HIRAM IN THE MIDDLE WEST
OR
_A YOUNG FARMER'S UPWARD STRUGGLE_
BY BURBANK L. TODD
AUTHOR OF "HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER."
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
* * * * *
BACK TO THE SOIL SERIES
By BURBANK L. TODD
_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated._
HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER
Or, Making the Soil Pay
HIRAM IN THE MIDDLE WEST
Or, A Young Fanner's Upward Struggle
(Other Volumes in Preparation)
GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY, NEW YORK
CONTENTS
I. THE MAN WHO WAS AFRAID OF RATS
II. A KERNEL OF WHEAT
III. INVENTOR'S LUCK
IV. SUNNYSIDE
V. THE TERRIBLE MISS PRINGLE
VI. FARMING AND FURBELOWS
VII. SEED TESTING
VIII. THE BLUEBIRD
IX. ORRIN POST
X. A FRIEND INDEED
XI. FRICTION
XII. WORK BEGINS
XIII. WHEAT
XIV. YANCEY BATTICK'S STORY
XV. THE COUNTRY DANCE
XVI. TROUBLE WITH TURNER'S BULL
XVII. WHEAT HARVEST
XVIII. THE BABY TORNADO
XIX. DISASTER THREATENS
XX. A BARGAIN
XXI. A PARTNERSHIP IS FORMED
XXII. A STRANGER APPEARS
XXIII. AN INQUIRY
XXIV. SOCIETY
XXV. A VISIT AND A PEST
XXVI. THE FIGHT FOR THE WHEAT
XXVII. DAY DREAMS
XXVIII. CORN AND COMPARISONS
XXIX. EXPLOITING THE WHEAT
XXX. KING CORN
XXXI. WHO IS THEODORE CHESTER?
XXXII. LOOKING AHEAD
ILLUSTRATIONS
The two teams cleaned up the Sunnyside cornpatch in a week.
Orrin ... flung the cape over the bull's head
Two of his helpers had to hold the ladder steady while the other handed
him the end of the wire cable
Everybody about the place--even Sister--worked in the wheat fields
HIRAM IN THE MIDDLE WEST
CHAPTER I
THE MAN WHO WAS AFRAID OF RATS
For an hour before the accommodation train stopped at Pringleton the
rain had etched zigzag lines upon the windowpane beside Hiram Strong's
seat; so to find the platform aglitter with puddles in the dull lamp
light and the water dripping drearily from the station eaves did not
surprise him. What was rather astonishing was to find Pringleton such a
very lonely place.
As far as he could see, when he had walked around the bungalow-built
station the light in the stationmaster's ticket office was the only
light visible save the switch-targets and the disappearing green lamps
on the end of the train. Hiram, with his heavy bag, was the only
passenger who had got off the evening train.
When he came around to the front of the station again he saw the
stationmaster humped over his desk in the bay window, with a pen stuck
over his ear, looking for all the world like a secretary bird. He
peered out of the window at Hiram curiously, and finally pushed up the
sash.
"I don't know whether you know it or not, young fellow," the
stationmaster said, "but the company charges mileage if you use this
platform for a walking track. And you'll make trouble for me if you
keep going around, for I never have found out how many laps make a
mile, and I sha'n't know what to charge you."
Hiram Strong smiled his approval of this brand of humor, yet his
question put in reply was quite serious:
"Have you seen anybody around here, sir, from a place called Sunnyside
Farm?"
"There isn't anybody at Sunnyside Farm, as far as I know," said the
stationmaster; "and there hasn't been since the house burned down last
year."
"Yes, I know," Hiram said quickly. "But I rather expected Mr. Bronson
would have somebody over here to meet me."
"Mr. Stephen Bronson?" asked the man. "Him that's just bought the
Sunnyside place?"
"Yes. It's quite a walk to the farm, isn't it?"
"It is the longest two miles you ever walked, son," declared the
stationmaster. "Were you thinking to walk it to-night?"
"As there is nobody here to meet me, I guess I'll have to," replied the
youth cheerfully. "Which way do I head? You'll have to start me right,
or else I may wear out your platform walking around and around on it
all night."
The stationmaster chuckled. "Well, young fellow," he observed, "it is
evidently to my advantage to put you on your way. Turn around, pick
up your bag, go right down those steps to the road and walk straight
ahead. You are now facing west. When you get into the road you will
find it not so dark as it seems."
