FARMING AND FURBELOWS
The motor-car that came swiftly along the ridge road to the gate of
Sunnyside Farm was a big, seven-passenger touring car. Behind the wheel
sat a big man in a fur coat. To tell the truth, however, it was not Mr.
Bronson, his employer, at whom Hiram Strong first looked.
He had caught sight of a veil trailing upon the wind from the tonneau.
A girl sat there--a very winsome looking, bright-faced girl--and before
the car stopped she had spied Hiram and waved a gloved hand at him,
shouting:
"Oh, Hiram Strong! isn't this a beautiful spot? How are you?"
"I'm all right, Miss Lettie," he said answering the second question
first. "I guess it is pretty here at Sunnyside in summer. But look at
those wheels and mudguards!"
Mr. Bronson began to chuckle, shutting off his engine.
"Hiram's right, Lettie," he said to his daughter. "You'd better stay in
the car and keep out of this mud. What do you think of the drainage
hereabout, Hi?"
He stepped out of the car himself and shook hands with Hiram, man to
man. It was evident by his manner and look that Mr. Stephen Bronson
both liked and respected Hiram Strong.
"I haven't had much time to look about, Mr. Bronson," replied the
youth, "only got here an hour ago. But it does look as though that
field yonder"--and he pointed to one at the east of the house lot that
was covered with shallow puddles--"would be the better for some tiling."
"And yet it is high and should be dry."
"All high land isn't dry--that piece proves it. What's in it?"
"Wheat."
"Thought so. It won't be much of a crop, I fear."
"How much tiling would it need to drain that whole piece properly, do
you think? I understand from the farmers about here that that twenty
acres has never made heavy crops--neither of corn nor grain. It has
been limed well, too."
"The litmus paper test will prove or disprove that," said Hiram. "But
it is high, almost level land, and right along the roadside. It ought
to grow you a good crop to advertise the farm."
"I presume that's so, Hiram," laughed Mr. Bronson. "But a carload of
tiles, and dragged clear up here from the siding at Pringleton, would
cost a heap of money."
"Yes," agreed the young farmer. "Perhaps you had better make the better
fields pay in advance for the improvements on the poor ones."
"Oh, wait!" cried Lettie Bronson, with a pout. "You men have begun
talking farming like a house afire--right at the start! I can't get
a word in edgewise, and I've got news for Hiram. You know, Hiram, I
only came on from St. Beris yesterday, just to remain at Plympton with
father over Sunday."
"And I only got here last night, Miss Lettie," the young fellow said.
"Then we might have traveled together just as well as not!" she cried.
"I guess not," laughed her father. "You went to see that machinery we
talked about, didn't you, Hi?"
"Yes, sir. I went all through the Comet Plow Factory and the big
agricultural warehouse in Cincinnati."
"You see, Lettie, he was several days coming here from Scoville."
"I don't care," Miss Lettie declared, "I want to tell him something he
doesn't know."
"There are a whole lot of things I guess you could tell me that I don't
know, Miss Lettie," said Hiram rather ruefully, for he felt his lack
of book knowledge most keenly.
"It is about Sister. Cecilia, I suppose her real name is, Hiram?"
"But rather stiff and formal for Sister," said the young fellow,
dodging the query.
"I chanced to ride past the Atterson place," pursued Lettie Bronson,
"and Mrs. Atterson was on the porch and waved to me. I rode into the
yard, and she was full of the news. It seems that Sister has not known
just who her people were."
"She was an orphan when Mother Atterson got her," admitted Hiram.
"Well, it seems that she really has some relatives, somewhere. And
Mrs. Atterson says she thinks there will be some money coming to
Sister--Cecilia. She had just received a letter from a lawyer who had
been trying to find Cecilia for some time. It's quite a romance, isn't
it?"
"I am awfully glad for Sister's sake," the young farmer said. "But if
she finds her folks I hope they will not take her away from Mother
Atterson. She needs Sister."
