d here. But it
seems about all we can do to pay our fertilizer bills and get a living
off it."

"Then why don't you go about fitting yourself for your job?" "asked
Hiram. Be a good farmer--an up-to-date farmer.

"No fellow expects to be a machinist, or an electrician, or the like,
without spending some time under good instructors. Most that I know
about soils, and fertilizers, and plant development, and the like, I
learned from my father, who kept abreast of the times by reading and
experiment.

"You can stumble along, working at your trade of farming, and only half
knowing it all your life; that's what most farmers do, in fact. They are
too lazy to take up the scientific side of it and learn why.

"That's the point--learn why you do things that your father did, and his
father did, and his father before him. There's usually good reason why
they did it--a scientific reason which somebody dug out by experiment
ages ago; but you ought to be able to tell why."

"I suppose that's so," admitted Henry, as they worked on, side by side.
"But I don't know what father would say if I sprung a college course on
him!"

"I'd find out," returned Hiram, laughing. "You'd better spend your money
that way than for a horse and buggy. That's the highest ambition of most
boys in the country."

The labor of bushing and grubbing these acres of lowland was no light
one. Hiram insisted that every stub and root be removed that a heavy
plow could not tear out. They had made some progress by noon, however,
when Sister came down with their dinner.

Hiram built a campfire over which the coffee was re-heated, and the
three ate together, Sister enjoying the picnic to the full. She insisted
on helping in the work by piling the brush and roots into heaps for
burning, and she remained until midafternoon.

"I like that Henry boy," she confided to Hiram. "He don't pull my braids,
or poke fun at me."

But Sister was developing and growing fast these days. She was putting
on flesh and color showed in her cheeks. They were no longer hollow and
sallow, and she ran like a colt-and was almost as wild.

The work of clearing the bottom land could not be continued daily; but
the boys got in three full days that week, and Saturday morning. Henry,
did not wish to work on Saturday afternoon, for in this locality almost
all the farmers knocked off work at noon Saturday and went to town.

But when Henry shouldered his tools to go home at noon, Sister appear