Hiram in the Middle West: Or, a Young Farmer's Upward Struggle

A charming slice of early American rural fiction, full of humor and heart. When young Hiram Strong arrives in the small town of Pringleton to take over the newly acquired Sunnyside Farm, he finds himself in a rain-drenched village full of eccentric characters. There's the odd stationmaster who introduces him to the peculiarities of the area, and then there's Yancey Battick, a hermit notorious for his intense fear of rats and his mysterious hoarding of what might be a valuable strain of wheat. Hiram's journey is one of agricultural struggle and quiet determination, but it's the cast of oddballs and the gentle comedy of small-town life that give this 1920 novel its particular warmth. The young farmer faces his share of hardships, but Todd writes with a light touch that makes Pringleton feel like a place you'd recognize. This is rural Americana before it became nostalgia, a story about a young man building a life from nothing in the Middle West.