“Good Land o' Goshen!” she exclaimed. “Why, you boys do think something of the old woman, after all, don't ye?
“I must say that I got ye out here more than anything to show ye what we could do in the country. 'Specially how it had improved Sister. And how Hiram Strong warn't the ninny you seemed to think he was. And that Mr. Camp only needed a chance to be something in the world again.
“Well, well! It wasn't a generous feeling I had toward you, mebbe; but I'm glad you come and--I hope you all had enough gravy.”
So the occasion proved a very pleasant one indeed. And it made a happy break in the hard work of preparing for the winter.
The crops were all gathered ere this, and they could make up their books for the season just passed.
But there was wood to get in, for all along they had not had wood enough, and to try and get wood out of the snowy forest in winter for immediate use in the stoves was a task that Hiram did not enjoy.
He had Henry to help him saw a goodly pile before the first snow fell; and Mr. Camp split most of it and he and Sister piled it in the shed.
“We've got to haul up enough logs by March--or earlier--to have a wood sawing in earnest,” announced Hiram. “We must get a gasoline engine and saw, and call on the neighbors for help, and have a sawing-bee.”
“But what will be the use of that if we've got to leave here in February?” demanded Mrs. Atterson, worriedly. “The last time I saw that Pepper in town he grinned at me in a way that made me want to break my old umbrel' over his dratted head!”
“I don't care,” said Hiram, sullenly. “I don't want to sit idle all winter. I'll cut the logs, anyway, and draw 'em out from time to time. If we have to leave, why, we have to, that's all.”
“And we can't tell a thing to do about next year till we know what Pepper is going to do,” groaned Mrs. Atterson.
“That is very true. But if he doesn't exercise his option before February tenth, we needn't worry any more. And after that will be time enough to make our plans for next season's crops,” declared Hiram, trying to speak more cheerfully.
But Mrs. Atterson went around with clouded brow again, and was heard to whisper, more than once, something about “Mr. Damocles's sword.”
Despite Hiram Strong's warning to his employer when they started work on the old Atterson Eighty, that she must expect no profit for this season's, work, the Christmas-tide, when they settled their accounts for the year, proved the young fellow to have been a bad prophet.