ry, on this piece of
land."

"Wait!" said Hiram, smiling and shaking his head.

"Wait for what?"

"Wait till you see the corn on my bottom-land--if the river down there
doesn't drown it out. If we don't have too much rain, I'm going to have
corn on that river-bottom that will beat anything in this county, Mr.
Bronson."

And the young farmer spoke with assurance.

CHAPTER XXV. THE BARBECUE

On the seventeenth day of June Hiram had "grappled out" a mess of
potatoes for their dinner. They were larger than hen's eggs and came
upon the table mealy and white.

Potatoes were selling at retail in Scoville for two dollars the bushel.
Before the end of that week--after the lowland corn was planted--Hiram
dug two rows of potatoes, sorted them, and carted them to town, together
with some bunched beets, a few bunches of young carrots, radishes and
salad.

The potatoes he sold for fifty cents the five-eighth basket, from house
to house, and he brought back, for his load of vegetables, ten dollars
and twenty cents, which he handed to Mrs. Atterson, much to that lady's
joy.

"My soul and body, Hiram!" she exclaimed. "This is just a God-send--no
less. Do you know that we've sold nigh twenty-five dollars' worth of
stuff already this spring, besides that pair of pigs I let Pollock have,
and the butter to St. Beris?"

"And it's only a beginning," Hiram told her. "Wait til' the peas come
along--we'll have a mess for the table in a few days now. And the sweet
corn and tomatoes.

"If you and Sister can do the selling, it will help out a whole lot, of
course. I wish we had another horse."

"Or an automobile," said Sister, clapping her hands. "Wouldn't it be
fine to run into town in an auto, with a lot of vegetables? Then Hiram
could keep right at work with the horse and not have to stop to harness
up for us."

"Shucks, child!" admonished Mrs. Atterson. "What big idees you do get in
that noddle o' yourn."

The girls' boarding school and the two hotels proved good customers for
Hiram's early vegetables; for nobody around Scoville had potatoes
at this time, and Hiram's early peas were two weeks ahead of other
people's.

Having got a certain number of towns folks to expect him at least thrice
a week, when other farmers had green stuff for sale they could not
easily "cut out" Hiram later in the season.

And not always did the young farmer have to leave his work at home to
deliver the vegetables and Mrs. Atterson's butter