But the land would be getting into shape for a better crop, and although corn is a crop that will soon impoverish ground, if planted year after year on the same piece, Hiram knew that the humus in this soil on the lowland was almost inexhaustible.
So he marked his rows the long way of the field—running with the river.
One of the implements left by Uncle Jeptha had been a one-horse corn-planter with a fertilizer attachment. Hiram used this, dropping two or three grains twenty-four inches apart, and setting the fertilizer attachment to one hundred and fifty pounds to the acre.
He was until the next Wednesday night planting the piece. Meanwhile it had not rained, and the river continued to recede. It was now almost as low as it had been the day Lettie Bronson's boating party had been “wrecked” under the big sycamore.
Hiram had not seen the Bronsons for some weeks, but about the time he got his late corn planted, Mr. Bronson drove into the Atterson yard, and found Hiram cultivating his first corn with the five-tooth cultivator.
“Well, well, Hiram!” exclaimed the Westerner, looking with a broad smile over the field. “That's as pretty a field of corn as I ever saw. I don't believe there is a hill missing.”
“Only a few on the far edge, where the moles have been at work.”
“Moles don't eat corn, Hiram.”
“So they say,” returned the young farmer, quietly. “I never could make up my mind about it.
“I'm sure, however, that if they are only after slugs and worms which are drawn to the corn hills by the commercial fertilizer, the moles do fully as much damage as the slugs would.