"No laughing matter, young fellow," advised Battick, as the visitor prepared to depart. "I'll bet you she'll be over to see you before you are at Sunnyside twenty-four hours--unless she has a broken leg. Oh, I know her, Mr. Strong. I pretty near had to run her off this place with my gun." "I hope not, Mr. Battick." "Fact," said the man in a perfectly serious way. "As I tell you, this was the old Pringle place. She claimed she liked to come down here for old time's sake and sit under that buttonwood tree out there. She'd bring her sewing and stay all the afternoon and I had to dress up and make believe I was going to town to get rid of her." "That was a good deal of a time-consumer," interrupted Hiram, his eyes dancing with his inward mirth. "Then," pursued the harassed man, "folks riding by began to ask me if we were going to be married soon and whether I'd continue to live down here or go up to Miss Pringle's new house to live with her. It got right embarrassing for a modest man, for a fact! "Besides," added Battick, "I didn't know but she was aiming to get me into court for breach of promise. Circumstantial evidence has hung many a man." "I hope I shall have no similar trouble," Hiram replied, vastly amused. He believed Battick, in spite of all his moodiness, and his fear of rats--and dislike for visitors--was a wit and worth cultivating. At least, he determined to learn more about that new wheat that the man was guarding so religiously. In fact, Hiram had found a chance to pick up a pinch of the wheat corns from under the trough, and had the grain safely twisted up in a bit of paper in his pocket. He knew better than to offer Mr. Battick anything like money in return for the queer hospitality the misanthrope had shown him. Hiram did, however, make one attempt to return something for the kindness. "I see you have seed wheat in this box, Mr. Battick," he said. "If you wish to keep the rats out of it, I believe I can show you a wrinkle." "You can?" rejoined Battick, watching him with keen suspicion again. "You have a couple of old milk pans there and two wash basins. Invert a basin or a pan over each leg of that box and no rat can run up the leg and over the side of the box, or gnaw into it." "I get you!" ejaculated Battick, seeing the point at once. "I believe that's a good idea, young fellow." "I know it is," rejoined Hiram with confidence. "I built me a corncrib that way only last year. It surely gives Mr. Rat something new to think about." He picked up his bag, shook hands with his odd host, and went out. It was a keen wind he faced as he started up the hill to Sunnyside Farm. A jay winging its way from one wood to another, stopped upon a dead limb to stare curiously at the wayfarer. Then, with raucous cry, it disappeared in a piece of woodland that evidently belonged to the old farm that Yancey Battick had purchased from the terrible Miss Pringle. This windbreak divided the Battick place from Sunnyside.