Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER By Burbank L. Todd CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE CALL OF SPRING CHAPTER II. AT MRS. ATTERSON'S CHAPTER III. A DREARY DAY CHAPTER IV. THE LOST CARD CHAPTER V. THE COMMOTION AT MOTHER ATTERSON'S CHAPTER VI. THIS DIDN'T GET BY HIRAM CHAPTER VII. HOW HIRAM LEFT TOWN CHAPTER VIII. THE LURE OF GREEN FIELDS CHAPTER IX. THE BARGAIN IS MADE CHAPTER X. THE SOUND OF BEATING HOOFS CHAPTER XI. A GIRL RIDES INTO THE TALE CHAPTER XII. SOMETHING ABOUT A PASTURE FENCE CHAPTER XIII. THE UPROOTING CHAPTER XIV. GETTING IN THE EARLY CROPS CHAPTER XV. TROUBLE BREWS CHAPTER XV. ONE SATURDAY AFTERNOON CHAPTER XVII. MR. PEPPER APPEARS CHAPTER XVIII. A HEAVY CLOUD CHAPTER XIX. THE REASON WHY CHAPTER XX. AN ENEMY IN THE DARK CHAPTER XXI. THE WELCOME TEMPEST CHAPTER XXII. FIRST FRUITS CHAPTER XXIII. TOMATOES AND TROUBLE CHAPTER XXIV. “CORN THAT'S CORN” CHAPTER XXV. THE BARBECUE CHAPTER XXVI. SISTER'S TURKEYS CHAPTER XXVII. RUN TO EARTH CHAPTER XXVIII. HARVEST CHAPTER XXIX. LETTIE BRONSON'S CORN HUSKING CHAPTER XXX. ONE SNOWY MIDNIGHT CHAPTER XXXI. “MR. DAMOCLES'S SWORD” CHAPTER XXXII. THE CLOUD IS LIFTED CHAPTER XXXIII. “CELERY MAD” CHAPTER XXXIV. CLEANING UP A PROFIT CHAPTER XXXV. LOOKING AHEAD CHAPTER I. THE CALL OF SPRING “Well, after all, the country isn't such a bad place as some city folk think.” The young fellow who said this stood upon the highest point of the Ridge Road, where the land sloped abruptly to the valley in which lay the small municipality of Crawberry on the one hand, while on the other open fields and patches of woodland, in a huge green-and-brown checkerboard pattern, fell more easily to the bank of the distant river. Dotted here and there about the farming country lying before the youth as he looked westward were cottages, or the more important-looking homesteads on the larger farms; and in the distance a white church spire behind the trees marked the tiny settlement of Blaine's Smithy. A Sabbath calm lay over the fields and woods. It was mid-afternoon of an early February Sunday--the time of the mid-winter thaw, that false prophet of the real springtime. Although not a furrow had been turned as yet in the fields, and the snow lay deep in some fence corners and beneath the hedges, there was, after all, a smell of fresh earth--a clean, live smell--that Hiram Strong had missed all week down in Crawberry. “I'm glad I came up here,” he muttered, drawing in great breaths of the clean air. “Just to look at the open fields, without any brick and mortar around, makes a fellow feel fine!” He stretched his arms above his head and, standing alone there on the upland, felt bigger and better than he had in weeks. For Hiram Strong was a country boy, born and bred, and the town stifled him. Besides, he had begun to see that his two years in Crawberry had been wasted.