"If it comes right, when it is cured you can knock a steer down with an ear of it without knocking a kernel off the cob." "That will be some corn, boy!" chuckled Mr. Bronson. Hiram came up from the first raking of this seed corn patch at noontime of this beautiful June day to find Miss Pringle and some of the younger girls transforming the first floor of the new house at Sunnyside into a ballroom. Busy as they were at this time on the farm, both Hiram and Orrin gave the girls a helping hand during the afternoon. The carpenters built a small platform at the back of the house for the musicians. There was to be the piano brought over from Miss Pringle's, a violin, and a horn. Mr. Bronson had sent up a lot of Japanese lanterns, and these the boys strung as they were directed about the big, open floor and overhead. Chairs and benches were brought from the schoolhouse, half a mile or more away. The veranda flooring had likewise been laid, and the carpenters had built wide, rough steps by which the veranda could easily be reached. The girls swept out all the shavings and other litter, and the well-laid floor presented an attractive appearance to the eye of anybody who was fond of dancing. Just as the place was pronounced ready by Delia Pringle, and the girls and boys were retiring from the cleanly swept floor, Adam Banks appeared at the back door and coolly scrambled into the house. "Let's see how it is laid," he said, grinning, and beginning to clog clumsily with his heavy boots. He had been walking in muddy places, and every step he took on the clean boards rattled gravel and mud off his boots. "You get out of here, Ad Banks," commanded Miss Pringle, starting after him with broom and dust pan. "You are the biggest nuisance that ever was." "Aw, Delia, don't be harsh with a fellow," said Banks, grinning broadly. "You going to promise me a dance to-night?" "And you probably coming here half drunk!" announced the spinster, frankly. "I guess not!" announced the spinster, frankly. "I guess not! No indeed!" "You'd better. You'll be a wall-flower enough, Delia--you know you will." At that Miss Pringle flushed very red and her eyes fairly snapped. "If I never danced at all I wouldn't take on any such makeshift of a man as you, Ad Banks! Get out of here!" she commanded, "shooing" him with the broom. He grappled with her, still laughing in his lubberly way, and wrenched the broom from Miss Pringle's hands. "Oh, Delia," he sing-songed, "how I love you! You're the prettiest girl I know. Come on and give us a dance. No? Then I'll dance with the broom," and he proceeded to do a grotesque dance over the clean floor with the broomstick for a partner. "Now just look at what you've done, Ad Banks!" cried Miss Pringle almost in tears. "See that!" Broken cakes of mud were scattered about the floor wherever the fellow clogged while Miss Pringle looked on angrily.