"He has heaps and heaps of whiskers," laughed the young woman. "And there is no other Orrin Post that I know of."
"There is a man working for me by that name," Hiram said seriously.
"Then you must tell him to be sure to have his correspondents put 'Sunnyside Farm' on their envelopes addressed to him," was the advice of the postmistress.
CHAPTER XXV
A VISIT AND A PEST
In spite of the disappointment Hiram Strong experienced regarding the party at the Bronson house in Plympton, the winter did not pass without some entertainment—and of a kind which he really enjoyed better than he had Lettie's party.
The Christmas holidays ushered in a series of barn dances, surprise parties, straw rides and other country social functions organized in the Pringleton district and mostly of a nature that assured a pleasant time and plenty of clean fun.
Hiram and Orrin and Jim Larry attended most of these entertainments. But Hiram hid away his dress suit and never wore it again. After a while his comrades on Sunnyside Farm ceased to gibe at him about the garments.
Hiram had never asked Orrin about the invitation he might have received to the Bronsons' party. He shrank from arousing any suspicions in Orrin's mind that he, Hiram, was suspicious of him.
But the young farm manager believed Lettie Bronson's note to the young man they both knew as "Orrin Post" had gone to the real Orrin Post—the bewhiskered farmer who had driven through the neighborhood with Eben Craddock, the lawyer from Cincinnati, looking for the mysterious "Theodore Chester."