"It never has been, they tell me."
"That is no reason why we shouldn't make it the best, is it?" and the young farmer laughed again.
CHAPTER VII
SEED TESTING
By evening of his first day on Sunnyside Farm Hiram Strong was comfortably established in the incubator shed and prepared to keep house after a fashion. Mr. Bronson supplied him with the requisites for a home on the limited plan Hiram intended to follow. The young farmer believed, however, that Miss Delia Pringle really would have taken him to board had he not been so firm in his stand for independence.
It could not be denied that Miss Pringle was a very friendly neighbor; but Hiram saw that Yancey Battick had some right on his side when he stated that he was afraid of the spinster. During those first few days that Hiram was at Sunnyside he, too, thought it the part of wisdom to dodge her as much as possible.
Not that there was any harm in Miss Pringle. She was merely silly, or seemed to be, about men; but Lettie Bronson had teased Hiram all the way to the store in the automobile and back again that first day about the conquest the youth had made of his nearest neighbor at Sunnyside.
This had made Hiram self-conscious and had served to exaggerate in his mind Miss Pringle's already too pronounced attentions.
"You will not be lonely at all, Mr. Strong," the rougish girl told him, immensely pleased by the situation. "Delia Pringle is going to make life there at Sunnyside for you one grand sweet song! You see if she doesn't."
"I hope she will not insist upon being too kind to me," sighed Hiram.