Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/42

 dishes of a boarding house where heavy railroad fare is served, do not contribute an atmosphere for æsthetic development. If beauty thrives in such environment it must of necessity be a rugged beauty, such as that of the hollyhock, the zinnia, or the scentless dahlia flaunting beside the fence. That was the order of Goosie; a big, broad-faced, full-breasted dahlia, boisterous and strong to face the wind.

She was a hearty, happy girl, with a big-spreading mouth, to enjoy so deeply the sad songs of separation, broken faith and blighted homes which were current in that day. Her greatest pleasure was to sing them when her duties threw her alone, as now. It was her melancholy enjoyment at such times to put herself in the heroine's part, with Bill Connor, the fireman to whom she was engaged, standing off in a dim and tearful background, holding out appealing hands, watching her drift hopelessly to ruin and desolation.

She knew that Bill would, in plain and unromantic action, take her by the neck and choke it out of her in such case. That's all the sentiment there was in Bill. Yet it gave her a dear diversion, a serene, sad happiness, to figure Bill off in the background holding out his hands, watching her go to the devil in that pale, drawnfaced way.

Just now she was Ma-ha-goreet, and Bill was the one who wailed of his dreary prospect when she should forget him. She saw herself leaving their home in Argentine—Argentine was the heaven of railroad men, where all of them hoped to go—with the chenille table