HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER(小农场主哈兰姆)
VIP免费
2024-12-26
1
0
666.04KB
197 页
5.9玖币
侵权投诉
HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER
1
HIRAM THE YOUNG
FARMER
BY BURBANK L. TODD
HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER
2
CHAPTER I
THE CALL OF SPRING
"Well, after all, the country isn't such a bad place as some city folk
think."
The young fellow who said this stood upon the highest point of the
Ridge Road, where the land sloped abruptly to the valley in which lay the
small municipality of Crawberry on the one hand, while on the other open
fields and patches of woodland, in a huge green-and-brown checkerboard
pattern, fell more easily to the bank of the distant river.
Dotted here and there about the farming country lying before the youth
as he looked westward were cottages, or the more important-looking
homesteads on the larger farms; and in the distance a white church spire
behind the trees marked the tiny settlement of Blaine's Smithy.
A Sabbath calm lay over the fields and woods. It was mid-afternoon of
an early February Sunday--the time of the mid-winter thaw, that false
prophet of the real springtime.
Although not a furrow had been turned as yet in the fields, and the
snow lay deep in some fence corners and beneath the hedges, there was,
after all, a smell of fresh earth--a clean, live smell--that Hiram Strong had
missed all week down in Crawberry.
"I'm glad I came up here," he muttered, drawing in great breaths of the
clean air. "Just to look at the open fields, without any brick and mortar
around, makes a fellow feel fine!"
He stretched his arms above his head and, standing alone there on the
upland, felt bigger and better than he had in weeks.
For Hiram Strong was a country boy, born and bred, and the town
stifled him. Besides, he had begun to see that his two years in Crawberry
had been wasted.
"As a hustler after fortune in the city I am not a howling success,"
mused Hiram. "Somehow, I'm cramped down yonder," and he glanced
back at the squalid brick houses below him, the smoky roofs, and the ugly
factory chimneys.
HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER
3
"And I declare," he pursued, reflectively, "I don't believe I can stand
Old Dan Dwight much longer. Dan, Junior, is bad enough--when he is
around the store; but the boss would drive a fellow to death."
He shook his head, now turning from the pleasanter prospect of the
farming land and staring down into the town.
"Maybe I'm not a success because I don't stick to one thing. I've had
six jobs in less'n two years. That's a bad record for a boy, I believe. But
there hasn't any of them suited me, nor have I suited them.
"And Dwight's Emporium beats 'em all!" finished Hiram, shaking his
head.
He turned his back upon the town once more, as though to wipe his
failure out of his memory. Before him sloped a field of wheat and clover.
It had kept as green under the snow as though winter was an unknown
season. Every cloverleaf sparkled and the leaves of wheat bristled like tiny
spears.
Spring was on the way. He could hear the call of it!
Two years before Hiram had left the farm. He had no immediate
relatives after his father died. The latter had been a tenant-farmer only, and
when his tools and stock and the few household chattels had been sold to
pay the debts that had accumulated during his last illness, there was very
little money left for Hiram.
There was nobody to say him nay when he packed his bag and started
for Crawberry, which was the metropolis of his part of the country. He had
set out boldly, believing that he could get ahead faster, and become master
of his own fortune more quickly in town than in the locality where he was
born.
He was a rugged, well-set-up youth of seventeen, not over-tall, but
sturdy and able to do a man's work. Indeed, he had long done a man's
work before he left the farm.
Hiram's hands were calloused, he shuffled a bit when walked, and his
shoulders were just a little bowed from holding the plow handles since he
had been big enough to bridle his father's old mare.
Yes, the work on the farm had been hard--especially for a growing boy.
Many farm boys work under better conditions than Hiram had.
HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER
4
Nevertheless, after a two years' trial of what the city has in store for
most country boys who cut loose from their old environment, Hiram
Strong felt to-day as though he must get back to the land.
"There's nothing for me in town. Clerking in Dwight's Emporium will
never get me anywhere," he thought, turning finally away from the open
country and starting down the steep hill.
"Why, there are college boys working on our street cars here--waiting
for some better job to turn up. What chance does a fellow stand who's only
got a country school education?
"And there isn't any clean fun for a fellow in Crawberry--fun that
doesn't cost money. And goodness knows I can't make more than enough
to pay Mrs. Atterson, and for my laundry, and buy a new suit of overalls
and a pair of shoes occasionally.
"No, sir!" concluded Hiram. "There's nothing in it. Not for a fellow
like me, at any rate. I'd better be back on the farm--and I wish I was there
now."
