Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/26

 Banjo laughed a little, more out of politeness than humor. Nobody likes to have a spike put in his joke. "I used to parade up and down before them six pieces of pie," he said, "blowin' off the sand. Believe me or not, that ain't no lie. I never found any other way to keep them cuts of pie clean and eatable."

"Sprinklin' tobacker juice over 'em!" said she.

"I used to blow till I was blue in the face," said Banjo, "with that sand siftin' in the screen door and all around. I got on middlin' comfortable till they changed time on a freight and throwed two crews on me at once. I thought I was gittin' the consumption keepin' twelve piece of pie clean, and I jumped the job."

Banjo did not wait for the effect on Mrs. Cowgill. It was so tremendous on himself that he doubled over with laughter. When he looked sidling up at her as the humor began to work out of him, his eyes were glistening with mirthful moisture. Mrs. Cowgill was not so much as smiling. She was looking down the track where Orrin Smith was herding his jerries putting in the switch, that sharp alertness for the thing she sought and never owned, bending her nice eyebrows together in a bunch.

"You're the beatin'est man, Banjo," she said, in concession to his comical reminiscence. There was little praise, less encouragement, in her tone for a man of humor such as Banjo Gibson, troubadour home from his adventures afar. A woman was crossing the railroad beyond Smith's gang. Mrs. Cowgill's interest was there.