"He said it was one of old Squire Cudworth's jokes. There was a quarrel between him, and the railroad, and so he put the barn there to keep it from coming through."
"It won't do it, Bun. A railroad'll go right through a hill and not half try."
"Come on, Rube, we'll be late; but father says he guesses the railroad didn't make anything very heavy out of the Squire's joke."
When the class in arithmetic was called up that fore-noon, Bun Gates and Rube Hollenhouser went down to the foot of it, one after the other, for the first time that academy term. When they got there and could have a good look at each other's slates, they each knew what sort of a picture the other could make of Squire Cudworth's big barn, with something full of fire and smoke and steam smashing into it at both ends.
The afternoon wore away, a little at a time, until it was all gone, but every boy they knew had heard of what was coming to Squire Cudworth's barn by that time, and at least a dozen of them wanted to go and have a look at it.
Squire Cudworth was standing at the corner of the barn, a very large, fat, rosy-faced man, with his hands in his pockets, and he looked as if he were waiting for something. He chuckled all over, and they could hear him jingle the money in his pockets as he recognized the boys.
"That's the railroad, boys. Them's the ties, and some call 'em sleepers. The rails are glued down on 'em. You'll see some men come along pretty soon with great bundles of iron rails in one hand and pots of glue in the other. They're 'most here now. By to-morrer night that barn of mine won't be a safe place for hosses. It's awful, boys—jest awful!"
"How do you s'pose they'll get through the barn?" asked Bun.
"Can't say. I've kep' 'em off long as I could. That's what I'm here for now. We don't need any railroad in Prome Centre. That's what I told 'em. If they'd only dig the creek out good and deep, so it would be of some use. They wouldn't, though, and I might as well have built my barn right in the middle of the creek."
Every boy in the crowd was listening to him, but not one of them could see what there was in it all that made the old Squire chuckle so. Three or four asked,