Hiram smiled slowly. He was by no means a handsome boy, but he was wholesome looking and his smile was disarming. Even the scowling visage of Yancey Battick began to smooth out as he watched his visitor. But it was plain to be seen that the man was a misanthrope.
"You see," Hiram began, "my father was a very good farmer indeed, although he farmed for other men all his life. He read a great deal and studied farming methods, and I worked right along with him until I was fourteen. What he learned—at least, a good deal of it—I learned, too."
"Humph!" sniffed Battick, "a boy of that immature age?"
"Father made a friend of me. We were like brothers—chums," Hiram Strong continued. "Somehow, he was an easy man to learn from—he was patient."
"I see," muttered Battick. "Well, I take it your father died?"
"Yes, sir. I had got it into my head that I did not want to be a tenant farmer, as he was all his life, and there was no money left. So I went to town thinking there would be more and better chances for a boy."
"Humph! You were starting out young."
"I didn't have any folks," explained Hiram. "I got a job that barely paid my board and lodging. And I soon got sick of it."
"Of the job or the city?" asked Battick, the ghost of a smile passing over his face as he listened to his involuntary guest and stared into the leaping flames on the hearth.
"Of both," replied Hiram promptly. "The city is no place for a fellow who loves the country as I found I did. Mother Atterson, with whom I boarded, had eighty acres left her near the town of Scoville, and she and I made a dicker. I farmed it for her for two years, and when our contract ended at Christmas last, I had fixed things so that she could run it on a paying basis with the help of a friend of mine, Henry Pollock, and by the aid of Sister, whom Mother Atterson has adopted, and Lem Camp, who lives with them.