"I expect to work that place this year for Mr. Stephen Bronson. I want to find a place to lodge near the farm, and I was told to apply to—Miss Pringle, I believe the name is."
"What!" gasped the man. "A young fellow like you? Who sent you unwarned into the clutches of that old maid?"
"Why—is she so bad?" Hiram asked.
"There isn't any male too young nor yet too old to be out of danger of that old maid. Come on in," added Mr. Battick, unchaining the door. "I wouldn't let any male creature get into that woman's clutches."
Hiram stepped rather doubtfully into the house. Mr. Yancey Battick certainly was a very odd person. He had been warned that the man with the welcoming shotgun was afraid of rats; it appeared that he was likewise much afraid of spinsters.
CHAPTER II
A KERNEL OF WHEAT
"Hold on!" said Yancey Battick, halting Hiram just after he was inside the house and the door was closed. "Who sent you here?"
He seemed a very suspicious man. His blue eyes searched the open countenance of the boy from the East, and his expression, with bristling moustache and all, was fierce indeed.
"I tell you I was not sent here at all," Hiram explained rather wearily. "In fact, I was advised strongly against knocking at your door."