. "I don't see why everybody
doesn't go to raising chickens--then there'd be no poor folks, everybody
would be rich--Well! I expect there'd always have to be institutions for
orphans--and boarding houses!"

The new-springing things from the ground, the "hen industry" and the
repairing and beautifying of the outside of the farmhouse did not take
up all their attention. There were serious matters to be discussed in
the evening, after the others had gone to bed, 'twixt Hiram and his
employer.

There was the five or six acres of bottom land--the richest piece of
soil of the entire eighty. Hiram had not forgotten this, and the second
Sunday of their stay at the farm, after the whole family had attended
service at a chapel less than half a mile up the road, he had urged Mrs.
Atterson to walk with him through the timber to the riverside.

"For the Land o' Goshen!" the ex-boarding house mistress had finally
exclaimed. "To think that I own all of this. Why, Hi, it don't seem as
if it was so. I can't get used to it. And this timber, you say, is all
worth money? And if I cut it off, it will grow up again----"

"In thirty to forty years the pine will be worth cutting again--and some
of the other trees," said Hiram, with a smile.

"Well! that would be something for Sister to look forward to," said
the old lady, evidently thinking aloud. "And I don't expect her
folks--whoever they be--will ever look her up now, Hiram."

"But with the timber cut and this side hill cleared, you would have a
very valuable thirty acres, or so, of tillage--valuable for almost any
crop, and early, too, for it slopes toward the sun," said the young
farmer, ignoring the other's observation.

"Well, well! it's wonderful," returned Mrs. Atterson.

But she listened attentively to what he had to say about clearing the
bottom land, which was a much more easily accomplished task, as Hiram
showed her. It would cost something to put the land into shape for
late corn, and so prepare it for some more valuable crop the following
season.

"Well, nothing ventured, nothing have!" Mrs. Atterson finally agreed.
"Go ahead--if it won't cost much more than what you say to get the corn
in. I understand it's a gamble, and I'm taking a gambler's chance.
If the river rises and floods the corn in June, or July, then we get
nothing this season?"

"That is a possibility," admitted Hiram.

"Go ahead," exclaimed Mother Atterson. "I never did know that there was
sporting b