Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/51

 neck was bony and long, slashed across with wrinkles in the tough brown skin, into which more or less dust and grime had collected in his carpentering career in and about McPacken.

Myron produced the bowl of a corncob pipe from a pocket of his bagging overalls, tapped it in his palm to dislodge the shingle nails; brought the stem of it out of the ruler pocket along his leg, connected the parts and fired up. Pipe in mouth, Myron looked a degree less useful than before, yet undoubtedly the little tuckingup of the mustache over the stem added to the humor and good nature of his simple face. He went out through the kitchen to begin operation on the gritty, hard oak ties which the thrift of his wife secured, through a pull with the roadmaster, to supply fuel for her kitchen range.

"You-all hongry, Mist' Cowgill?" the black cook inquired, with a gentle patronage, as she might have spoken to a child.

"I guess I can make out till supper, Rachel." But unwillingly, his tone implied, and with hardship and repression of desire.

Rachel forked the biggest leg she could find, a doublejointed one, the way they cut them in Kansas in those days of generosity and plenty. Myron accepted it with an engaging network of wrinkles growing in his tough brown face around the eyes, and with a little laugh that was soundless, but expressive of the humor that kindled in him with the thought of beating his wife through the bountiful hand of her cook.