"Dark enough, I guess," muttered Hiram.
"You can't miss the road even on a dark night, for there is no fork in
it till after you pass Sunnyside."
"But," asked the youth, "is there anybody up that way who will lodge me
for the night, as the Sunnyside house is burned?"
"You may get taken in at Miss Delia Pringle's, just beyond
Sunnyside--first house after you pass the ruins of the burned
farmhouse. This station is named after her folks. Don't make the
mistake of going to the first house this side of Sunnyside."
He said this last so curiously that Hiram asked him: "Why not?"
"Because that is Yancey Battick's place. He'll likely blow a charge
of rock salt into you from his shotgun and then ask what you want
afterward."
"Why, what's his idea?" asked Hiram much amazed.
"Says he's afraid of rats--that's all," declared the stationmaster, and
immediately slammed down the window to shut out the searching February
wind.
The youth hesitated for only a moment longer. He rather thought the
stationmaster of Pringleton was quite as odd as the man he called
Yancey Battick, who met all visitors with a salt-loaded shotgun and was
afraid of rats.
"And this isn't really a night fit for a rat to be out," Hiram
muttered, after he had walked for some time along the muddy road
leading west from the station.
Occasionally while he was still near the railroad he passed a dwelling;
but it was just about supper time, and nearly all the lights were at
the backs of the houses. Hardly a ray of cheerful lamp light reached
the road.
The houses were situated farther apart as he continued his march. The
fine rain was penetrating in the extreme. Hiram desired shelter more
than he ever had before, it seemed to him.
And just when it appeared as though nothing about his situation could
be worse, the heavens opened. It had been doing this, off and on, all
day. But this water fall seemed heavier than any of those that had
preceded it.
Hiram Strong saw a light ahead and a little to one side of the road.
It was not a very bright light (perhaps it was drowned by the curtain
of falling rain) but it must be in a house, he thought. At a time like
this, it was any port in a storm.
He set out at a heavy run toward the light. He found a sagging gate in
a decrepit fence. Plunging up a muddy path, he reached a tiny porch
which might have offered some shelter had not the roof leaked like a
sieve.
"Hard luck!" muttered the youth. "If they won't let me in--"
His feet pounding on the rickety steps and the thump of his heavy bag
on the porch aroused somebody within. Hiram heard a firm step at the
other side of the door.
Suddenly the door opened with an abruptness which was startling. The
door opened on a chain, and through the aperture of about eight inches
was thrust the brown muzzle of a double-barreled shotgun that, at
the moment, looked as big as a cannon to the youth. He stepped back
promptly, and a cascade off the roof of the porch went down the back of
his neck.
"What are you after?" demanded a harsh voice.
Above the slanted gun-barrel appeared a ferocious black moustache which
completely hid the wearer's mouth, a beak-like nose, and a pair of blue
eyes that glittered half wildly. Altogether the householder was of
most forbidding aspect, and the youth at once identified him as Yancey
Battick. He had evidently stopped at the wrong house after all!
"I want nothing, Mr. Battick, but shelter till the rain holds up,"
Hiram answered.
"Who told you my name?" demanded the man. "I never saw you before,
young fellow."
"I guessed it," Hiram replied. "I'm a pretty good Yankee at guessing."
"And you are a Yankee, I imagine," the man said. "You're from the East,
aren't you?"
"Yes, sir," replied Hiram, and mentioned the locality from which he had
just come in answer to Mr. Stephen Bronson's summons.
The man still presented the gun, and although Hiram had stepped from
under the cascade pouring down from the roof, he was anything but
comfortable out there on the porch.
"Where are you going?" asked Battick, scowling still.
"To Sunnyside Farm."
"Why, there's nobody there! The house is burned down."
"I expect to work that place this year for Mr. Stephen Bronson. I
want to find a place to lodge near the farm, and I was told to apply
to--Miss Pringle, I believe the name is."
"What!" gasped the man. "A young fellow like you? Who sent you unwarned
into the clutches of that old maid?"
"Why--is she so bad?" Hiram asked.
"There isn't any male too young nor yet too old to be out of danger of
that old maid. Come on in," added Mr. Battick, unchaining the door. "I
wouldn't let any male creature get into that woman's clutches."
Hiram stepped rather doubtfully into the house. Mr. Yancey Battick
certainly was a very odd person. He had been warned that the man with
the welcoming shotgun was afraid of rats; it appeared that he was
likewise much afraid of spinsters.