icking up "seconds" and lot-ends of
vegetables for their trade. The cobbles of the market-place was a litter
of cabbage leaves, spilled sprouts, spoiled potatoes, and other refuse.

Hiram walked about, looking for somebody whom he knew; but most of the
faces around the market were strange to him. Several farmers he spoke to
about work; but they were not hiring hands, so, when his hour was up, he
went back to the Emporium, more despondent than before.

CHAPTER V. THE COMMOTION AT MOTHER ATTERSON'S

By chance that evening Hiram got home to his boarding house in good
season. The early boarders--"early birds" Crackit always termed
them--had not yet sat down to the long table in the dingy dining-room.

Indeed, the supper gong had not been pounded by Sister, and some of the
young men were grouped impatiently in the half-lighted parlor.

Through the swinging door into the steaming kitchen Hiram saw a huge
black woman waddling about the range, and heard her husky voice berating
Sister for not moving faster. Chloe only appeared when a catastrophe
happened at the boarding-house--and a catastrophe meant the removal of
Mrs. Atterson from her usual orbit.

"She's gone to the funeral. That Uncle Jeptha of hern is dead,"
whispered Sister in Hiram's ear when she put his soup in front of him.

"Ah-ha!" observed Mr. Crackit, eyeing Hiram with his head on one side,
"secrets, eh? Inside information of what's in the pudding sauce?"

Nothing went right at the boarding-house during the next two days. And
for Hiram Strong nothing seemed to go right anywhere!

He demanded--and got the permission, with another ten-cent tax--another
hour off to visit the market. But he found nobody who would hire a boy
at once. Some of the farmers doubted if he knew as much about farm-work
as he claimed to know. He was, after all, a boy, and some of them would
not believe that he had even worked in the country.

Affairs at the Emporium were getting strained, too. Daniel Dwight was as
shrewd a man as the next one. He saw plainly that his junior clerk was
getting ready--like the many who had gone before him--for a flitting.

He knew the signs of discontent, although Hiram prided himself on doing
his work just as well as ever.

Then, there was a squabble with Dan, Junior. The imp was always
underfoot on Saturdays. He was supposed to help--to run errands, and
take out in a basket certain orders to nearby customers who might be in
a hurry.

But usual