"I did not see Cecilia to speak to," Lettie said. Then to her father:
"Now, Papa Bronson, I know you and Hiram want to tramp all over this
farm, and you certainly shall not leave me here in the car to catch my
death of cold. Let Hiram take me over to Miss Pringle's. She will give
me shelter till you are ready to go home again."
"Go ahead and take the chatterbox over there, Hiram," said Mr. Bronson.
"We'll have no peace until you do."
It could not be said honestly that Hiram Strong found Lettie a
nuisance, if her father did. He would have enjoyed talking to the
pretty girl at any length. When Lettie hopped out of the automobile,
too, resting one hand lightly in his, the young farmer saw that she
was, as always, very becomingly dressed. Perhaps her outfit was more
expensive and somewhat too "grown-up" for a girl of her age; but
Hiram--nor Mr. Bronson--did not realize that defect in the motherless
girl's garments. That Lettie was growing up too fast for her own good,
perhaps, would not appeal to the masculine mind as it would to a
thoughtful woman.
Having been reminded of Sister, Hiram took mental note that the
girl whom he had first known as the boarding house slavey in Mother
Atterson's kitchen had never in her life dressed anything like Lettie
Bronson. Fine feathers do not always make fine birds; but the feathers
help!
Lettie chattered as Hiram helped her over the muddy spots in the road
to the cottage where Miss Pringle lived. The woman welcomed Lettie
vociferously. To Hiram she said, with a smirk:
"Now, don't forget, Mr. Strong, to come over to dinner when Abigail
blows the horn."
Hiram saw Lettie's dancing eyes and he could not keep from blushing
when Miss Pringle was so urgent and significant in both look and speech.
"I guess Yancey Battick isn't so far out of the way, after all," the
young fellow muttered as he went to rejoin Mr. Bronson. "Miss Pringle
does rather work on a modest fellow. Lettie Bronson's got the laugh on
me, all right."
Mr. Bronson had been going through the poultry houses and Hiram caught
him at the house in which he thought to set up housekeeping.
"Perhaps that is a good idea, Hiram," said the gentleman thoughtfully.
"I haven't told you what I intend to do here, have I?"
"Only that you intend to farm it," the boy replied with a smile.
"You are to do that, my boy, for me," rejoined Mr. Bronson. "I expect
you to bring this farm into such a state of fertility in a few years
that I can sell it at a big profit."
"That sounds like a big contract, Mr. Bronson," said Hiram, shaking his
head thoughtfully.
"You're equal to it, my boy!" declared Bronson, confidently. "Now, is
this the hut you think you can camp in?"
"I can make myself comfortable here for a while--until the spring work
really opens, at any rate."
"All right. That suits me. We'll run down to the store at the Forks
before I go back to Plympton and buy provisions, bedding and cooking
utensils for you."
"No need to go to any great expense," put in Hiram.
"The things I buy will all come in handy later. And that brings me
around to what I started to say before, Hiram. It does not pay me to
farm this place so far from my headquarters. My other farms are right
around Plympton. I can move my tractor and my reapers and my thrashing
machine and hay-balers from farm to farm in my Plympton string of
places. But Sunnyside is too far away from headquarters to send over
many of the machines, unless it is the thrasher. That is why I had you
look at the farm machinery on your way out here."
Hiram merely nodded.
"My idea," pursued the man, "is to put Sunnyside Farm in good shape
and then sell it at a profit to some man who wants a 'gentleman's
farm'--you know, catch one of these city men who wants to retire to the
country; the kind the farmers say have more money than brains."
"I know," chuckled Hiram, remembering what Battick had said about Mr.
Stephen Bronson himself. "Sometimes those gentlemen farmers show the
old timers a thing or two."
"Yes. They can afford to experiment and try out new things. However,
that is not just what we were getting at. If I sell this farm for a
good price I must have a good house on it. I mean to build on the site
of the old house that was burned. I shall have to bring workmen here
and lodge and feed them. As there are no neighbors who make a practice
of taking boarders, other than their own farm help, I shall have to put
up a shack, hire a cook, and feed the gang for three months at least."
"I see," said Hiram. "And I can get my meals with them."
