There were two south windows in the farmhouse1 kitchen. He tried to keep some fire in the stove there day and night, sleeping as he did in Uncle Jeptha's old bedroom nearby.
Before these two windows he erected2 wide shelves and on these he set shallow boxes of rich earth which he had prepared under the cart shed. There was no frost under there, the earth was dry and the hens had scratched in it during the winter, so Hiram got all the well-sifted earth he needed for his seed boxes.
He used a very little commercial fertilizer in each box, and planted some of the seeds he had bought in Crawberry at an agricultural warehouse3 on Main Street.
Mrs. Atterson had expressed the hope that he would put in a variety of vegetables for their own use, and Hiram had followed her wishes. When the earth in the boxes had warmed up for several days he put in the long-germinating seeds, like tomato, onions, the salads, leek4, celery, pepper, eggplant, and some beet5 seed to transplant for the early garden. It was too early yet to put in cabbage and cauliflower.
These boxes caught the sun for a good part of the day. In the afternoon when the sun had gone, Hiram covered the boxes with old quilts and did not uncover them again until the sun shone in the next morning. He had decided6 to start his early plants in this way because he hadn't the time at present to build frames outside.
During the early mornings and late afternoons, too, he began to make the small repairs around the house and outbuildings. Hiram was handy with tools; indeed, a true farmer should be a good mechanic as well. He must often combine carpentry and wheelwrighting and work at the forge, with his agricultural pursuits. Hiram was something better than a “cold-iron blacksmith.”
When it came to stretching the wire of the pasture fence he had to resort to his inventive powers. There are plenty of wire stretchers that can be purchased; but they cost money.
The young farmer knew that Mrs. Atterson had no money to waste, and he worked for her just as he would have worked for himself.
One man working alone cannot easily stretch wire and make a good job of it without some mechanism7 to help him. Hiram's was simple and easily made.
A twelve-inch section of perfectly8 round post, seven or eight inches through, served as the drum around which to wind the wire, and two twenty-penny nails driven into the side of the drum, close together, were sufficient to prevent the wire from slipping.
To either end of the drum Hiram passed two lengths of Number 9 wire through large screweyes, making a double loop into which the hook of a light timber chain would easily catch. Into one end of the drum he drove a headless spike9, upon which the hand-crank of the grindstone fitted, and was wedged tight.
In using this ingenious wire stretcher, he stapled10 his wire to post number one, carried the length past post number two, looped the chain around post number three, having the chain long enough so that he might tauten12 the wire and hold the crankhandle steady with his knee or left arm while he drove the holding staple11 in post number two. And so repeat, ad infinitum.
After he had made this wire-stretcher the young fellow got along famously upon his fencing and could soon turn his attention to other matters, knowing that the cattle would be perfectly safe in the pasture for the coming season.
The old posts he collected on the wagon13 and drew into the dooryard, piling them beside the woodshed. There was not an overabundant supply of firewood cut and Hiram realized that Mrs. Atterson would use considerable in her kitchen stove before the next winter, even if she did not run a sitting room fire for long this spring.
Using a bucksaw is not only a thankless job at any time, but it is no saving of time or money. There was a good two-handed saw in the shed and Hiram found a good rat-tail file. With the aid of a home-made saw-holder and a monkey wrench14 he sharpened and set this saw and then got Henry Pollock to help him for a day.
Henry wasn't afraid of work, and the two boys sawed and split the old and well-seasoned posts, and some other wood, so that Hiram was enabled to pile several tiers of stove-wood under the shed against the coming of Mrs. Atterson to her farm.
“If the season wasn't so far advanced, I could cut a lot of wood, draw it up, and hire a gasoline engine and saw to come on the place and saw us enough to last a year. I'll do that next winter,” Hiram said.
“That's what we all ought to do,” agreed his friend.
Henry Pollock was an observing farmer's boy and through him Hiram gained many pointers as to the way the farmers in that locality put in their crops and cultivated them.
He learned, too, through Henry who was supposed to be the best farmer in the neighborhood, who had special success with certain crops, and who had raised the best seedcorn in the locality.
It was not particularly a trucking community; although, since Scoville had begun to grow so fast and many city people had moved into that pleasant town, the local demand for garden produce had increased.
“It used to be a saying here,” said Henry, “that a bushel of winter turnips15 would supply all the needs of Scoville. But that ain't exactly so now.
“The stores all want green stuff in season, and are beginning to pay cash for truck instead of only offering to exchange groceries for the stuff we raise. I guess if a man understood truck raising he could make something in this market.”
Hiram decided that this was so, on looking over the marketing16 possibilities of Scoville.
There was a canning factory which put up string beans, corn, and tomatoes; but the prices per hundred-weight for these commodities did not encourage Hiram to advise Mrs. Atterson to try and raise anything for the canneries. A profit could not be made out of such crops on a one-horse farm.
For instance, the neighboring farmers did not plant their tomato seeds until it was pretty safe to do so in the open ground. The cannery did not want the tomato pack to come on until late in August. By that time the cream of the prices for garden-grown tomatoes had been skimmed by the early truckers.
The same with sweet corn and green beans. The cannery demanded these vegetables at so late a date that the market-price was generally low.
These facts Hiram bore in mind as he planned his season's work, and especially the kitchen garden. This latter he planned to be about two acres in extent—rather a large plot, but he proposed to set his rows of almost every vegetable far enough apart to be worked with a horse cultivator.
Some crops—for instance onions, carrots, and other “fine stuff”—must be weeded by hand to an extent, and if the soil is rich enough rows twelve or fifteen inches apart show better results.
Between such rows a wheelhoe can be used to good advantage, and that was one tool—with a seed-sowing combination—that Hiram had told Mrs. Atterson she must buy if he was to practically attend to the whole farm for her. Hand-hoeing, in both field and garden crops, is antediluvian17.
Thus, during this week and a half of preparation, Hiram made ready for the uprooting18 of Mrs. Atterson from the boarding house in Crawberry to the farm some distance out of Scoville.
The good lady had but one wagon load of goods to be transferred from her old quarters to the new home. Many of the articles she brought were heirlooms which she had stored in the boarding house cellar, or articles associated with her happy married life, which had been shortened by her husband's death when he was comparatively a young man.
These Mrs. Atterson saw piled on the wagon early on Saturday morning, and she had insisted upon climbing upon the seat beside the driver herself and riding with him all the way.
The boarders gathered on the steps to see her go. The two spinster ladies had already taken possession, and had served breakfast to the disgruntled members of Mother Atterson's family.
“You'll be back again,” prophesied19 Mr. Crackit, shaking the old lady by the hand. “And when you do, just let me know. I'll come and board with you.”
“I wouldn't have you in my house again, Fred Crackit, for two farms,” declared the ex-boarding house keeper, with asperity20.
“I hope you told these people about my hot water, Mrs. Atterson,” croaked21 Mr. Peebles, from the step, where he stood muffled
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