," he added briskly. "I won't have any too much
money while I'm out of a job, of course. And I shall be out there at
Scoville a couple of days looking the place over, it's probable.

"So, if you will let me keep this three dollars and a half I should
pay you for my next week's board to-night, I'll pay my own expenses out
there at the farm and if nothing comes of it, all well and good."

Mrs. Atterson had fumbled for her spectacles and now put them on to
survey the boy's earnest face.

"Do you mean to say you can run a farm, Hi Strong?" she asked.

"I do," and he smiled confidently at her.

"And make it pay?"

"Perhaps not much profit the first season; but if the farm is fertile,
and the marketing conditions are right, I know I can make it pay us both
in two years."

"I've got a little money saved up. I could sell the house in a week, for
it's always full and there are always lone women like me with a little
driblet of money to exchange for a boarding house--heaven help us for
the fools we are!" Mrs. Atterson exclaimed.

"And I expect you could raise vegetables enough to part keep us, Hi,
even if the farm wasn't a great success?"

"And eggs, and chickens, and the pigs, and milk from the cow," suggested
Hiram.

"Well! I declare, that's so," admitted Mrs. Atterson. "I'd been lookin'
on all them things as an expense. They could be made an asset, eh?"

"I should hope so," responded Hiram, smiling.

"And I could get rid of these boarders--My soul and body!" gasped
the tired woman, suddenly. "Do you suppose it's true, Hi? Get rid of
worryin' about paying the bills, and whether the boarders are all going
to keep their jobs and be able to pay regularly--And the gravy!

"Hiram Strong! If you can show me a way out of this valley of
tribulation I'll be the thankfullest woman that you ever seen. It's a
bargain. Don't you pay me a cent for this coming week. And I shouldn't
have taken it, anyway, when you're throwed out of work so. That's a
mighty mean man, that Daniel Dwight.

"You go right ahead and look that farm over. If it looks good, you come
back and we'll strike a bargain, I know. And--and--Just to think
of getting rid of this house and these boarders!" and Mrs. Atterson
finished by wiping her eyes again vigorously.

CHAPTER VII. HOW HIRAM LEFT TOWN

Hiram Strong was up betimes on Monday morning--Sister saw to that. She
rapped on his door at four-thirty.

Sometimes Hiram wondered when the girl ever sle