Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/108

 "How do you know it was because you're a jerry?"

"I asked that Angus boy. He was insulted, too. He said a jerry didn't have any business hornin' in amongst railroad men."

"It appears that we're both social outcasts, then, Tom. They kid me because I fell from book-agent to biscuit-shooter, and it seems like a comical sort of one, at that. They guy me till I feel like breaking dishes on them sometimes, especially Ford Langley. He seems to have a diabolical sort of pleasure in turning the laugh against a poor workin' girl."

Louise laughed, but it was only a pretense, as Tom Laylander must have been very stupid, indeed, if he had not seen.

"I'll speak to the scoundrel," he said, the fire of indignation in his eyes.

Louise touched his hand again, in that correcting, restraining, and yet assuring manner that was almost a caress.

"Please don't—he isn't worth it. Let them laugh, there's nothing else in life for them; they can't think. Who knows but you and I may have our own private little laugh one of these days? Maybe we'll not always be biscuit-shooters and jerries."

"Yes, you'll rise up and pass on," Tom said in his quaint, soft way of speaking; "I can see it in the cards you will. But for me I can't see anything more than a trampled trail, crisscrossed till it makes my eyes ache to try to read it."

Louise looked across the little table into his face,