“Phil won’t have any such trouble,” said the farmer, “for nobody took stock on his advice. Tramlay got up the company, before we knew anythin’ about it, an’ all the puffin’ of the land was done by him. Besides, there’s nobody in it that’ll suffer much, even if things come to the wust. Except one or two dummies,--clerks of Tramlay’s,--who were let in for a share or two, just to make up a Board of Directors to the legal size, what shares ain’t held by Phil and Tramlay an’ that feller Marge belongs to a gal.”
“No, no,--another gal: mebbe I ought to call her a woman, seein’ she’s putty well along, although mighty handsome an’ smart. Her name’s Dinon, an’ Tramlay joked Phil about her once or twice, makin’ out she was struck by him, but of course that’s all nonsense. She’s rich, an’ got money to invest every once in a while, an’ Tramlay put her up to this little operation.”
“You’re sure she ain’t interested in Phil?” asked Mrs. Hayn. “I’ve seen no end of trouble made between young folks by gals that’s old enough to know their own minds an’ smart enough to use ’em.”
“For goodness’ sake, Lou Ann!” exclaimed the old farmer. “To hear you talk, anybody would s’pose that in the big city of New York, where over a million people live and a million more come in from diff’rent places every week, there wasn’t any young man for folks to get interested in but our Phil. Reelly, old lady, I’m beginnin’ to be troubled about you; that sort of feelin’ that’s croppin’ out all the time in you makes me afeard that you’ve got a kind o’ pride that’s got to have a fall,--a pride in our son, settin’ him above all other mortal bein’s, so far as anythin’s concerned that can make a young man interestin’.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Hayn, after apparently thinking the matter over, “if it’s so I reckon it’ll have to stay so. I don’t b’lieve there’s any hope of forgiveness for anythin’ if heaven’s goin’ to hold an old woman to account for seein’ all the good there is in her first-born. I hain’t been down to York myself, but some of York’s young sprigs have been down here, one time an’ another, an’ if they’re fair samples of the hull lot, I should think a sight of our Phil would be to all the city gals like the shadder of a great rock in a weary land.”