"Only that you intend to farm it," the boy replied with a smile.
"You are to do that, my boy, for me," rejoined Mr. Bronson. "I expect you to bring this farm into such a state of fertility in a few years that I can sell it at a big profit."
"That sounds like a big contract, Mr. Bronson," said Hiram, shaking his head thoughtfully.
"You're equal to it, my boy!" declared Bronson, confidently. "Now, is this the hut you think you can camp in?"
"I can make myself comfortable here for a while—until the spring work really opens, at any rate."
"All right. That suits me. We'll run down to the store at the Forks before I go back to Plympton and buy provisions, bedding and cooking utensils for you."
"No need to go to any great expense," put in Hiram.
"The things I buy will all come in handy later. And that brings me around to what I started to say before, Hiram. It does not pay me to farm this place so far from my headquarters. My other farms are right around Plympton. I can move my tractor and my reapers and my thrashing machine and hay-balers from farm to farm in my Plympton string of places. But Sunnyside is too far away from headquarters to send over many of the machines, unless it is the thrasher. That is why I had you look at the farm machinery on your way out here."
Hiram merely nodded.
"My idea," pursued the man, "is to put Sunnyside Farm in good shape and then sell it at a profit to some man who wants a 'gentleman's farm'—you know, catch one of these city men who wants to retire to the country; the kind the farmers say have more money than brains."