Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/83

 end of the car. Everything was orderly and convenient for speedy service.

"The girls wash the dishes and do what waitin' table we do, and that ain't much outside of spillin' 'em a cup of coffee when they want it. We set things on and let 'em pass the dishes. The men have to tidy up their own bunks and cars—I never let my girls set foot in the bunk-cars up ahead."

The dining-room, a furniture car of extraordinary length, was connected to the kitchen by a covered passage, or vestibule, which was removed, Mrs. Charles explained, when the train was shifted from place to place. Here Mary and Annie were at work at a long plank table, upon which the plates and cutlery were spread without a cloth.

The girls were standing big stacks of bread at convenient spearing distance apart, stationing at regular intervals between them bowls of bright-red jelly, which they dipped from wooden firkins bearing ornate—and deceptive—pictures of luscious fruit. They worked with the precision, coördination and speed of practiced artisans setting a stage.

"We can set in seventy men at this table," Mrs. Charles explained. "If we have any more we have to set second table, but that don't happen unless we have a bridge-gang, or a surveyin'-gang, or something like that, temporary. We don't show much style, we've got work enough without that, but there's not a railroad man, high or low, on this division that wouldn't wait till second table any time rather than go to the hotel. I've got the name of givin' 'em good chuck, believe it or not from the looks of things."