"However," Hiram said to Henry, when they walked down to the riverside on Sunday afternoon, "I'm going ahead on Faith--just as the minister said in church this morning. If Faith can move mountains, we'll give it a chance to move something right down here.""I dunno, Hiram," returned the other boy, shaking his head. "Father says he'll git in here for you with three head and a Number 3 plow by the middle of this week if you say so--'nless it rains again, of course. But he's afeared you're goin' to waste Mrs. Atterson's money for her.""Nothing ventured, nothing gained," quoted Hiram, grimly. "If a farmer didn't take chances every year, the whole world would starve to death!""Well," returned Henry, smiling too, "let the other fellow take the chances--that's dad's motter.""Yes. And the 'chancey' fellow skims the cream of things every time. No, sir!" declared the young fellow, "I'm going to be among the cream- skimmers, or I won't be a farmer at all."So the plow was put into the bottom-land Wednesday--and put in deep. By Friday night the whole piece was plowed and partly harrowed.
Hiram had drawn lime for this bottom-land, proposing to use beside only a small amount of fertilizer. He spread this lime from his one-horse wagon, while Henry drag-harrowed behind him, and by Saturday noon the job was done.
The horses had not mired at all, much to Mr. Pollock's surprise. And the plow had bit deep. All the heavy sod of the piece was covered well, and the seed bed was fairly level--for corn.
Although the Pollocks did not work on Saturday afternoon, Hiram did not feel as though he could stop at this time. Most of the farmers had already planted their last piece of corn. Monday would be the fifteenth of the month.
So the young farmer got his home-made corn-row marker down to the river-bottom and began marking the piece that afternoon.
This marker ran out three rows at each trip across the field, and with a white stake at either end, the youth managed to run his rows very straight. He had a good eye.
In this case he did not check-row his field. The land was rich-- phenomenally rich, he believed. If he was going to have a crop of corn here, he wanted a crop worth while.
On the uplands the farmers were satisfied with from thirty to fifty baskets of ear-corn to the acre. If this lowland was what he believed it was, Hiram was sure it would make twice that.
And at that his corn crop here would only average twenty-five dollars to the acre--not a phenomenal profit for Mrs. Atterson in that.
But the land would be getting into shape for a better crop, and although corn is a crop that will soon impoverish ground, if planted year after year on the same piece, Hiram knew that the humus in this soil on thelowland was almost inexhaustible.
So he marked his rows the long way of the field--running with the river.
One of the implements left by Uncle Jeptha had been a one-horse corn-planter with a fertilizer attachment. Hiram used this, dropping two or three grains twenty-four inches apart, and setting the fertilizer attachment to one hundred and fifty pounds to the acre.
He was until the next Wednesday night planting the piece. Meanwhile it had not rained, and the river continued to recede. It was now almost as low as it had been the day Lettie Bronson's boating party had been "wrecked" under the big sycamore.
Hiram had not seen the Bronsons for some weeks, but about the time he got his late corn planted, Mr. Bronson drove into the Atterson yard, and found Hiram cultivating his first corn with the five-tooth cultivator.
"Well, well, Hiram!" exclaimed the Westerner, looking with a broad smile over the field. "That's as pretty a field of corn as I ever saw. I don't believe there is a hill missing.""Only a few on the far edge, where the moles have been at work." "Moles don't eat corn, Hiram.""So they say," returned the young farmer, quietly. "I never could make up my mind about it.
"I'm sure, however, that if they are only after slugs and worms which are drawn to the corn hills by the commercial fertilizer, the moles do fully as much damage as the slugs would.
"You see, they make a cavity under the corn hill, and the roots of the plant wither. Excuse me, but I'd rather have Mr. Mole in somebody else's garden."Mr. Bronson laughed. "Well, what the little gray fellows eat won't kill us. But they do spoil otherwise handsome rows. How did you get such a good stand of corn, Hiram?""I tested the seed in a seed box early in the spring. I wouldn't plant corn any other way. Aside from the hills the moles have spoiled, and a few an old crow pulled up, I've got no re-planting to do.
"And replanted hills are always behind the crop, and seldom makeanything but fodder. If it wasn't for the look of the field, I'd never re-plant a hill of corn.
"Of course, I've got to thin this--two grains in the hill is enough on this land."Mr. Bronson looked at him with growing surprise.
"Why, my boy, you talk just as though you had tilled the ground for a score of years. Who taught you so much about farming?""One of the best farmers who ever lived," said Hiram, with a smile. "My father. And he taught me to go to the correct sources for information, too.""I believe you!" exclaimed Mr. Bronson. "And you're going to have 'corn that's corn', as we say in my part of the country, on this piece of land.""Wait!" said Hiram, smiling and shaking his head. "Wait for what?""Wait till you see the corn on my bottom-land--if the river down there doesn't drown it out. If we don't have too much rain, I'm going to have corn on that river-bottom that will beat anything in this county, Mr. Bronson."And the young farmer spoke with assurance.
