"Well, good-day!" said Hiram, moving off. "I'll be sure to come around to the front door again if I visit you," and he laughed shortly. The laugh died on his lips as he went back through the woods path. And for a very strange reason. Through the greenery to the right he caught sudden sight of a figure slinking away from behind the log on which he and Battick had been sitting while the latter told his story. Hiram recognized this eavesdropper. It was Adam Banks. CHAPTER XV THE COUNTRY DANCE Miss Delia Pringle had an idea and she came to Hiram with it that very day when he returned from his visit to Yancey Battick's patch of wheat. "I do love a dance, Mr. Strong, don't you?" she began with her head on one side and a languishing look. "We have had very few of them around this neighborhood this winter. The flu, you know--so many unfortunate sicknesses. "But the winter's well over now and everybody who hasn't died of the flu has recovered. I'd dearly love to have one more dance before haying and grain harvest--before all the young men get too busy." "Yes. But--" "Oh, I want your help in getting it up, Mr. Strong," Miss Pringle explained. "Why, Miss Pringle," he said rather anxiously, "I'm a newcomer. I don't want to put myself forward and act officiously. It might make a bad impression on the minds of the neighbors." "What nonsense!" cried the lively spinster. "They all like you--of course they do!" "Not Adam Banks," suggested Hiram, with one of his quick smiles that always made his rather plain face more attractive. "My goodness! I should hope not," exclaimed Miss Pringle. "If he did I certainly wouldn't." "And I think Terry Crane is getting to dislike me, too," added Hiram speaking of the man whom he had put into the burned-over patch of woodland to chop down trees. "I understand that Crane's wife thinks I'm quite a terrible fellow because I make her washing so hard." Miss Pringle laughed. "It would be a good thing, I should think, if these folks got together and learned more about you, Mr. Strong--got really to know you and how nice you are," and her smile would--when he first knew her--have made Hiram blush to the very tips of his ears. "You flatter me, Miss Pringle," was what he said. "And I don't believe I would know how to go about getting up a dance." "Oh, that's all right. You leave that to me," she said promptly. "What I want of you, Mr. Strong, is to get Mr. Bronson to let us dance on his floor." "Dance on his floor?" repeated Hiram. "At Plympton?" "Of course not!" "Where, then? What floor? His barn floor here at Sunnyside?" "No, no! Of his new house. Don't you know how Dolan and MacComb are going to put up the house after your silo is done? They often build 'em so around here. They do not raise the whole frame at once, but lay the floor on the sills and then put up the scantlings for the frame, story by story--the outside walls first."