Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/41



DESSA COWGILL, commonly called Goosie, was a sentimental young lady who played the parlor organ. When Louise Gardner first met her she was laying out cutlery on the long table where the regulars assembled at so much a week to replenish their fires and keep up a head of steam for the railroading life.

Goosie was singing, as she spread out the implements of severance and conveyance, a song in which the singer bewailed in lugubrious anticipation the day when a lady sung as Ma-ha-goreet not only might, but positively would, forget him. It was a dismal conclusion, sympathetically and tremulously sung by Goosie, who went into the spirit of it with the feeling of one bereft and forsaken. The window shades of the dining-room were drawn to shut out as much of the afternoon heat as possible, giving Goosie a dim and sentimental light. It was a felicitous arrangement for the singer as well as the song, for Goosie was one of those girls who look better in a little light.

There is no doubt that suds, and soup, and steaming