wed him to work in the fields.
And during these warm, growing May days, he found plenty to do. Just as
the field corn pushed through the ground he went into the lot with his
14-tooth harrow and broke up the crust and so killed the ever-springing
weeds.

With the spikes on the harrow "set back," no corn-plants were dragged
out of the ground. This first harrowing, too, mixed the fertilizer with
the soil, and gave the corn the start it so sadly needed.

Busy as bees, the four transplanted people at the Atterson farmhouse
accomplished a great deal during these first weeks of the warming
season. And all four of them--Mrs. Atterson, Sister, Old Lem, and Hiram
himself--enjoyed the work to the full.

CHAPTER XXIII. TOMATOES AND TROUBLE

Hiram Strong had decided that the market prospects of Scoville
prophesied a good price for early tomatoes. He advised, therefore, a
good sized patch of this vegetable.

He had planted in the window boxes seed of several different varieties.
He had transplanted to the coldframe strong plants numbering nearly five
hundred. He believed that, under garden cultivation, a tomato plant that
would not yield fifty cents worth of fruit was not worth bothering
with, while a dollar from a single plant was not beyond the bounds of
probability.

It was safe, Hiram very well knew, to set out tomato plants in this
locality much before the middle of May; yet he was willing to take some
risks, and go to some trouble, for the sake of getting early ripened
tomatoes into the Scoville market.

As Henry Pollock had prophesied, Hiram did not see much of his friend
during corn-planting time. The Pollocks put nearly fifty acres in corn,
and the whole family helped in the work, including Mrs. Pollock herself,
and down to the child next to the baby. This little toddler amused his
younger brother, and brought water to the field for the workers.

Other families in the neighborhood did the same, Hiram noticed. They all
strained every effort to put in corn, cultivating as big a crop as they
possibly could handle.

This was why locally grown vegetables were scarce in Scoville. And the
young farmer proposed to take advantage of this condition of affairs to
the best of his ability.

If they were only to remain here on the farm long enough to handle this
one crop, Hiram determined to make that crop pay his employer as well as
possible, although he, himself, had no share in such profit.

Henry Pollock, however, ca