rn his attention to other
matters, knowing that the cattle would be perfectly safe in the pasture
for the coming season.

The old posts he collected on the wagon and drew into the dooryard,
piling them beside the woodshed. There was not an overabundant supply
of firewood cut and Hiram realized that Mrs. Atterson would use
considerable in her kitchen stove before the next winter, even if she
did not run a sitting room fire for long this spring.

Using a bucksaw is not only a thankless job at any time, but it is no
saving of time or money. There was a good two-handed saw in the shed and
Hiram found a good rat-tail file. With the aid of a home-made saw-holder
and a monkey wrench he sharpened and set this saw and then got Henry
Pollock to help him for a day.

Henry wasn't afraid of work, and the two boys sawed and split the old
and well-seasoned posts, and some other wood, so that Hiram was enabled
to pile several tiers of stove-wood under the shed against the coming of
Mrs. Atterson to her farm.

"If the season wasn't so far advanced, I could cut a lot of wood, draw
it up, and hire a gasoline engine and saw to come on the place and saw
us enough to last a year. I'll do that next winter," Hiram said.

"That's what we all ought to do," agreed his friend.

Henry Pollock was an observing farmer's boy and through him Hiram gained
many pointers as to the way the farmers in that locality put in their
crops and cultivated them.

He learned, too, through Henry who was supposed to be the best farmer
in the neighborhood, who had special success with certain crops, and who
had raised the best seedcorn in the locality.

It was not particularly a trucking community; although, since Scoville
had begun to grow so fast and many city people had moved into that
pleasant town, the local demand for garden produce had increased.

"It used to be a saying here," said Henry, "that a bushel of winter
turnips would supply all the needs of Scoville. But that ain't exactly
so now.

"The stores all want green stuff in season, and are beginning to pay
cash for truck instead of only offering to exchange groceries for the
stuff we raise. I guess if a man understood truck raising he could make
something in this market."

Hiram decided that this was so, on looking over the marketing
possibilities of Scoville.

There was a canning factory which put up string beans, corn, and
tomatoes; but the prices per hundred-weight for these commodities did