“Well, I guess You know, Hiram,” admitted Mrs. Atterson. “And that calf certainly is a pretty creeter. It would be too bad to turn it into veal.”
Hiram did not intend to raise the calf expensively, however. He took it away from its mother right at the start, and in two weeks it was eating grass, and guzzling skimmed milk and calf-meal, while the old cow was beginning to show her employer her value.
Mrs. Atterson bought a small churn and quickly learned that “slight” at butter-making which is absolutely essential if one would succeed in the dairy business.
The cow turned out to pasture early in May, too; so her keep was not so heavy a burden. She lowed some after the calf; but the latter was growing finely under Hiram's care, and Mrs. Atterson had at least two pounds of butter for sale each week, and the housekeeper at the St. Beris school paid her thirty-five cents a pound for it.
Hiram gradually picked up a retail route in the town, which customers paid more for the surplus vegetables—and butter—than could be obtained at the stores. He had taught Sister how to drive, and sometimes even Mrs. Atterson went in with the vegetables.
This relieved the young farmer and allowed him to work in the fields. And during these warm, growing May days, he found plenty to do. Just as the field corn pushed through the ground he went into the lot with his 14-tooth harrow and broke up the crust and so killed the ever-springing weeds.
With the spikes on the harrow “set back,” no corn-plants were dragged out of the ground. This first harrowing, too, mixed the fertilizer with the soil, and gave the corn the start it so sadly needed.
Busy as bees, the four transplanted people at the Atterson farmhouse accomplished a great deal during these first weeks of the warming season. And all four of them—Mrs. Atterson, Sister, Old Lem, and Hiram himself—enjoyed the work to the full.