The promise of the crimson clover was encouraging, however; and it would make the earliest of pasture. Therefore he turned the cattle into a ten-acre piece below the barns and let them graze there before the regular pasture at the far end of the farm was grown.
The stock went pretty nearly crazy over the first few mouthfuls of clover, bawling and running about rather than settling down to eating. But after a few hours they spread out and went quietly to grazing.
Until mid-May they found plenty to do on this patch of fast-growing clover; but of course Hiram could not cut that for hay. He put the plow into it as soon as the cattle were driven to the regular pasture. They had enriched it considerably and the roots and stubble of the clover held plenty of nitrogen. He knew the soil was in good condition now for corn.
The fields that had lain fallow over winter were already plowed and planted. This year Hiram was following the local custom and planting in the row and would use the large horse-hoes for cultivating. The early cornfields had received during the winter a heavy dressing of manure and all the other cornfields—save those that now had growing wheat upon them—would either have clover sod to turn under or an eighteen-inch growth of cowpeas.
Hiram claimed that his cornfields this year would be well enriched in one way or another.
Mr. Bronson had returned with Lettie from Florida. He brought Lettie up to Sunnyside in his car on several occasions; but although the girl was chatty and kind, both to Hiram and Orrin Post, to the mind of the first named there was something lacking in her manner. She seemed bored and dissatisfied. In her usual frank fashion Miss Pringle commented upon the change in Lettie since she had first met her.
"Land's sake, Hiram! that girl is certainly getting her nose in the air. Not that I mean she's spoiled, but she ain't the same as she was. This taking her around from one flashy place to another is making her a regular flibbertigibbet."
"Whatever that is," laughed Hiram.
But he recognized the truth of Delia's homely statement. Since Yancey Battick's illness Hiram and the spinster had become even firmer friends than before. Miss Pringle was shrewd enough to see that Hiram was enamored of Lettie Bronson. But there were other interests Hiram had that Miss Pringle knew about.
Long before this time she had not only heard all about Sister, but she had begun a correspondence with the little girl back in Scoville and with Mother Atterson. She could tell those loved ones "back home" more about Hiram and his affairs than the youth himself would have been willing to write about.