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.
Meanwhile he started his celery seed in shallow boxes, and when the
plants were an inch and a half, or so, tall, he pricked them out, two
inches apart each way into the cold-frames.
Sister and Mr. Camp could help in this work, and they soon filled the
cold-frames with celery plants destined to be reset in the garden plat
later.
This “handling” of celery aids its growth and development in a most
wonderful manner. At the second transplanting, Hiram snipped back the
tops, and the roots as well, so that each plant would grow sturdily and
not be too “stalky”.
Mrs. Atterson declared they were all celery mad. “Whatever will you do
with so much of the stuff, I haven't the least idee, Hiram. Can you sell
it all? Why, it looks to me as though you had set out enough already to
glut the Crawberry market.”
“And I guess that's right,” returned Hiram. “Especially if I shipped it
all at once.”
But he was aiming higher than the Crawberry market. He had been in
correspondence with firms that handled celery exclusively in some of the
big cities, and before ever he put the plow into the bottom-land he
had arranged for the marketing of every stalk he could grow on his six
acres.
It was a truth that the family of transplanted boarding house people
worked harder this second spring than they had the first one. But they
knew how better, too, and the garden work did not seem so arduous to
Sister and Old Lem Camp.
Mrs. Atterson had a fine flock of hens, and they had laid well after the
first of December, and the eggs had brought good prices. She planned to
increase her flock, build larger yards, and in time make a business of
poultry raising, as that would be something that she and Sister could
practically handle alone.
Sister's turkeys had thrived so the year before that she had saved two
hens and a handsome gobbler, and determined to breed turkeys for the
fall market.
And Sister learned a few things before she had raised “that raft
of poults,” as Mother Atterson called them. Turkeys are certainly
calculated to breed patience--especially if one expects to have a flock
of young Toms and hens fit for killing at Thanksgiving-time.
She hatched the turkeys under motherly hens belonging to Mother
Atterson, striving to breed poults that would not trail so far from the
house; but as soon as the youngsters began to feel their wings they had
their foster-mothers pretty well worn out. One flock tolled the old hen
off at least a mile from the house and Hiram had some work enticing the
poults back again.
There was no raid made upon her turkey coops this year, however. Pete
Dickerson was not much in evidence during the spring and early summer.
Mrs. Atterson went back and forth to the neighbors; but although
whenever Hiram saw the farmer the latter put forth an effort to be
pleasant to him, the two households did not well “mix”.
Besides, during this busiest time of the year, when the crops were
getting started, there seemed to be little opportunity for social
intercourse. At least, so it seemed on the Atterson place.
They were a busy and well contented crew, and everything seemed to be
running like clockwork, when suddenly “another dish of trouble”, as
Mother Atterson called it, was served them in a most unexpected manner.
Hiram was coming up from the barn one evening, long after dark, and had
just caught sight of Sister standing on the porch waiting for him, when
a sudden glow against the dark sky, made him turn.
The flash of fire passed on the instant, and Sister called to him:
“Oh, Hiram! did you see that shooting-star?”
“You never wished on it, Sis,” said the young farmer.
“Oh, yes I did!” she returned, dancing down the steps to meet him.
“That quick?”
“Just that quick,” she reiterated, seizing his arm and getting into step
with him.
“And what was the wish?” demanded Hiram.
“Why--I won't ever get it if I tell you, will I?” she queried, shyly.
“Just as likely to as not, Sister,” he said, with serious voice. “Wishes
are funny things, you know. Sometimes the very best ones never come
true.”
“And I'm afraid mine will never come true,” she sighed. “Oh, dear! I
guess no amount of wishing will ever bring some things to pass.”
“Maybe that's so, Sis,” he said, chuckling. “I fancy that getting out
and hustling for the thing you want is the best way to fulfill wishes.”
“Oh, but I can't do that in this case,” said the girl, shaking her head,
and still speaking very seriously as they came to the porch steps.
“Maybe I can bring it about for you,” teased Hiram.
“I guess not,” she said. “I want so to be like other girls, Hiram! I'd
like to be like that pretty Lettie Bronson. I'm not jealous of her
looks and her clothes and her good times and all; no, that's not it,”
proclaimed Sister, with a little break in her voice.
“But I'd like to know who I really be. I want folks, and--and I want to
have a real name of my own!”
“Why, bless you!” exclaimed the young fellow, “'Sister' is a nice name,
I'm sure--and we all love it here.”
“But it isn't a name. They call me Sissy Atterson at school. But it
doesn't belong to me. I--I've thought lots about choosing a name for
myself--a real fancy one, you know. There's lots of pretty, names,” she
said, reflectively.
“Cords of 'em,” Hiram agreed.
“But, you see, they wouldn't really be mine,” said the girl, earnestly.
“Not even after I had chosen them. I want my very own name! I want to
know who I am and all about myself. And”--with a half strangled sob--“I
guess wishing will never bring me that, will it, Hiram?”
Never before had the young fellow heard Sister express herself upon this
topic. He had no idea that the girl felt her unknown and practically
unnamed existence so strongly.
“I wouldn't care, Sis,” he said, patting her bent shoulders. “We love
you here just as well as we would if you had ten names! Don't forget
that.
“And maybe it won't be all a mystery some day. Your folks may look you
up. They may come here and find you. And they'll be mighty proud of
you--you've grown so tall and good looking. Of course they will!”
Sister listened to him and gave a little contented sigh. “And then they
might want to take me away--and I'd fight, tooth and nail, if they tried
it.”
“What?” gasped Hiram.
“Of course I would!” said the girl. “Do you suppose I'd give up Mother
Atterson for a dozen families--or for clothes--and houses--or, or
anything?” and she ran into the house leaving the young farmer in some
amazement.
“Ain't that the girl of it?” he muttered, at last. “Yet I bet she is in
earnest about wanting to know about her folks.”
And from that time Hiram thought more about Sister's problem himself
than he had before. Once, when he went to Crawberry, he went to the
charitable institution from which Mother Atterson had taken Sister. But
the matron had heard nothing of the lawyer who had once come to talk
over the child's affairs, and the path of inquiry seemed shut off right
there by an impassable barrier.
However, this is ahead of our story. On this particular night Hiram
washed at the pump, and then followed Sister in to supper.
Before they were half through Mr. Camp suddenly started from his chair
and pointed through the window.
Flames were rising behind the barn again!
“Another stack burning!” exclaimed Hiram, and be shot out of the door,
seizing a pail of water, hoping that he might put it out.
But the stack was doomed. He knew it the moment he saw the extent of the
blaze.
He kept away from it, as he had before; yet he did not expect to pick up
any trail of the incendiary near the stack.
“Twice in the same place is too much!” declared the young farmer,
glowing with wrath. “I'm going to have this mystery explained, or know
the reason why.”
He left Mr. Camp to watch the burning fodder, to see that sparks from
the stack did no harm, and lighting his lantern he went along the line
fence again.
Yes! there were the footprints that he had expected to find. But the
burning stack was even farther from the fence than the first one
had been--and there were no marks of feet in the soft earth on Mrs.
Atterson's side of the boundary.