The day before, while wandering in the wood, he had marked
several white oaks of the right size for posts. He would have
preferred cedars, of course; but those trees were scarce on the
Atterson tract--and they might be needed for some more important
job later on.

When he came up to the house at noon to feed the stock and make
his own frugal meal in the farm house kitchen, the posts were
cut. After dinner he harnessed the horse to the farm wagon, and
went down for the posts, taking the rolls of wire along to drop
beside the fence.

The horse was a steady, willing creature, and seemed to have no
tricks. He did not drive very well on the road, of course; but
that wasn't what they needed a horse for.

Driving was a secondary matter.

Hiram loaded his posts and hauled them to the pasture, driving
inside the fence line and dropping a post wherever one had rotted
out.

Yet posts that had rotted at the ground were not so easy to draw
out, as the young farmer very well knew, and he set his wits to
work to make the removal of the old posts easy of accomplishment.

He found an old, but strong, carpenter's horse in the shed, to
act as a fulcrum, and a seasoned bar of hickory as a lever.
There was never an old farm yet that didn't have a useful heap