Above the slanted gun-barrel appeared a ferocious black moustache which completely hid the wearer's mouth, a beak-like nose, and a pair of blue eyes that glittered half wildly. Altogether the householder was of most forbidding aspect, and the youth at once identified him as Yancey Battick. He had evidently stopped at the wrong house after all! "I want nothing, Mr. Battick, but shelter till the rain holds up," Hiram answered. "Who told you my name?" demanded the man. "I never saw you before, young fellow." "I guessed it," Hiram replied. "I'm a pretty good Yankee at guessing." "And you are a Yankee, I imagine," the man said. "You're from the East, aren't you?" "Yes, sir," replied Hiram, and mentioned the locality from which he had just come in answer to Mr. Stephen Bronson's summons. The man still presented the gun, and although Hiram had stepped from under the cascade pouring down from the roof, he was anything but comfortable out there on the porch. "Where are you going?" asked Battick, scowling still. "To Sunnyside Farm." "Why, there's nobody there! The house is burned down." "I expect to work that place this year for Mr. Stephen Bronson. I want to find a place to lodge near the farm, and I was told to apply to--Miss Pringle, I believe the name is." "What!" gasped the man. "A young fellow like you? Who sent you unwarned into the clutches of that old maid?" "Why--is she so bad?" Hiram asked. "There isn't any male too young nor yet too old to be out of danger of that old maid. Come on in," added Mr. Battick, unchaining the door. "I wouldn't let any male creature get into that woman's clutches." Hiram stepped rather doubtfully into the house. Mr. Yancey Battick certainly was a very odd person. He had been warned that the man with the welcoming shotgun was afraid of rats; it appeared that he was likewise much afraid of spinsters. CHAPTER II A KERNEL OF WHEAT "Hold on!" said Yancey Battick, halting Hiram just after he was inside the house and the door was closed. "Who sent you here?" He seemed a very suspicious man. His blue eyes searched the open countenance of the boy from the East, and his expression, with bristling moustache and all, was fierce indeed. "I tell you I was not sent here at all," Hiram explained rather wearily. "In fact, I was advised strongly against knocking at your door." "Who advised you?" demanded Battick quickly. "The stationmaster." "That old thimblerigger, Jason Oakley? Huh! Are you a friend of his?" It was evident that Mr. Battick was not on friendly terms with many of his neighbors. Hiram Strong did not lack common sense. He proposed to say nothing to cause the householder to turn him out into the downpour, which was now very severe. "I am just as much a friend of his, Mr. Battick, as I am of yours," the youth said. "Humph! Well! And I suppose Jason told you to try at Delia Pringle's?" "He did."