"Oh, you get eout! You don't want any coffee."
"Don't I, thin? I don't belave ye know any more about a railroad than I do meself. Come on, b'yes. He's been humbuggin' ye."
Rube Hollenhouser afterward stood up manfully for Dolf Zimmerman's reputation as a traveller, and all the cows in Prome Centre went to their pastures very early the next morning. That was Friday, and it was to be the last day of the mortal life of Squire Cudworth's big barn, and there were a good many older people, as well as very young ones, who were willing to hurry through their breakfasts, and walk over to see what the Squire was going to do about it. Everybody knew more or less about the quarrel between him and the railway company, and there was not a doubt in the minds of his fellow-citizens but what he had beaten the corporation in every point but the one of keeping his barn.
There he was, when Rube and Bun and little Jeff Gates, and a crowd of other boys and their brothers and sisters, and some of their fathers and mothers and aunts and uncles, began to swarm around and look at him. There was the Squire, indeed, and his face was redder than ever, and Bun Gates remarked,
"I say, Rube, how he does jingle!"
"Yes, but haven't they made that railroad jingle? They've nailed down the rails 'most up to the stable-door on each side. If an engine should come now, it could run its nose against the barn."
"They've got to do it, Rube. They've got to smash it right through."
"I say, Bun, the stable's full of men. They're working at something. Hear 'em hammer?"
"There's another lot around outside. See 'em?"
"Hear 'em in the barn! Wonder 'f they'd let us in."