you the farm."

"That's what I said," returned the old lady, complacently. "And what I'm
to do with it I've no more idea than the man in the moon."

"A farm!" repeated Hiram, his face flushing and his eyes beginning to
shine.

Now, Hiram Strong was not a particularly handsome youth, but in his
excitement he almost looked so.

"Eighty acres, so many rods, and so many perches," pursued Mrs.
Atterson, nodding. "That's the way it reads. The perches is in the
henhouse, I s'pose--though why the description included them and not the
hens' nests I dunno."

"Eighty acres of land!" repeated Hiram in a daze.

"All free and clear. Not a dollar against it--only encumbrances is the
chickens, the cow, the horse and the pigs," declared Mrs. Atterson. "If
it wasn't for them it might not be so bad. Scoville's an awfully nice
place, and the farm's on an automobile road. A body needn't go blind
looking for somebody to go by the door occasionally.

"And if it got so bad here finally that I couldn't make a livin' keeping
boarders," pursued the lady, "I might go out there and live in the old
house--which isn't much, I know, but it's a shelter, and my tastes are
simple, goodness knows."

"But a farm, Mrs. Atterson!" broke in Hiram. "Think what you can do with
it!"

"That's what I'd like to have, you, or somebody else tell me," exclaimed
the old lady, tartly. "I ain't got no more use for a farm than a cat has
for two tails!"

"But--but isn't it a good farm?" queried Hiram, puzzled.

"How do I know?" snapped the boarding house mistress. "I wouldn't know
one farm from another, exceptin' two can't be in exactly the same spot.
Oh! do you mean, could I sell it?"

"No----"

"The lawyer advised me not to sell just now. He said something about the
state of the real estate market in that section. Prices would be better
in a year or two. And then, the old place is mighty run down."

"That's what I mean," Hiram hastened to say. "Has it been cropped to
death? Is the soil worn out? Can't you run it and make something out of
it?"

"For pity's sake!" ejaculated the good lady, "how should I know? And I
couldn't run it--I shouldn't know how.

"I've got a neighbor-woman in the house just now to 'tend to things--and
that's costin' me a dollar and a half a week. And there'll be taxes to
pay, and--and--Well, I just guess I'll have to try and sell it now and
take what I can get.

"Though that lawyer says that if the place was fixed up a little