“He don’t know nothin’ ’bout the railroad yet, but there’s no knowin’ how soon he will. My wife’s naggin’ me to make him swap, but I’d like to see her try to hurry Weston when he don’t intend to hurry; but I tell ye now, ef that ’ere road does run through his field, I mean ter own it fust, an’ I’m goin’ up ter night ter talk him inter it.”
Randy now realized that the speaker’s voice was no other than Jason Meade’s. She was but fifteen, but she knew that if her father yielded to his neighbor’s urging, it would in some way mean loss to him. All thought of her call upon Helen vanished, and in its place lay a great fear that she might be seen before she could get away from her hiding place and rush home.
She was a bit cramped with her crouching pose behind the wall. Slowly she arose to her feet, glided along upon the grass, lest her footsteps should be heard, and, once in the grove, she sprang across the brook, dashed through the fields, up the path, and into the kitchen door, where she dropped upon a chair and tried to speak.
“Why, Randy Weston! whatever ails ye? Ye look ’s if ye’d seen a ghost. Why, father,” as the girl did not speak, “jest come look at Randy. She’s been runnin’ ’til she’s clean tuckered out, ’n’ can’t seem to speak.”
Mr. Weston came hastening in from the well with a pail of water, which he set down when he saw Randy.
“Why, Randy, child, what—”
“Oh, father,—the little rocky field behind the barn,—don’t sell it, don’t swap it; the railroad’s going through it; and oh, father, that’s why Jason Meade wants to make you swap it. It’s going to be worth lots and lots of money; he can’t make you swap it, can he, father?” and in her anxiety she sprang up and put her hands upon her father’s shoulders.
“There, there, Randy, you’ve done your father a good turn this time, sure enough, ef it’s true. Sit down and tell me where ye heard all this.”
So Randy, having regained her breath, told her anxious listeners the tale, beginning with her intended call upon Miss Dayton; how she strolled through the grove and across the brook, and sat down to rest upon the big stone by the wall, with the great alders behind her; how she had, at first sound of the voices, tried not to listen, and, on hearing an unfriendly voice mention her father’s name, she had, although afraid of detection, crept close to the wall, to hear if the men really meant to harm him.
Then she had told all that she had heard, word for word, finishing with, “And, father, he can’t make you swap, can he? he seemed so determined.”