"I mean to succeed. I hope all my friends will root for me from the side lines," laughed Hiram, yet with a certain wistful glance at his partner.
"Of course we will," cried Lettie frankly. "And nobody will root any louder than 'yours truly,' Hiram. Why! next to father I am sure nobody can have your welfare more at heart than I."
Lettie said this with her very best grown-up air. But it pleased Hiram a great deal. His interest in his employer's daughter was very deep and very serious. Lettie Bronson was the most interesting girl he had ever met.
The dancing floor was now well filled every time the orchestra played, and the chairs and settees around the edge of the floor were crowded. It was a lively scene, and the lanterns furnished all the light necessary. At the openings for the windows that were not yet, of course, framed in, men and boys who did not dance stood and talked or smoked.
The crowd increased both on the floor and outside the new house. Now and then Hiram went out to see what was going on. There was some shouting and ribald laughter at a distance, but the rowdy element seemed to keep away from the vicinity of the dance.
"I hear you finally took my advice about Ad Banks," Mr. Bronson said to Hiram, chuckling, "and ran him off the place."
"Folks are making too much of it," the young fellow replied. "Hullo! What is this coming?"
There was a wood road through the burned-over patch belonging to Miss Pringle, and there was light enough from the moon and stars to show Hiram and those who stood with him on the front porch of the new house a crowd of men and boys approaching along this rough way.
"There's Ad Banks now!" exclaimed one man. "You are going to have trouble with him, Bronson."
"Not me," declared the farm owner. "It's all in Hiram's hands, and I have confidence that he can handle anything Banks can start."