"Good! I want to see those things on the big floor of the barn," cried Hiram, his eyes beaming.
"I'd better send up a machinist to help you set them up, hadn't I?"
"No, sir. Leave it to me. I must learn to put together every machine that comes onto the place. There are always instructions sent with the implements from the factory. The time may come, right in the middle of a job of importance, that the machine will balk. I've got to know all about it. Do you see?"
"I see. And you are right, I guess."
"Mr. Bronson, seems to me I'll be just about made when I sit up on that plow and chirrup to those Percherons. I've tramped along in the furrow behind one or two horses for so many years—Well!"
Mr. Bronson laughed. "While I've ridden a plow and other farm tools so much that I hate to get up on one," he said. "They say it's mighty good exercise for a sluggish liver to ride 'em over hobbly ground. Ah, my boy! you've got the best of it, for you are young. You've got enthusiasm."
"Why, so have you, Mr. Bronson," cried Hiram. "Only it is enthusiasm of a different kind from mine. Otherwise you would not buy farms and put them into shape for other men to run."
"Maybe that is merely business."
Before night Orrin Post was quite in his right mind. Abigail had been making broth and porridge for him, for now that his fever was reduced Miss Pringle's idea of nursing seemed to be to stuff the patient with food.
"She will kill me with kindness," the young man said to Hiram. "I hope I shall not have to lie here long."