"I'd keep my eye on that fellow Banks if he continues to hang around here," said Mr. Bronson. "He means you ill."
"And perhaps would do something to cause trouble. Perhaps I should have taken him on," Hiram Strong said thoughtfully.
"I should say not! You did just right. You read him aright. His prime failings are drink and laziness. Just warn him off the premises if he bothers you. He's been in trouble and is not locally liked. Mr. Banks spared the rod in Adam's case, sure enough.
"Now, Hiram, to get back to ditching. You don't mean to leave open ditches through that field, do you? I can't stand a ditch bank—always growing up in wild cherry and poison oak and such worthless trees and vines. Besides, open ditches interfere with tillage most abominably."
"That is farthest from my thought, Mr. Bronson."
"But tiling—"
"I figure to underdrain with something much cheaper than tile," the young farmer declared.
"What are you going to use?"
Hiram pointed across the road at Miss Pringle's patch of scorched woodland. The underbrush and sprouts were beginning to show that faint blur of green that announces the coming of spring growth; but the trees were gaunt looking and black.
"I've bought as many as I can use of those scorched trees at ten cents apiece," Hiram explained.