“As a hustler after fortune in the city I am not a howling success,” mused Hiram. “Somehow, I'm cramped down yonder,” and he glanced back at the squalid brick houses below him, the smoky roofs, and the ugly factory chimneys. “And I declare,” he pursued, reflectively, “I don't believe I can stand Old Dan Dwight much longer. Dan, Junior, is bad enough--when he is around the store; but the boss would drive a fellow to death.” He shook his head, now turning from the pleasanter prospect of the farming land and staring down into the town. “Maybe I'm not a success because I don't stick to one thing. I've had six jobs in less'n two years. That's a bad record for a boy, I believe. But there hasn't any of them suited me, nor have I suited them. “And Dwight's Emporium beats 'em all!” finished Hiram, shaking his head. He turned his back upon the town once more, as though to wipe his failure out of his memory. Before him sloped a field of wheat and clover. It had kept as green under the snow as though winter was an unknown season. Every cloverleaf sparkled and the leaves of wheat bristled like tiny spears. Spring was on the way. He could hear the call of it! Two years before Hiram had left the farm. He had no immediate relatives after his father died. The latter had been a tenant-farmer only, and when his tools and stock and the few household chattels had been sold to pay the debts that had accumulated during his last illness, there was very little money left for Hiram. There was nobody to say him nay when he packed his bag and started for Crawberry, which was the metropolis of his part of the country. He had set out boldly, believing that he could get ahead faster, and become master of his own fortune more quickly in town than in the locality where he was born. He was a rugged, well-set-up youth of seventeen, not over-tall, but sturdy and able to do a man's work. Indeed, he had long done a man's work before he left the farm. Hiram's hands were calloused, he shuffled a bit when walked, and his shoulders were just a little bowed from holding the plow handles since he had been big enough to bridle his father's old mare. Yes, the work on the farm had been hard--especially for a growing boy. Many farm boys work under better conditions than Hiram had. Nevertheless, after a two years' trial of what the city has in store for most country boys who cut loose from their old environment, Hiram Strong felt to-day as though he must get back to the land. “There's nothing for me in town. Clerking in Dwight's Emporium will never get me anywhere,” he thought, turning finally away from the open country and starting down the steep hill. “Why, there are college boys working on our street cars here--waiting for some better job to turn up. What chance does a fellow stand who's only got a country school education?