"Let me go! I'll kill you for this, Hi Strong!" Banks shouted.
Hiram made no verbal reply to this threat, but to the delight and with the applause of the girls he flung Adam Banks from him with such force that the fellow sprawled on hands and knees in the dust.
"There!" Hiram said. "I am sorry that I was obliged to do it; but I have had to and so the matter is settled. Mr. Bronson told me to put you off the place and keep you off. I've done part of my duty—I've thrown you off of Sunnyside. I'll do the rest of it just so sure as you come loitering around here—I'll keep you off."
"You blamed fool!" sputtered Banks, "don't you dare touch me again."
"You step back on to the farm and see how quick I'll touch you."
Banks, after so emphatic an exhibition of Hiram's ability to handle him, took it out in sputtering. He did not come back. But he threatened dire vengeance as he stumbled away. The girls and the carpenters working within sight approved of Hiram's exploit—so much so, indeed, that the young fellow was glad to get out of the way for a while after Banks had gone, and so escape their congratulations.
But after supper at six-thirty in the workmen's shack, Hiram Strong was obliged to appear in front of the new house and meet people. What he had done to Adam Banks, the neighborhood bully, seemed to have been circulated by some method of grapevine telegraph, and Hiram realized that those who did not speak to him about it showed that they had heard the story by their curious smiles.
He was a newcomer, and naturally his neighbors were sizing him up. The young farmer from the East expected they would be curious about him if not actually doubtful.
The thing that soon began to make the deepest impression on the young manager of Sunnyside was the number of automobiles that were arriving. There were some horse-drawn buggies and carriages, but one after another the more popular makes of motor-cars arrived at the farm until there were more than fifty parked along the roadside.
The Bronson car came after the dancing had begun. Hiram ran out to greet his employer and Lettie. The latter was dressed in the very height of city fashion and when she came up to the dancing floor on Hiram's arm the country girls fairly buzzed.