“Pshaw! I gave up the idee 'way back there last spring,” chuckled Pepper. “You haven't the paper with you, have you, Mr. Pepper?” asked Mr. Strickland, quietly. The real estate man looked wondrous sly and tapped the side of his nose with a lean finger. “Why, I tore up that old paper long ago. It warn't no good to me,” said Pepper. “I wouldn't take the farm at that price for a gift,” and he departed with a sneering smile upon his lips. “And well he did destroy it,” declared Mr. Strickland. “It was a forgery--that is what it was. And if we could have once got Pepper in court with it, he would not have turned another scaly trick for some years to come.” CHAPTER XXXIII. “CELERY MAD” The relief to the minds of Hiram Strong and Mrs. Atterson was tremendous. Especially was the young farmer inspired to greater effort. He saw the second growing season before him. And he saw, too, that now, indeed, he had that chance to prove his efficiency which he had desired all the time. The past year had cost him little for clothing or other expenses. He had banked the hundred dollars Mrs. Atterson had paid him at Christmas. But he looked forward to something much bigger than the other hundred when the next Christmas-tide should come. Twenty-five per cent of all the profit of the Atterson Eighty during this second year was to be his own. The moment “Mr. Damocles's sword”, as Mother Atterson had called it, was lifted the young farmer jumped into the work. He had already cut enough wood to last the family a year; now he got Mr. Pollock, with his team of mules, to haul it up to the house, and then sent for the power saw, asked the neighbors to help, and in less than half a day every stick was cut to stove length. As he had time Hiram split this wood and Lem Camp piled it in the shed. Hiram knocked together some extra cold-frames, too, and bought some second-hand sash. And he had already dug a pit for a twelve-foot hotbed. Now, a twelve-foot hotbed will start an enormous number of plants. Hiram did not plan to have quite so much small stuff in the garden this year, however. He knew that he should have less time to work in the garden. He proposed having more potatoes, about as many tomatoes as the year before, but fewer roots to bunch, salads and the like. He must give the bulk of his time to the big commercial crop that he hoped to put into the bottom-land. He had little fear of the river overflowing its banks late enough in the season to interfere with the celery crop. For the seedlings were to be handled in the cold-frames and garden-patch until it was time to set them in the trenches. And that would not be until July. He contented himself with having the logs he cut drawn to the sawmill and the sawed planks brought down to the edge of the bottom-land, and did not propose to put a plow into the land until late June.