But we had occasion to be thankful we had fallen in with Jake, for he had been able to direct us to a farmer within a day's drive who hired both us and our oxen for the harvest, or until the beginning of threshing. His name was Keefer; a short, thick-set man of fifty-five, with a stubby whisker turning an iron grey. He received us in his stable yard, hatless and coatless, and with his thumbs hooked under his leather suspenders in the confident manner of one who is accustomed to rely on himself and is not likely to be disappointed. "I'm a glutton for work," he said, when he had hired us, "and I expect my men to feed hearty at the same trough. I wouldn't put your bulls on a binder on a bet; there's too much side-play to their gait, but I can use 'em discing the summerfallow. You'll have to sleep in the granary, but we all eat together at the house. I'm starting two binders in the morning; I'll expect you to keep up to them, and I'll know by to-morrow night what you're made of." Keefer was as good as his word. He called us at half past four, while the night was still hanging grey about the buildings, and the stronger stars looked down, cold and steely, through a temperature which had dropped dangerously close to the freezing point. He had an hour's work for us about the stables, and at six we went in to breakfast. The table was set in the kitchen; Mrs. Keefer and her sixteen-year-old daughter Nellie must have been about almost as early as were we. The breakfast was of oatmeal porridge with milk--the belief that every prosperous farm abounds in cream, is, alas, a delusion;--following the porridge came salt pork and potatoes, with good bread and butter, both the latter the products of the housewifely skill of Mrs. Keefer and her daughter. The table was of boards, covered with oilcloth; Mr. Keefer sat at one end, with a husky chap he called George, his permanent hired man, at his right, and his fourteen-year-old son, Harry, at his left. Jack and I sat opposite, and Mrs. Keefer occupied the seat at the other end of the table from her husband. Nellie did not sit down, but waited on the company until the first table had finished. Apparently there were younger children upstairs, as we heard her admonishing them for their failure to get up; evidently she would eat with them. "It's early for harvest," Keefer volunteered to us, when he had finished his porridge and was half way through a plate of potatoes and pork. "I didn't figure on it so soon, but the last few days have been hot, and my barley field has come along a-whoopin'. It gives me a chance to try out the binders--and the new hired men." Keefer smiled as he spoke, but he had a way with him that made us aware that anyone who failed to come up to his standard as a workman would get short shrift around his establishment.