"No, sir. Leave it to me. I must learn to put together every machine that comes onto the place. There are always instructions sent with the implements from the factory. The time may come, right in the middle of a job of importance, that the machine will balk. I've got to know all about it. Do you see?" "I see. And you are right, I guess." "Mr. Bronson, seems to me I'll be just about made when I sit up on that plow and chirrup to those Percherons. I've tramped along in the furrow behind one or two horses for so many years--Well!" Mr. Bronson laughed. "While I've ridden a plow and other farm tools so much that I hate to get up on one," he said. "They say it's mighty good exercise for a sluggish liver to ride 'em over hobbly ground. Ah, my boy! you've got the best of it, for you are young. You've got enthusiasm." "Why, so have you, Mr. Bronson," cried Hiram. "Only it is enthusiasm of a different kind from mine. Otherwise you would not buy farms and put them into shape for other men to run." "Maybe that is merely business." Before night Orrin Post was quite in his right mind. Abigail had been making broth and porridge for him, for now that his fever was reduced Miss Pringle's idea of nursing seemed to be to stuff the patient with food. "She will kill me with kindness," the young man said to Hiram. "I hope I shall not have to lie here long." "Miss Pringle is awfully good," the young farm manager said stoutly. "I do not know what we would have done without her." "I don't know what I would have done without you, Mr. Strong. She's told me how you thought I had smallpox, and yet picked me up and brought me here." "You've got the cart before the horse," chuckled Hiram. "I got you up here from that shed before I discovered that you were breaking out in such shape. How did you get to the shed?" "I haven't a very clear remembrance of it," confessed Orrin Post. "I felt pretty bad." "Had you traveled far?" "I had a job with a farmer all winter at Roundspring. But I was taken down with this fever and he told me I had better go because he was afraid his children would catch it. I couldn't blame him--much. So I started west." "Wasn't there any place they would take you in? No hospital?" "I didn't happen to stop at a hospital," said Orrin Post dryly. "And nobody offered to do anything for you?" "I do not remember that any one did. I was kind of flighty the last day or two, I guess." "Were you heading for home?" asked Hiram. "If I was I didn't know it," Post said with a faint laugh. "But where is your home?" "Anywhere I hang up my hat." "Really?" "I'm giving it to you straight." "And no friends?" "You are the best friend I ever had," declared the young man, with sudden emotion. "Nobody ever put himself out for me before that I can remember." "Oh, don't make too much of what little I have done," Hiram urged. "Where do you go from here?" "I haven't the first idea. I'll get out as soon as I can--"