son had put his hand on Hiram's shoulder,
and urged him down the length of the room. They had come to a heavy
portiere; Hiram thought it masked a doorway.

"Here is the fellow himself," exclaimed Bronson suddenly.

The curtain was whisked away. Hiram heard Lettie giggling somewhere
in the folds of it. And he found himself staring straight into a long
mirror which reflected both himself and the laughing Mr. Bronson.

"Hiram Strong!" spoke the Westerner, admonishingly, "why didn't you tell
me long ago that you were the lad who turned my horses out of the ditch
that evening back in Crawberry?"

"Why--why----"

"His fatal modesty," laughed Lettie, appearing and clapping her hands.

"I guess it wasn't that," said Hiram, slowly. "What was the use? I would
have been glad of your assistance at the time; but when I found you I
had already made a contract with Mrs. Atterson, and--what was the use?"

"Well, perhaps it would have made no difference. When I had dug up the
fact that you were the same fellow whom I had looked for at Dwight's
Emporium, it struck me that possibly the character that old scoundrel
gave you had some basis in fact.

"So I said nothing to you after you had refused to break your contract.
That, Hiram, was a good point in your favor. And what that little girl
at your house has told Lettie about you--and the way Mrs. Atterson
speaks of you, and all--long since convinced me that you were just the
lad I wanted.

"Now, Hiram, I believe you know a good deal about farming that I don't
know myself. And, at any rate, if you can do what you have done with a
run-down place like the Atterson Eighty, I'd like to see what you can do
with a bigger and better farm.

"What do you say? Will you come to me--if only for a year? I'll make it
worth your while."

And that Hiram Strong did not let this opportunity slip past him will be
shown in the next volume of this series, entitled: "Hiram in the Middle
West; Or, A Young Farmer's Upward Struggle."

He was sorry to leave Mrs. Atterson at Christmas time; but the old lady
saw that it was to Hiram's advantage to go.

"And good land o' Goshen, Hiram! I wouldn't stand in no boy's way--not
a boy like you, leastways. You've always been square with me, and you've
given me a new lease of life. For I never would have dared to give up
the boarding house and come to the farm if it hadn't been for you.

"This is your home--jest as much as it is Sister's home, and Old Lem
Camp'