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 slept. She was still dragging about the kitchen or dining-room when he went to bed, and she was first down in the morning--even earlier than Mrs. Atterson herself.
The boarding house mistress was not intentionally severe with Sister; but the much harassed lady had never learned to make her own work easy, so how should she be expected to be easy on Sister?
Once or twice Hiram had talked with the orphan. Sister had a dreadful fear of returning to the "institution" from which Mrs. Atterson had taken her. And Sister's other fearful remembrance was of an old woman who beat her and drank much gin and water.
Not that she had been ill-treated at the institution; but she had been dressed in an ugly uniform, and the girls had been rough and pulled her "pigtails" like Dan, Junior.
"Once a gentleman came to see me," Sister confided to Hiram. "He was a lawyer gentleman, the matron told me. He knew my name--but I've forgotten it now.
"And he said that somebody who once belonged to me--or I once belonged to them--had died and perhaps there would be some money coming to me. But it couldn't have been the old woman I lived with, for she never had only money enough for gin!
"Anyhow, I was glad. I axed him how much money--was it enough to treat all the girls in the institution one round of ice-cream soda, and he laffed, he did. And he said yes--just about enough for that, if he could get it for me. And I ran away and told the girls.
"I promised them all a treat. But the man never came again, and by and by the big girls said they believed I storied about it, and one night they came and dragged me out of bed and hung me out of the window by my wrists, till I thought my arms would be pulled right out of the sockets,They was awful cruel--them girls. But when I axed the matron why theman didn't come no more, she put me off. I guess he was only foolin'," decided Sister, with a sigh. Folks like to fool me--like Mr. Crackit--eh?"But Mrs. Atterson told Hiram, when he asked about Sister's meagre little story, that the institution had promised to let her know if the lawyer ever returned to make further inquiries about the orphan. Somebody really had died who was of kin to the girl, but through some error the institution had not made a proper record of her pedigree and the lawyer who had instituted the search a seemed to have dropped out of sight.
But Hiram was not troubled by poor Sister's private affairs upon this Monday morning. It was the beginning of a new week, indeed, to him. He had turned over a new leaf of experience. He hoped that he was pretty near to the end of his harsh city existence.
He hurried downstairs, long in advance of the other boarders, and Mrs. Atterson served him some breakfast, although there was no milk for the coffee.
"I dunno where that plague o' my life, Sister's, gone," sputtered the old lady, fussing about, between dining-room and kitchen. "I sent her out ten minutes ago for the milk. And if you want to get that first train to Scoville you've got to hurry.""Never mind the milk," laughed the young fellow. "The train's more important this morning."So he bolted the remainder of his breakfast, swallowed the black coffee, and ran out.
He arrived at Scoville while the morning was still young. It was not his intention to go at once to the Atterson farm. There were matters which he desired to look into in addition to judging the quality of the soil on the place and the possibility of making it pay.
He went to the storekeepers and asked questions about the prices paid for garden truck. He walked about the town and saw the quality of the residences, and noted what proportion of the townsfolk cultivated gardens of their own.
There was a big girls' boarding-school, and two small, but well- patronized hotels. The proprietors of these each owned a farm; but they told Hiram that it was necessary for them to buy much of their tablevegetables from city produce men, as the neighboring farmers did not grow much.
