In addition to learning and following these new methods and in some cases improving on them, Hiram had kept more than a rough farm account. He knew his overhead charges against each crop. It cost him more per acre, for instance, to prepare his field for the seed corn he had shown Daniel Brown; but that particular field paid him in increased yield. It ran ten bushels per acre over the remainder of the farm. The cribs were bursting with corn. Mr. Bronson had long since got over his first objection to the red ear and the occasional mottled one. This corn would ship to any distance after it was well dried and lose practically no weight in the journey. He proposed to hold Hiram's crop this year until mid-winter, or later, when the price would certainly advance. "I am satisfied that your methods have made me money, Hiram," said his employer, on one occasion. "You don't know everything. Nobody does. But there is one very good thing about you. You are not too old to learn!" and Mr. Bronson laughed. However, all this occurred before that letter came from Sister which so excited Hiram's curiosity. That the same Cincinnati lawyer should have to do with the search for the lost Cheltenham boy and for the mysterious Theodore Chester, was a coincidence that, Hiram decided, must needs be looked into. "Strayed boys are not so common as all that," he thought. He sat down and wrote to Mr. Eben Craddock at the address the lawyer had given him, asking if he had found Theodore Chester, just who that mysterious individual was, and if the lost Cheltenham boy--first name unknown--had any connection with Mr. Craddock's former inquiry at Sunnyside Farm. As it chanced, another matter came up before Hiram received any reply from Craddock, which proved to be a very surprising incident and one that for the time being quite drove thought of his letter to Craddock out of Hiram's mind. Mr. Bronson was buying young stock--calves and yearlings--all the time to swell the number of the herd Hiram was feeding, and with which he was so successfully enriching Sunnyside. Sometimes the farm's owner, or one of his men, brought the new live stock to Hiram. At other times the former owners of the calves delivered them. It was on a day early in December that a big farm wagon with a cattle-rack in it was driven into the yard. The boys were living again in the house, and had the furnace fire going, for Mr. Bronson had just had the house decorated and wished it to be kept well heated. Hiram left his comfortable seat before the dining room register, and went out to meet the wagon. Orrin and Jim were both down at the cattle sheds. The moment Hiram drew near the wagon in which the calves bawled he recognized the driver and the latter knew him. "Well, well!" exclaimed the bewhiskered man whom Hiram believed to have been the employer of his assistant whom he knew as "Orrin Post." "Are you still here?" "I am on the job still," answered Hiram smiling.