When Hiram and Orrin drove the sweating team of Percherons back to the yard with the drill the carpenters had picked up their tools for the day and were getting ready to depart in a big auto-bus for Plympton. They all went home over Sunday, and besides Hiram and Orrin Post only one farm laborer and a boy remained on Sunnyside over the week-end. Even the cook went home, and the four remaining on the farm had to make out as well as they could with amateur cooking until Monday morning. "Everything is all right at the house, Mr. Strong," said the boss carpenter to Hiram. "The windows are in and the roof is tight at last. If it rains it can't do us any harm." "Say!" exclaimed the young farmer. "How about if a big wind came up? Those clouds over yonder look ugly." "Oh, no baby tornado is going to do the house any damage," declared the boss, following his men into the bus. "How about the silo? Suppose something happens to it?" "Oh, that'll be all right. Anyway, it is too late to put those bands on now." "Or the wire stays?" cried Hiram as the automobile started. "Pshaw! You are an old Betty, Hi Strong!" sang out one of the carpenters as the machine rolled out of the yard. "I don't believe it will rain enough to lay the dust." However, that prophecy went by the board before Hiram and his helpers got the chores done at Sunnyside that evening. They ran for the shack as the big drops of water began to fall. The drops soon turned to sheets of wind-driven rain that slatted against the walls of the shed like sleet. In the midst of the supper preparations Orrin opened the door to look out. He stared through the thinning rain toward the south. "She's letting up, boys," he said confidently, and then turned to look across the road and up the hillside. Immediately his voice changed and the cry he uttered was one of positive fear. "What's the matter?" Hiram shouted, and all of them darted out of the door. The moment the old man, Blodger by name, looked over the shoulder of the hill he threw up his hands and shrieked: "It's coming! Tornado! The wind'll change and come from the north--right from the North Pole--in a minute. There!" For an instant it was calm and the rain ceased. Then, with a whistle and roar and the sudden writhing of the branches in the wood, the tornado came. It might be only a "baby," but to Hiram's mind the funnel of black cloud sweeping down upon Sunnyside seemed a full-grown wind-storm indeed. CHAPTER XIX DISASTER THREATENS "Who's that scurrying down the road toward Pringleton?" demanded Blodger in the lull before the tornado struck Sunnyside. They all saw the man hurrying along the county road with the tails of his coat over his head. Jim Larry, the boy, shrieked: "I believe that is Ad Banks. What's he doing around here? I thought he was working over at Loomisville."