river, which marked the westerly boundary of the farm for some
ways, and they set off up the steep bank of this stream.

This back end of the farm--quite forty acres, or half of the
whole tract--had been entirely neglected by the last owner of the
property for a great many years. It was some distance from the
house, for the farm was a long and narrow strip of land from the
highway to the river, and Uncle Jeptha had had quite all he could
do to till the uplands and the fields adjacent to his home.

They came upon these open fields--many of them filthy with dead
weeds and littered with sprouting bushes--from the rear. Hiram
saw that the fences were in bad repair and that the back of the
premises gave every indication of neglect and shiftlessness.

Perhaps not exactly the latter; Uncle Jeptha had been an old
man and unable to do much active work for some years. But he
had cropped certain of his fields "on shares" with the usual
results--impoverished soil, illy-tilled crops, and the land left
in a slovenly condition which several years of careful tillage
would hardly overcome.

Now, although Hiram's father had been of the tenant class, he had
farmed other men's land as he would his own. Owners of outlying
farms had been glad to get Mr. Strong to till their fields.

He had known how to work, he knew the reasons for every bit of
labor he performed, and he had not kept his son in ignorance of
them. As they worked together the father had explained to the
son what he did, and why he did it, The results of their work