e and look at these. I dunno, Hiram, if you
can sell 'em at retail, but you'll git as much for 'em as dad does for
his whole crop--just as you said."

"That's what I'm aiming for," responded Hiram. "But would the ladies who
cook the barbecue stew care for tomatoes, do you think?"

"We never git tomatoes this early," said Henry. "How about potatoes? And
there ain't many folks dug any of theirn yet, but you."

So, after speaking with Mrs. Atterson, Hiram agreed to supply a barrel
of potatoes for the barbecue, and the day before the Fourth, one of the
farmers came with a wagon to pick up the supplies.

Everybody at the Atterson farm would go to the grove--that was
understood.

"If one knocks off work, the others can," declared Mother Atterson. "You
see that things is left all right for the critters, Hiram, and we'll
tend to things indoors so that we can be gone till night."

"And do, Hiram, look out for my poults the last thing," cried Sister.

Mrs. Larriper had given Sister a setting of ten turkey eggs and every
one of them had hatched under one of Mrs. Atterson's motherly old hens.
At first the girl had kept the young turkeys and their foster mother
right near the house, so that she could watch them carefully.

But poults are rangy, and these being particularly strong and thrifty,
they soon ran the old hen pretty nearly to death.

So Hiram had built a coop into which they could go at night, safe from
any vermin, and set it far down in the east lot, near the woods. Sister
usually went down with a little grain twice a day to call them up, and
keep them tame.

"But when they get big enough to roost in the fall, I expect we'll have
to gather that crop with a gun," Hiram told her, laughing.

Many of the farmers teams were strung out along the road long before
Hiram was ready to set out. He had made sure that the spring wagon was
in good shape, and he had built an extra seat for it, so that the four
rode very comfortably.

Like every other Fourth of July, the sun was broiling hot! And the dust
rose in clouds as the faster teams passed their slow old nag.

Mrs. Atterson sat up very primly in her best silk, holding a parasol and
wearing a pair of lace mits that had appeared on state occasions for the
past twenty years, at least.

Sister was growing like a weed, and it was hard to keep her skirts and
sleeves at a proper length. But she was an entirely different looking
girl from the boarding house slavey whom Hira