“Well, Randy, I see just what you mean. It is bright and glad and sunny to-day, and as to my looking glad, I think I ought to. I’ve got your mother, and Prue, and you, Randy, and I’ve got something more to be thankful for—something to be thankful to you for.”
“Thankful to me!” gasped Randy, in amazement.
“Yes, Randy, yes. I got a letter last night. Ye know I went down to the centre after supper, and I didn’t get home ’til after you and Prue was in bed. Well, I wasn’t expecting to hear from anybody, special, and I never opened the letter ’til I’d put the cat out and fastened up. Then I thought of the letter and sat down at the table to read it. Yer mother was puttin’ the last stitches into a stockin’ she was mendin’ when I came to a place in the letter that made me hop. Mother came, and looking over my shoulder read the line I put my finger on.
“Randy, do ye remember that day last summer when ye listened at the roadside to what Jason Meade was sayin’ ’bout makin’ me sell my pasture land to him? Do yer rec’lect how ye run ’til ye was ’bout beat out to reach me ’fore he could, and how ye begged me not to sell?”
“Why, yes,” said Randy; then in sudden fear, “he didn’t make you, did he, father?”
The girl’s wide open eyes looked anxiously up into his face as she grasped his arm and waited for an answer.
“Make me! Well, I guess not! Randy, that letter was from the big railroad company, and, val’ble as I thought the land would be, they’ve offered me more’n I ever dreamed of. I shan’t be what city folks would call wealthy, but I’ll be ’stonishin’ well off. Your mother and I will be able to take things a little easier; and, Randy, you shall have all the schoolin’ ye want, and so shall little Prue. I’d ’bout made up my mind to let Meade have that land, he seemed to have set his mind on it; and I b’lieve I should have let him have it, ef you had gone on ter Mis’ Gray’s and stopped to tea with Miss Dayton, as you intended. But for you my land would have been in Jason Meade’s hands, and I might ’a’ whistled fer it. You gave up your pleasure to do the right thing at the right time; as I said that day, I’ve got a daughter to be thankful for.”
“Oh, father,” said Randy, “it seemed a little thing to do, but I was so anxious to reach you in time that I forgot everything else, even Miss Dayton and the tea at Mrs. Gray’s.”
“Well, ye did yer duty, Randy, even when ye feared the men would find ye listening and be angry. Always be brave to do right, as ye did that time, and ye’ll make a fine woman.”
Small wonder that Randy remembered that morning’s ride! The bright sunlight of her father’s commendation seemed to outshine nature’s sunshine. The thought that she had been instrumental in bringing good fortune to her parents, who had toiled early and late, filled Randy’s heart with a gladness which she would have found difficult to describe.