Hiram was elated when he went through the fields of early corn and examined the ears now rapidly filling out. He was confident that nobody ever grew a better corn crop on Sunnyside Farm than he was making.
Sister made her visit to Lettie Bronson and came back to Miss Pringle's fairly radiant. She had learned to put up her hair in a more attractive fashion and had bought a new summer dress under Lettie's tutelage which she said made her other clothes look "countrified" in comparison.
"Lettie Bronson is so hospitable and nice, Hiram," Sister said. "I let her introduce me as 'Cecilia Cheltenham.' It sounds stylish, and I could see it impressed Lettie's friends. Do you think it is wrong, Hiram? Maybe 'Cecilia' is my name."
"Just as good as any other, I guess, Sister," Hiram said kindly. "But don't for pity's sake name your brother some name that he won't like."
"Oh! 'Marvin'?"
"He can stand that better than 'Claude' or 'Percy.' Do give the kid a chance."
Hiram had come to consider the lost boy as a little fellow, too, although Sister had no particular warrant for that belief.
Sister's visit came to a close. She knew Mother Atterson and Lem Camp missed her sorely. She had now been at Miss Pringle's all of two months.
Everybody about the place thought a deal of Sister. Delia Pringle declared she was the nicest girl she had ever known. Orrin could not do too much for her and treated her with a brotherly affection that Hiram thought might breed some confidences on his part. But Orrin never touched upon his personal affairs save on one occasion, and then lightly enough.
"Didn't you have any brothers and sisters in all your life, Orrin?" Sister asked, pointblank, in Hiram's hearing.
"I had a sister," Orrin replied shortly.
"Oh! Didn't you love her, Orrin?"
"Very much indeed." He spoke in a low voice and turned away his head so that she might not read the expression in his face. "I never talk about her," he added in a tone that precluded further questioning on the girl's part.
This single reference to his past life was practically all Hiram had ever heard Orrin make. Sometimes curiosity burned so hotly in Hiram's thoughts that he was tempted to demand of Orrin who he was and what his real name was. Was he the "Theodore Chester" the bewhiskered farmer from the other side of Pringleton and the lawyer, Eben Craddock, were searching for back there in the winter?
There was one thing Hiram did not want to do, however; he did not wish to say or do anything to offend Orrin, so that the latter would leave him. More and more had the young farm manager come to depend on this helper who had been with him so long. He was paying Orrin bigger wages than anybody else on the place. But, as he told Mr. Bronson, if anything happened, he could depend upon Orrin to go ahead with the work and carry out the plans already formulated for the improvement of Sunnyside.
Nothing did happen—of any unlucky nature, at least—not even to Yancey Battick's wheat. Battick had watched the grain from the threshing with quite as keen apprehension as before.
However, if Adam Banks—or any other ill-disposed person—wished to ruin the yield of seed wheat, he did not succeed in such plans. The new wheat was spread upon the floor of the attic of the new house at Sunnyside, and that dwelling had been built mouse and rat proof!
Samples sent to various experimental farmers and agricultural stations with the well-written claims for the new wheat prepared by Yancey Battick attracted wide attention. Photographs of the growing wheat which Mr. Bronson had had taken were reproduced and printed in some of the farm papers. Every wheat grower who saw the grain and heard of its development was enthusiastic.
But the partners in the Staff of Life Wheat determined to sell none of the surplus of this present crop in large lots. Battick got up a catchy advertisement headed: "Grow it in Your Garden," showing how any farmer might develop seed enough from one fifty-cent packet to plant an acre of the new wheat in a year's time and so, in two years, gain a forty-acre crop.
The advertisement brought almost immediate returns, and the orders grew in number daily. At this packet rate the partners were getting for the seed wheat a hundred and twenty-eight dollars per bushel!
"Oh, no! there is no money in the seed business is there?" said Mr. Bronson, widely smiling.
And they were giving something of value for the fifty-cent orders that came in with a rush. With care any gardener could raise seed enough for an acre of grain, just as their advertisement said. The Staff of Life Wheat was a really wonderful variety.
Of course, the advertising cost a good deal and the exploitation of the wheat in this way entailed much work. But the profit was enticing.
The Rural Free Delivery mail carrier began to object to handling the traffic of Sunnyside Farm, and Battick was obliged to drive to Pringleton three times a week to mail packets of seed and get the money orders cashed. Mr. Bronson banked the money in a special account at the Plympton National Bank, and the seed selling business grew in importance.
Miss Pringle had learned to use a typewriter, and Battick had to hire her to help with the correspondence. This pleased Hiram immensely, for it put Yancey Battick in a position where he had to associate with the good-hearted spinster. The man did not have much show to continue a woman hater when he was associated daily with Delia Pringle!
"I told you," chuckled Orrin, "that Delia had set her cap for a particular person in this vicinity. And it is not you or me or Jimmy Larry. Yancey Battick is in much more danger right now from Delia, than his wheat ever was from the plottings of Adam Banks, believe me!"