He had been to church that morning; but after the late dinner at his
boarding house had set out on this lonely walk. Now he had nothing to
look forward to as he returned but the stuffy parlor of Mrs. Atterson's
boarding house, the cold supper in the dining-room, which was attended in
a desultory fashion by such of the boarders as were at home, and then a
long, dull evening in his room, or bed after attending the evening service
at the church around the corner.
Hiram even shrank from meeting the same faces at the boarding house
table, hearing the same stale jokes or caustic remarks about Mrs.
Atterson's food from Fred Crackit and the young men boarders of his class,
or the grumbling of Mr. Peebles, the dyspeptic invalid, or the inane
monologue of Old Lem Camp.
And Mrs. Atterson herself--good soul though she was--had gotten on
Hiram Strong's nerves, too. With her heat-blistered face, near-sighted eyes
peering through beclouded spectacles, and her gown buttoned up hurriedly
and with a gap here and there where a button was missing, she was the
typically frowsy, hurried, nagged-to-death boarding house mistress.
And as for "Sister," Mrs. Atterson's little slavey and maid-of-all-work--
HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER
5
-
"Well, Sister's the limit!" smiled Hiram, as he turned into the street,
with its rows of ugly brick houses on either hand. "I believe Fred Crackit
has got it right. Mrs. Atterson keeps Sister instead of a cat--so there'll be
something to kick."
The half-grown girl--narrow-chested, round shouldered, and sallow--
had been taken by Mrs. Atterson from some charity institution. "Sister," as
the boarders all called her, for lack of any other cognomen, would have
her yellow hair in four attenuated pigtails hanging down her back, and she
would shuffle about the dining-room in a pair of Mrs. Atterson's old shoes-
--
"By Jove! there she is now," exclaimed the startled youth.
At the corner of the street several "slices" of the brick block had been
torn away and the lot cleared for the erection of some business building.
Running across this open space with wild shrieks and spilling the milk
from the big pitcher she carried--milk for the boarders' tea, Hi knew--came
Mrs. Atterson's maid.
Behind her, and driving her like a horse by the ever present "pigtails,"
bounded a boy of about her own age--a laughing, yelling imp of a boy
whom Hiram knew very well.
"That Dan Dwight is the meanest little scamp at this end of the town!"
he said to himself.
The noise the two made attracted only the idle curiosity of a few
people. It was a locality where, even on Sundays, there was more or less
noise.
Sister begged and screamed. She feared she would spill the milk and
told Dan, Junior, so. But he only drove her the harder, yelling to her to
"Get up!" and yanking as hard as he could on the braids.
"Here! that's enough of that!" called Hiram, stepping quickly toward
the two.
For Sister had stopped exhausted, and in tears.
"Be off with you!" commanded Hiram. "You've plagued the girl
enough."
"Mind your business, Hi-ram-Lo-ram!" returned Dan, Junior, grabbing
HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER
6
at Sister's hair again.
Hiram caught the younger boy by the shoulder and whirled him
around.
"You run along to Mrs. Atterson, Sister," he said, quietly. "No, you
don't!" he added, gripping Dan, Junior, more firmly. "You'll stop right
here."
"Lemme be, Hi Strong!" bawled the other, when he found he could not
easily jerk away. "It'll be the worse for you if you don't."
"Just you wait until the girl is home," returned Hiram, laughing. It was
an easy matter for him to hold the writhing Dan, Junior.
"I'll fix you for this!" squalled the boy. "Wait till I tell my father."
"You wouldn't dare tell your father the truth," laughed Hi.
"I'll fix you," repeated Dan, Junior, and suddenly aimed a vicious kick
at his captor.
Had the kick landed where Dan, Junior, intended--under Hi's kneecap-
-the latter certainly would have been "fixed." But the country youth was
too agile for him.
He jumped aside, dragged Dan, Junior, suddenly toward him, and then
gave him a backward thrust which sent the lighter boy spinning.
Now, it had rained the day before and in a hollow beside the path was
a puddle several inches deep. Dan, Junior, lost his balance, staggered back,
tripped over his own clumsy heels, and splashed full length into it.
"Oh, oh!" he bawled, managing to get well soaked before he
scrambled out. " I'll tell my father on you, Hi Strong. You'll catch it for
this!"
"You'd better run home before you catch cold," said Hiram, who could
not help laughing at the young rascal's plight. "And let girls alone another
time."
To himself he said: "Well, the goodness knows I couldn't be much
more in bad odor with Mr. Dwight than I am already. But this escapade of
his precious son ought to about 'fix' me, as Dan, Junior, says.
