d to stop with Mrs.
Atterson for a time."

"I want father to meet you just the same," she declared.

She had a way about her that impressed Hiram with the idea that she
seldom failed in getting what she wanted. If she was not a spoiled
child, she certainly was a very much indulged one.

But she was pretty! Dark, petite, with a brilliant smile, flashing
eyes, and a riot of blue-black curls, she was verily the daintiest and
prettiest little creature the young farmer had ever seen.

"I am Lettie Bronson," she said, frankly. "I live down the road toward
Scoville. We have only just come here."

"I know where you live," said Hiram, smiling and nodding.

"You must come and see us. I want you to know father. He's the very
nicest man there is, I think."

"He came all the way East here so as to live near my school--I go to the
St. Beris school in Scoville. It's awfully nice, and the girls are very
fashionable; but I'd be too lonely to live if daddy wasn't right near me
all the time.

"What is your name?" she asked suddenly.

Hiram told her.

"Why! that's a regular farmer's name, isn't it--Hiram?" and she
laughed--a clear and sweet sound, that made an inquisitive squirrel that
had been watching them scamper away to his hollow, chattering.

"I don't know about that," returned the young farmer, shaking his
head and smiling. "I ought by good rights to be 'a worker in brass',
according to the Bible. That was the trade of Hiram, of the tribe of
Naphtali, who came out of Tyre to make all the brass work for Solomon's
temple."

"Oh! and there was a King Hiram, of Tyre, too, wasn't there," cried
Lettie, laughing. "You might be a king, you know."

"That seems to be an unprofitable trade now-a-days," returned the young
fellow, shaking his head. "I think I will be the namesake of Hiram, the
brass-smith, for it is said of him that he was 'filled with wisdom and
understanding' and that is what I want to be if I am going to run Mrs.
Atterson's farm and make it pay."

"You're a funny boy," said the girl, eyeing him furiously.
"You're--you're not at all like Pete--or these other boys about
Scoville."

"And that Pete Dickerson isn't any good at all! I shall tell daddy all
about how he touched up that horse and made him run. Here he comes now!"

They had been walking steadily along the road toward the Atterson house,
and in the direction the runaway had taken. Pete Dickerson appeared,
riding one of the bays and leading the one t