"I see. That is a common practice in some localities." "It is here," returned Miss Pringle, "for we have a good many high winds. Come along one of those baby tornadoes, as they call 'em, and a regular house-frame would be torn all to pieces, unless it was well boarded in." "I believe you!" "Well. If it's nice weather, as it is likely to be in June when the floor's laid, we always try to have a dance. Christen the floor, as it were. In this Pringleton district we don't get to have a real good dance once in a dog's age. Carpet dances are nothing, and barn floors are so rough. So's the schoolhouse floor. There isn't a real hall nearer than Plympton." "I see your idea, Miss Pringle," Hiram said; "and if I can get Mr. Bronson to agree--and I presume he will--I don't see why we shouldn't have a nice time. Miss Bronson will be home early in June, and I shouldn't wonder but that she would help." "Little Lettie Bronson? Of course she will. We'll have a regular party," declared the enthusiastic Delia. "And I hope you'll ask me to dance, Mr. Strong." "I promise to," laughed Hiram. "I ask you right now for at least two dances, and there's Orrin. I bet he can dance." "Oh, I've already promised him three, Mr. Strong," declared the fore-thoughtful spinster, in high fettle. This was a bit of pleasure to look forward to; and all work and no play does make Jack a dull boy. It was something to write Sister about, too; and Sister (who wrote more frequently now that she had discovered Hiram would answer her letters) became very much interested in "Hiram's house raising party," as Mother Atterson called it. "Mrs. Atterson remembers going to a barn raising party when she was a girl in the country and there she met Mr. Atterson for the first time," Sister wrote in her very next letter. "She thinks she never had such a nice time as she did at that party. I wish I was going to be at your house raising party, Hiram. "Miss Lettie Bronson has been here and says she expects to be home for the party. She says Miss Pringle--the lady you write so much about--has writ (is that right, Hiram? Mrs. Atterson says it is) her all about it and how fine you are getting along with your spring work. I would dearly love to see you riding your double-disc plow behind those Percherons. They must be as big as elephants. "I am most of all interested in that Orrin Post. To think of his coming to your place sick, and all, and then turning out to be such a nice fellow and such good help! Mrs. Atterson says it was a leading. You were led to go down into the calf shed that night to find the poor fellow." There was considerable more to the letter for Sister was a voluminous writer when once she got started. Hiram's epistles, however, had soon to be of the briefest description, for the work was piling up on him enormously. Spring had opened with a bang!