However, if Adam Banks--or any other ill-disposed person--wished to ruin the yield of seed wheat, he did not succeed in such plans. The new wheat was spread upon the floor of the attic of the new house at Sunnyside, and that dwelling had been built mouse and rat proof! Samples sent to various experimental farmers and agricultural stations with the well-written claims for the new wheat prepared by Yancey Battick attracted wide attention. Photographs of the growing wheat which Mr. Bronson had had taken were reproduced and printed in some of the farm papers. Every wheat grower who saw the grain and heard of its development was enthusiastic. But the partners in the Staff of Life Wheat determined to sell none of the surplus of this present crop in large lots. Battick got up a catchy advertisement headed: "Grow it in Your Garden," showing how any farmer might develop seed enough from one fifty-cent packet to plant an acre of the new wheat in a year's time and so, in two years, gain a forty-acre crop. The advertisement brought almost immediate returns, and the orders grew in number daily. At this packet rate the partners were getting for the seed wheat a hundred and twenty-eight dollars per bushel! "Oh, no! there is no money in the seed business is there?" said Mr. Bronson, widely smiling. And they were giving something of value for the fifty-cent orders that came in with a rush. With care any gardener could raise seed enough for an acre of grain, just as their advertisement said. The Staff of Life Wheat was a really wonderful variety. Of course, the advertising cost a good deal and the exploitation of the wheat in this way entailed much work. But the profit was enticing. The Rural Free Delivery mail carrier began to object to handling the traffic of Sunnyside Farm, and Battick was obliged to drive to Pringleton three times a week to mail packets of seed and get the money orders cashed. Mr. Bronson banked the money in a special account at the Plympton National Bank, and the seed selling business grew in importance. Miss Pringle had learned to use a typewriter, and Battick had to hire her to help with the correspondence. This pleased Hiram immensely, for it put Yancey Battick in a position where he had to associate with the good-hearted spinster. The man did not have much show to continue a woman hater when he was associated daily with Delia Pringle! "I told you," chuckled Orrin, "that Delia had set her cap for a particular person in this vicinity. And it is not you or me or Jimmy Larry. Yancey Battick is in much more danger right now from Delia, than his wheat ever was from the plottings of Adam Banks, believe me!" CHAPTER XXX KING CORN Hiram Strong had grown taller corn with bigger ears on it in the East than any of the now ripening crop on Sunnyside Farm. But in bulk of shelled corn he knew he had never equaled this present crop.