"Guess not. I don't want to go in, neither. Hey! What's that?"
Every face in the gathering crowd was suddenly turned toward the north, as if one pull had fetched them all around at the same instant. Not that they saw anything, but that the deafest man among them could hear the whistle of the coming locomotive. It would be the first of its kind ever seen in Prome Centre, and now it was gathering itself, they all knew, for a rush down that track at Squire Cudworth's barn.
More boys were coming, and they all asked questions the moment they could get their breaths after they reached the crowd and had one look at the barn. It was there yet, and so was the Squire, but there had been another awful whistle, up north, beyond Pop Simmons's orchard.
"Rube," said Bun, "those fellows are just a-jerking that stable out of its boots. They're h'isting the roof off now."
"Hear 'em hammering inside? There's something going on. Don't they just swarm, though, and can't they work!"
It was a simple fact that the railway company had sent a good many men to take care of the last obstacle in its way, and Squire Cudworth's joke lasted to the very end. He began to grow redder and redder in the face. Then he jingled more than ever for a minute, and then he stopped jingling altogether, for just then it seemed as if the whole side of the stable was stripped off at a push or two. The roof was already off. One minute more and the ends were gone, doors and all, and a well-dressed, gentlemanly person stepped out along the track.
"Boys!" shouted Rube. "There's the railroad now. Inside the stable."
"If they haven't put down a track right where the floor was!" said Bun.
There sounded another tremendous shriek from beyond the orchard, and a cloud of smoke and steam began to move along over the tree-tops.
"Here she comes, boys!"