ent all his energies. He had to pay
out considerable for help, but that was no more than he expected. Celery
takes a deal of handling.

When the long, hot, dry days came, when the uplands parched and the
earth fairly seemed to radiate the heat, the acres of tender plants
which Hiram and his helpers had just set out in the trenches began to
wilt most discouragingly.

Henry Pollock, who did all he could to aid Hiram on the crop, shook his
head in despair.

"It's a-layin' down on you, Hiram--it's a-layin' down on you. Another
day like this and your celery crop will be pretty small pertaters!"

"And that would be a transformation worthy of the attention of all
the agricultural schools, Henry," returned the young farmer, grimly
laughing.

"You got a heart--to laugh at your own loss," said Henry.

"There isn't any loss--yet," declared Hiram.

"But there's bound to be," said his friend, a regular "Job's comforter"
for the nonce.

"Look here, Henry; you'd have me give up too easy. 'Never say die!'
That's the farmer's motto."

"Jinks!" exclaimed young Pollock, "they're dying all around us just the
same--and their crops, too. We ain't going to have half a corn crop if
this spell of dry weather keeps on. And the papers don't give us a sign
of hope."

"When there doesn't seem to be a sign of hope is when the really
up-to-date farmer begins to actually work," chuckled Hiram.

"And just tell me what you're going to do for this field of wilted
celery?" demanded Henry.

"Come on up to the house and I'll get Mother Atterson to give us an
early supper," quoth Hiram. "I'm going to town and I invite you to go
with me."

Henry had got used by this time to Hiram's little mysteries. But this
seemed to him a case where man had done all that could be done for the
crop, and without Providential interposition, "the whole field would
have to go to pot", as he expressed it.

And in his heart the young farmer knew that the outlook for a paying
crop of celery right then was very small indeed. He had done his best
in preparing the soil, in enriching it, in raising the sets and
transplanting them--up to this point he had brought his big commercial
crop, at considerable expense. If the drouth really "got" it, he would
have, at the most, but a poor and stunted crop to ship in the Fall.

But Hiram Strong was not the fellow to throw up his hands and own
himself beaten at such a time as this. Here was an obstacle that must
be overcome.