"Whether I want to, or not, I reckon I will be looking for another job in
a very few days."
HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER
7
CHAPTER II
AT MRS. ATTERSON'S
When you came into "Mother" Atterson's front hall (the young men
boarders gave her that appellation in irony) the ghosts of many ancient
boiled dinners met you with--if you were sensitive and unused to the odors
of cheap boarding houses--a certain shock.
He was starting up the stairs, on which the ragged carpet threatened to
send less agile persons than Mrs. Atterson's boarders headlong to the
bottom at every downward trip, when the clang of the gong in the dining-
room announced the usual cold spread which the landlady thought due to
her household on the first day of the week.
Hiram hesitated, decided that he would skip the meal, and started up
again. But just then Fred Crackit lounged out of the parlor, with Mr.
Peebles following him. Dyspeptic as he was, Mr. Peebles never missed a
meal himself, and Crackit said:
"Come on, Hi-Low-Jack! Aren't you coming down to the usual feast
of reason and flow of soul?"
Crackit thought he was a natural humorist, and he had to keep up his
reputation at all times and seasons. He was rather a dissipated-looking
man of thirty years or so, given to gay waistcoats and wonderfully knit ties.
A brilliant as large as a hazel-nut--and which, in some lights, really
sparkled like a diamond--adorned the tie he wore this evening.
"I don't believe I want any supper," responded Hiram, pleasantly.
"What's the matter? Got some inside information as to what Mother
Atterson has laid out for us? You're pretty thick with the old girl, Hi."
"That's not a nice way to speak of her, Mr. Crackit," said Hi, in a low
voice.
The other boarders--those who were in the house-straggled into the
basement dining-room one after the other, and took their places at the long
table, each in his customary manner.
That dining-room at Mother Atterson's never could have been a
cheerful place. It was long, and low-ceiled, and the paper on the walls was
a dingy red, so old that the figure on it had retired into the background--
HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER
8
been absorbed by it, so to speak.
The two long, dusty, windows looked upon an area, and were grilled
half way up by wrought-iron screens which, too, helped to shut out the
light of day.
The long table was covered by a red figured table cloth. The "castors"
at both ends and in the middle were the ugliest--Hiram was sure--to be
found in all the city of Crawberry. The crockery was of the coarsest kind.
The knives and forks were antediluvian. The napkins were as coarse as
huck towels.
But Mrs. Atterson's food--considering the cost of provisions and the
charge she made for her table--was very good. Only it had become a habit
for certain of the boarders, led by the jester, Crackit, to criticise the viands.
Sometimes they succeeded in making Mrs. Atterson angry; and
sometimes, Hiram knew, she wept, alone in the dining-room, after the
harumscarum, thoughtless crowd had gone.
Old Lem Camp--nobody save Hiram thought to put "Mr." before the
old gentleman's name--sidled in and sat down beside the country boy, as
usual. He was a queer, colorless sort of person--a man who never looked
into the face of another if he could help it. He would look all around
Hiram when he spoke to him--at his shoulder, his shirtfront, his hands,
even at his feet if they were visible, but never at his face.
And at the table he kept up a continual monologue. It was difficult
sometimes for Hiram to know when he was being addressed, and when
poor Mr. Camp was merely talking to himself.
"Let's see--where has Sister put my napkin--Oh! here it is--You've
been for a walk, have you, young man?--No, that's not my napkin; I didn't
spill any gravy at dinner--Nice day out, but raw--Goodness me! can't I
have a knife and fork?--Where's my knife and fork?--Sister certainly has
forgotten my knife and fork.--Oh! Here they are--Yes, a very nice day
indeed for this time of year."
And so on. It was quite immaterial to Mr. Camp whether he got an
answer to his remarks to Hiram, or not. He went on muttering to himself,
all through the meal, sometimes commenting upon what the others said at
the table--and that quite shrewdly, Hiram noticed; but the other boarders
HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER
9
considered him a little cracked.
Sister smiled sheepishly at Hiram as she passed the tea. She drowned
his tea with milk and put in no less than four spoonfuls of sugar. But
although the fluid was utterly spoiled for Hiram's taste he drank it with
fortitude, knowing that the girl's generosity was the child of her gratitude;
for both sugar and milk were articles very scantily supplied at Mother
Atterson's table.
The mistress herself did not appear. Now that he was down here in the
dining-room, Hiram lingered. He hated the thought of going up to his
lonely and narrow quarters at the top of the house.
The other boarders trailed out of the room and up stairs, one after
another, Old Lem Camp being the last to go. Sister brought in a dish of hot
toast between two plates and set it at the upper end of the table. Then Mrs.
