"For the land's sake!" cried Miss Pringle, "you're so sudden, Mr. Strong. Won't you split the difference and give me twelve and a half cents?" A bargain was a bargain, and it was up to Hiram to do the best he could for his employer. Besides, the use of the half-charred tree trunks was at best an experiment. "Ten cents is my best offer, Miss Pringle. I can use a hundred of the burned trees; maybe two hundred." "And only the charred ones, Mr. Strong?" "You can keep tally on them," he said. "All right. Seeing it is you, Mr. Strong," she concluded, her head on one side and looking languishingly at him. "We're such friends, you know." Hiram groaned inwardly. But he went in with her then and there and wrote out the agreement in duplicate, both signing the papers. "Seems like a lot of folderol for ten or twenty dollars, Hiram," Miss Pringle whispered. "But, of course, I understand you have to have everything in writing to show Mr. Bronson. Mr. Bronson is a widower, and they do say widowers are awful strict and stern." But Hiram did not immediately tell Mr. Bronson of the bargain he had made with Miss Pringle for the half-charred timber. However, he planned to start certain activities at Sunnyside the very next day, and he drove down to Pringleton to see if Mr. Oakley, the stationmaster, knew of any laborers in the neighborhood who wished work. Coming back, he saw Mr. Yancey Battick leaning upon his sagging front gate. He had not seen the odd man to more than hail him since the time he had sojourned with him over night. "Looks like spring now, doesn't it, Mr. Battick?" Hiram suggested, stopping his horse. "I guess. And there's the first harbinger--a bluebird," and Battick pointed up the road. "What's that? Bluebird?" Then Hiram laughed, seeing the individual to whom Battick referred. "The first tramp of the season?" "Yes. And full as a tick, if I'm any judge," Battick said, with disgust. The fellow up ahead was staggering as he walked, and there was reason for thinking that he was intoxicated. "He won't get far in that shape," Hiram said. "He'll get far enough, perhaps," muttered Battick, turning away. "Look out he doesn't get into your barn, Mr. Strong, and set the mow on fire." The two chatted a few moments longer about the weather and neighborhood affairs, and then Hiram started his horse and drove on toward Sunnyside Farm. CHAPTER IX ORRIN POST This was the fifth day since Hiram had started his test boxes, and he was so much interested in this matter on his arrival at Sunnyside that he did not think again of Mr. Battick's first "bluebird," or harbinger of spring. In fact, he had not seen the fellow along the road and presumed the tramp had crept into a thicket somewhere to sleep off his intoxication.