Mr. Bronson sent another corn planter from one of his other farms and the two teams cleaned up the Sunnyside corn patch in a week. It was the biggest acreage of corn Hiram had ever had anything to do with, and he looked over the great brown field from the altitude of the knoll on which the new farmhouse was being built with no little pride and satisfaction. [Illustration: The two teams cleaned up the Sunnyside cornpatch in a week.] Miss Delia Pringle had proved a true prophetess. The silo was finished, all but two of the hoops and the wire stays, and the carpenters were well at work on the new house. The lower floor was laid and the framework for the outer walls raised as high as the second story, and the back and sides were boarded in. Lettie Bronson arrived home on the eighth of June, and it was the evening of that day that had been set for the "house raising dance" at Sunnyside. CHAPTER XVI TROUBLE WITH TURNER'S BULL The hard scrubby looking red and yellow corn that Hiram had got from Mr. Brown and tested so carefully, had planted a goodly patch of the Sunnyside cornland. Mr. Bronson looked at some of it as Hiram filled the two cylinders of the cornplanter, running several handfuls through his hand. "That's kind of scrubby looking stuff, Hiram," he observed doubtfully. "I sent you up better looking seed." "Yes, sir. Your seed certainly is well selected and graded," agreed the youth. "But I am not going to plant it on this lowland; not much of it, anyway. That big corn grows tall, I imagine, and takes plenty of time to grow, doesn't it?" "From a hundred and ten to a hundred and twenty days. But you are planting plenty early." "Yes. Only we may get frost on this lowland early in September. The farmers about here tell me they do, some years. And June frosts, too, once in a bad while. I am afraid, if we had a set-back in corn planting in June, that long-growing variety of yours would get scarcely glazed down here, before the September frost hit it. And it is not the sort of corn I want for silage." "I see. You always do have an answer ready, Hiram; and usually it's a good one. Though, truth to tell, an early September frost here is almost as unlikely as a July snow." "Just the same," his young employee said, "this corn that you think is so scrubby is due to make you a big crop. I am planting a specially prepared strip on that far side toward Battick's for seed." "No!" "Yes, sir." "But it isn't even pure breed, Hiram. There will be a dozen red ears to the bushel, I am certain." "Did you ever see a horse or a mule refuse a red ear of corn?" laughed Hiram. "I don't ever remember of seeing smut on an ear that turned out to be red--though that doesn't prove anything. And red ears make just as good meal as yellow." "I suppose you are right. But this looks like scrub."