"I'd like to know what the Jim Hickey you're about, Hiram," sniffed Henry, in disgust. "What's all this litter back here in the wagon?""You come over and give me a hand in the morning--early now, say bysun-up--and you'll find out. I want a couple of husky chaps like you," chuckled Hiram. "I'll get Pete Dickerson to work against me.""If you do, you tell Pete he'll have to work lively," said Henry, with a grin. "I don't know what it is you want us to do, but I reckon I can keep my end up with Pete, from hoein' 'taters to cuttin' cord-wood.""You can keep your end up with him, can you? chuckled Hiram. "Well! I bet you can't in this game I'm going to put you two fellows up against.""What! Pete Dickerson beat me at anything--unless it's sleeping? " grunted Henry, with vast disgust. " I'll keep my end up with him at anything."And the more assured he was of this the more Hiram was amused. "Come on over early, Henry," said the young farmer, "and I'll show you that there's at least one thing in which you can't keep your end up with Pete."His friend was almost angry when he started off across the fields for home; but he was mighty curious, too. That curiosity, if nothing more, would have brought him to the Atterson house in good season the following morning.
Already, however, Hiram and Pete--with the light wagon--had gone down to the riverside. Henry hurried after them and reached the celery field just as the red face of the sun appeared.
There had been little dew during the night and the tender transplants had scarcely lifted their heads. Indeed, the last acre set out the day before were flat.
On the bank of the river, and near that suffering acre, were Hiram and Pete Dickerson. Henry hurried to them, wondering at the thing he saw upon the bank.
Hiram was already laying out between the celery rows a long hosepipe. This was attached to a good-sized force-pump, the feedpipe of which was in the river. It was a two-man pump and was worked by an up-and-down "brake.""Catch hold here, Henry," laughed Hiram. One of you on each side now, and pump for all you're worth. And see if I'm not right, my boy. You can't keep your end up with Pete at this job; for if you do, the water won'tflow!"
Henry admitted that he had, been badly sold by the joke; but he was enthusiastic in his praise of Hiram's ingenuity, too.
"Aw, say!" said the young farmer, "what do you suppose the Good Lord gave us brains for? Just so as to keep our fingers out of the fire? No, sir! With all this perfectly good and wet water running past my field, could I have the heart to let this celery die? I guess not!"He had a fine spray nozzle on the pipe and the pipe itself was long enough so that, by moving the pump occasionally, he could water every square foot of the big piece. And the three young fellows, by changing about, went over the field every other day in about four hours without difficulty.
By and by the celery plants got rooted well; they no longer drooped in the morning; before the drouth was past the young farmer had as handsome a field of celery as one would wish. Indeed, when he began to ship the crop, even his earliest crates were rated A-1 by the produce men, and he bad no difficulty in selling the entire crop at the top of the market, right through the season.
The garden paid a profit; the potatoes did even better than the year before, and Hiram harvested and sold seventy-five dollars' worth while the price for new potatoes was high.
He shipped most of his tomatoes this year, for he could not pay attention to the local market as he had the first season; but the tomato crop was a good one.
They raised to eight weeks and sold, during the year, five pair of shoats, and Mrs. Atterson boughta grade cow with her calf by her side, for a hundred dollars, and made ten pounds of butter a week right through the season.
Old Lem Camp, looking ten years younger than when he came to the farm, muscular and brown, did all the work about the barns now, milked the cows, and relieved Hiram of all the chores.
Indeed, with some little help about the plowing and cultivating, Hiram knew very well that Mrs. Atterson and Old Lem could run the farm another year without his help.
Of course, the old lady could not expect to put in any crop that would pay her like the celery; for when they footed up their books, the bottom- land had yielded, as Hiram had once prophesied to Mr. Bronson over four hundred dollars the acre, net.
Twenty-four hundred dollars income from six acres; and the profit was more than fifty per cent. Indeed, Hiram's share of the profit amounted to three hundred and seventy dollars.
With his hundred dollar wage, and the money he had saved the previous season, when the crops were harvested this second season, the young farmer's bank book showed a balance of over five hundred dollars to his credit.
"I'm eighteen years old and over," soliloquized the young farmer. "And I've got a capital of five hundred dollars. Can't I turn that capital some way go as to give me a bigger--a broader--chance?
"Thus far I've been a one-horse farmer; I want to be something better than that. Now, there's no use in my hanging around here, waiting for something to turn up. I must get a move on me and turn something up for myself."
