Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/84

 "It looks good to me," Dr. Hall declared. "I think I'd like to sit in with them myself."

"They ain't got 'specially good table manners, I'm afraid," Mrs. Charles said doubtfully.

Annie lifted her head from bending over a bucket of jelly and laughed shrilly, stretching her mouth wide. Mary looked at her with comical surprise, a grin twitching the corners of her lips, then burst out in wild hilarity. They subsided with as startling suddenness as they had begun, bending over the jelly pails again, faces as red as the synthetic dessert which they were ladling out for the jerries' supper, with knowing glances passing between them, suppressed laughter breaking out of their merry mouths in sputters.

"Oh, you girls!" Mrs. Charles chided them, a little vexed by their unseemly behavior.

Dr. Hall could not forbear a broad grin along with the merry girls, wondering at the same time what pictures of uncouth feeding their mother's words had raised in their appreciative vision. Mrs. Charles led on, passing from the dining-car into the one ahead, connected by a similar vestibule.

"This is my commissary car," she explained, waving her hand toward a stock of such simple necessities as the jerries demanded from time to time, from overalls, jumpers and shoes, to peanuts, chewing gum and tobacco. A counter cut the stock off from the rest of the car, where there were chairs, and a number of books on a shelf.

It was a sort of gathering place for the jerries on winter nights, Mrs. Charles said. Here they smoked and read, such of them as were able and cared to put in the time