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Old Lem Camp and Sister were provided for by their own exertions and Mrs. Atterson's kindness. The Dickersons even Pete had become friendly neighbors. Henry Pollock had waked up his father, and they were running the Pollock farm on much more modern lines than before.
"I reckon." "Loose-mouthed people make more trouble in a community than downright mean ones," declared Hiram. "If I have any serious trouble with the Dickersons, like enough it will be because of the interference of the other neighbors." "But," said Henry, preparing to go on, "Pete wouldn't dare fire your stable now after sayin' he'd do it. He ain't quite so big a fool as all that."
He had seen nothing of the Dickersons to speak to, that is since his trouble with Pete. And, of a sudden, just before dinner one noon, Hiram took a look at the pasture and beheld a figure seemingly working down in the corner. Hiram ran swiftly in that direction.
The angry man sprang down to his level, flourishing the gun in a way that would have been dangerous indeed had Hiram believed it to be loaded. And as it was, the young farmer was very angry. The right was on his side; if he allowed these Dickersons, father and son, to browbeat him this once, it would only lead to future trouble. This thing had to be settled right here and now.
From time to time you have borrowed while Uncle Jeptha was alive quite a number of tools. I want them. I have made inquiries and I know what tools they are. Just be prepared to put them into my wagon, will you?" He turned on his heel without further words and left the Dickersons to catch their horses, and to repair the fence both of which they did promptly.
"Well it's pretty well run down, and that's a fact. The old man couldn't do much the last few years, and them Dickersons who farmed it for him ain't no great shakes of farmers, now I tell you!" "Well, I want to look the farm over before I decide what I'll do," said Hiram, slowly. "And of course I can't do that to-night. They told me in town that sometimes you take boarders?"
When the distant whistles blew at midnight they went out upon the back porch to listen. It was a dark night, for thick clouds shrouded the stars. In the far distance was the twinkle of a single light that in an upper chamber of the Pollock house. Dickersons' was mantled in shadow, and those two houses were the only ones in sight of the Atterson place.
I wonder if there wasn't a shooting star, also, away back there at New Year's when our other stack of fodder was burned?" He loitered about the sheds for a few moments. It appeared as though all the Dickersons were indoors. Nobody interfered with him. Of a sudden Hiram began to sniff an odor that seemed strange about a cart-shed.
Hiram took the sling-shot with him, and went up to the Dickerson house. He had got along so well with the Dickersons for these past months that he honestly shrank from "starting anything" now. Yet he could not overlook this flagrant piece of malicious mischief. Indeed, it was more than that. Two stacks had already been burned, and it might be some of the outbuildings or even Mrs.
But it was evident that the Dickersons had kept tabs on the young farmer's progress, for, he had no more than pulled the posts out of the water-hole and started to reset them on the proper line, than the long-legged Pete Dickerson appeared. "Hey, you!" shouted Pete. "What are you monkeying with that line fence for?" "Because I won't have time to fix it later," responded Hiram, calmly.
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