Yes, the work on the farm had been hard—especially for a growing boy. Many farm boys work under better conditions than Hiram had.
Nevertheless, after a two years' trial of what the city has in store for most country boys who cut loose from their old environment, Hiram Strong felt to-day as though he must get back to the land.
“There's nothing for me in town. Clerking in Dwight's Emporium will never get me anywhere,” he thought, turning finally away from the open country and starting down the steep hill.
“Why, there are college boys working on our street cars here—waiting for some better job to turn up. What chance does a fellow stand who's only got a country school education?
“And there isn't any clean fun for a fellow in Crawberry—fun that doesn't cost money. And goodness knows I can't make more than enough to pay Mrs. Atterson, and for my laundry, and buy a new suit of overalls and a pair of shoes occasionally.
“No, sir!” concluded Hiram. “There's nothing in it. Not for a fellow like me, at any rate. I'd better be back on the farm—and I wish I was there now.”
He had been to church that morning; but after the late dinner at his boarding house had set out on this lonely walk. Now he had nothing to look forward to as he returned but the stuffy parlor of Mrs. Atterson's boarding house, the cold supper in the dining-room, which was attended in a desultory fashion by such of the boarders as were at home, and then a long, dull evening in his room, or bed after attending the evening service at the church around the corner.
Hiram even shrank from meeting the same faces at the boarding house table, hearing the same stale jokes or caustic remarks about Mrs. Atterson's food from Fred Crackit and the young men boarders of his class, or the grumbling of Mr. Peebles, the dyspeptic invalid, or the inane monologue of Old Lem Camp.
And Mrs. Atterson herself—good soul though she was—had gotten on Hiram Strong's nerves, too. With her heat-blistered face, near-sighted eyes peering through beclouded spectacles, and her gown buttoned up hurriedly and with a gap here and there where a button was missing, she was the typically frowsy, hurried, nagged-to-death boarding house mistress.
And as for “Sister,” Mrs. Atterson's little slavey and maid-of-all-work——