"Yes. That is my idea. So if you can get along alone for a while--"
"Of course I can, Mr. Bronson."
"I will have a shack built and a kitchen and bunks established just
as soon as the weather is warm enough. Meanwhile my trucks, when not
otherwise in use, can be hauling the frame and lumber for the new
house."
"One word, Mr. Bronson," said Hiram Strong quickly. "As long as you
must build a shed, why not build one that will afterward house these
new tools you propose to buy for my use? I see there is no storage room
for such things save on the barn floor, and in time they will be in the
way there."
A gleam of approval flashed into Mr. Bronson's eyes.
"Good idea, Hiram! And you are as full of good ideas as an egg is
of meat," said Mr. Bronson with enthusiasm. "Have you thought of
any particular way in which this farm should be run--for the biggest
profit, I mean?" and the man smiled at Hiram curiously.
"I'll tell you what struck me right off the reel, Mr. Bronson," said
the youth thoughtfully. "But it is only a thought."
"Let's have it," urged Mr. Bronson.
"This land has been worked by tenants only for some years. Tenant
farmers usually supply commercial fertilizer to some extent, but not
enough humus. The land needs humus--and that in the form of stable
manure. Especially the manure from cattle--from cows--if you want to
raise bumper crops of corn."
"I presume that is so, Hiram."
"The barn yonder is arranged for the keeping of cattle. You should at
least drive some young stock up here right away to eat up the roughage
that is going to waste. We want to make all the fertilizer possible and
spread it on the land as fast as it can be made and carted out of the
barn basement."
"But we can't handle milch cows here, Hiram, before we have a house in
which to put a family to look after the cows and the milk."
"That is why I say buy some young stock for the present. I can attend
to them myself. They can be fattening at practically no expense. And
all the time they will be making fertilizer for the place."
"Well, Hiram, what is going to happen," asked Mr. Bronson, quizzically,
"when we give up farming with horses and mules entirely and use only
tractors?"
"A hundred tractors won't put back into the soil the fertility that one
horse will," the young farmer said. "That is sure. Soiling crops are
all right. But in the end, the only farms run by tractor power that
are not going to be injured beyond repair are the dairy farms. And I
believe the easiest and quickest way to get this half run-down farm
into shape is by putting cattle on it."
"Young stock--yes. I agree with you that can be done at once. In fact,"
said Mr. Bronson, "I should not be surprised if I could pick up a score
of head of stock to send up here within the week from my other farms."
"Good! That will be a beginning. But two score will be better. Pasture
them later if the pasture is any good here."
"There is good pasture and the fences are in good condition. I looked
them over before I bought the place."
"All right, sir. You agree with me, then, that we should aim in the end
to make Sunnyside a dairy farm?"
"That seems to be the idea, Hiram. I fancy you are right."
"That being the case, Mr. Bronson, there is one thing you must do.
There is only one really profitable way to feed dairy cattle. That is
from the silo."
"Oh! Oh! Hiram, you hurt!" exclaimed his employer, and his smile was
very rueful. "Do you realize that any kind of silo runs into money?"
"Yes, sir. But it will cost you less to put up a silo now, while you
have workmen on the place building your house, than at a later time. If
you are going to make Sunnyside fertile, you must have cattle; if you
are going to feed cattle cheaply you must cut your corn green and shred
it and blow it into the silo. It is the safest and the cheapest way."
"I suppose I have got to admit all you say as true. But your
suggestions, are all expensive. The first outlay will be enormous. Here
you want to tile that twenty acres of upland. And goodness knows what
you may want to do with some of the lowland."
"Make it grow good crops--bumper crops if possible--that is all," said
Hiram smiling. "And about that twenty acres along the county road that
is now in wheat--"
"Well?"
"I've an idea about underdraining that! but I won't tell you what it is
until I have looked over the ground a little. I am convinced that that
particular piece should be as fertile as any acreage around here."
"It never has been, they tell me."
"That is no reason why we shouldn't make it the best, is it?" and the
young farmer laughed again.