Hiram walked about, looking for somebody whom he knew; but most of the faces around the market were strange to him. Several farmers he spoke to about work; but they were not hiring hands, so, when his hour was up, he went back to the Emporium, more despondent than before.
CHAPTER V. THE COMMOTION AT MOTHER ATTERSON'S
By chance that evening Hiram got home to his boarding house in good season. The early boarders—“early birds” Crackit always termed them—had not yet sat down to the long table in the dingy dining-room.
Indeed, the supper gong had not been pounded by Sister, and some of the young men were grouped impatiently in the half-lighted parlor.
Through the swinging door into the steaming kitchen Hiram saw a huge black woman waddling about the range, and heard her husky voice berating Sister for not moving faster. Chloe only appeared when a catastrophe happened at the boarding-house—and a catastrophe meant the removal of Mrs. Atterson from her usual orbit.
“She's gone to the funeral. That Uncle Jeptha of hern is dead,” whispered Sister in Hiram's ear when she put his soup in front of him.
“Ah-ha!” observed Mr. Crackit, eyeing Hiram with his head on one side, “secrets, eh? Inside information of what's in the pudding sauce?”
Nothing went right at the boarding-house during the next two days. And for Hiram Strong nothing seemed to go right anywhere!
He demanded—and got the permission, with another ten-cent tax—another hour off to visit the market. But he found nobody who would hire a boy at once. Some of the farmers doubted if he knew as much about farm-work as he claimed to know. He was, after all, a boy, and some of them would not believe that he had even worked in the country.