Atterson appeared.
Hiram knew at once that something had gone wrong with the boarding
house mistress. She had been crying, and when a woman of the age of Mrs.
Atterson indulges in tears, her personal appearance is never improved.
"Oh, that you, Hi?" she drawled, with a snuffle. "Did you get enough
to eat?"
"Yes, Mrs. Atterson," returned the youth, starting to get up. "I have had
plenty."
"I'm glad you did," said the lady. "And you're easy 'side of most of 'em,
Hiram. You're a real good boy."
"I reckon I get all I pay for, Mrs. Atterson," said her youngest boarder.
"Well, there ain't many of 'em would say that. And they was awful
provokin' this noon. That roast of veal was just as good meat as I could
find in market; and I don't know what any sensible party would want
better than that prune pie.
"Well! I hope I won't have to keep a boarding house all my life. It's a
thankless task. An' it ties a body down so.
"Here's my uncle--my poor mother's only brother and about the only
relative I've got in the world--here's Uncle Jeptha down with the grip, or
suthin', and goodness knows if he'll ever get over it. And I can't leave to go
and see him die peaceable."
HIRAM THE YOUNG FARMER
10
"Does he live far from here?" asked Hiram, politely, although he had
no particular reason for being interested in Uncle Jeptha.
"He lives on a farm out Scoville way. He's lived there most all his life.
He used to make a right good living off'n that farm, too; but it's run down
some now.
"The last time I was out there, two years ago, he was just keepin' along
and that's all. And now I expect he's dying, without a chick or child of his
own by him," and she burst out crying again, the tears sprinkling the
square of toast into which she continued to bite.
Of course, it was ridiculous. A middle-aged woman weeping and
eating toast and drinking strong boiled tea is not a romantic picture. But as
Hiram climbed to his room he wished with all his heart that he could help
Mrs. Atterson.
He wasn't the only person in the world who seemed to have got into a
wrong environment--lots of people didn't fit right into their circumstances
in life.
"We're square pegs in round holes--that's what we are," mused Hiram.
"That's what I am. I wish I was out of it. I wish I was back on the
farm."
摘要：
展开>>
收起<<
HIRAMTHEYOUNGFARMER1HIRAMTHEYOUNGFARMERBYBURBANKL.TODDHIRAMTHEYOUNGFARMER2CHAPTERITHECALLOFSPRING"Well,afterall,thecountryisn'tsuchabadplaceassomecityfolkthink."TheyoungfellowwhosaidthisstooduponthehighestpointoftheRidgeRoad,wherethelandslopedabruptlytothevalleyinwhichlaythesmallmunicipalityofCrawbe...
声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！
相关推荐
-
【词汇变形总汇】2025高考词汇变形总汇 - 教师版VIP免费
2024-12-06 3 -
【超简37页】新课标高考英语考纲3500词汇VIP免费
2024-12-06 4 -
《高考英语3500词详解》（WORD版）VIP免费
2024-12-06 13 -
《高考英语3500词详解》VIP免费
2024-12-06 11 -
高中英语-[教师版]80天通关高考3500词汇VIP免费
2024-12-06 12 -
高中人教选修7课文逐句翻译VIP免费
2024-12-06 7 -
高中人教选修7课文原文及翻译VIP免费
2024-12-06 13 -
高中人教必修4课文逐句翻译VIP免费
2024-12-06 7 -
高中人教必修4课文原文及翻译VIP免费
2024-12-06 13 -
高考英语核心高频688词汇VIP免费
2024-12-06 10
分类：外语学习
价格：5.9玖币
属性：197 页
大小：666.04KB
格式：PDF
时间：2024-12-26
相关内容
-
3-专题三 牛顿运动定律 2-教师专用试题
分类：中学教育
时间：2025-04-07
标签：无
格式：DOCX
价格：5.9 玖币
-
2-专题二 相互作用 2-教师专用试题
分类：中学教育
时间：2025-04-07
标签：无
格式：DOCX
价格：5.9 玖币
-
6-专题六 机械能 2-教师专用试题
分类：中学教育
时间：2025-04-07
标签：无
格式：DOCX
价格：5.9 玖币
-
4-专题四 曲线运动 2-教师专用试题
分类：中学教育
时间：2025-04-08
标签：无
格式：DOCX
价格：5.9 玖币
-
5-专题五 万有引力与航天 2-教师专用试题
分类：中学教育
时间：2025-04-08
标签：无
格式：DOCX
价格：5.9 玖币
渝公网安备50010702506394
