"The villains! It is no more than what I have expected all along. And you and Bronson would not believe me. Now what do you think?"
"I think somebody has it in for us," Hiram frankly said. "This was deliberately a malicious act."
"If it was any of those Bankses they ought to be horsewhipped!" declared Miss Pringle.
"Has Adam been home of late?" asked Hiram.
"I don't know," replied the spinster. "But I bet he has."
"We shall have to watch this field night and day now till the grain is ripe," Battick declared moodily.
"But first of all we must get rid of this pest."
"Can you do that?" asked Sister.
"Never was anything so bad that it could not be worse," declared the young manager of Sunnyside Farm sententiously. "These flies have only just begun their nefarious work. There must be some way of stopping them."
"How will you do that, Hiram?" Miss Pringle demanded. "When the striped bugs get on my melon vines they're gone, and that's all there is to it!"