The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1906-08-21

oOiAEO AMI L<ACGI11ADs
wore rough clothes. which showed he
want afraid to work and never thought
about how he looked
80 when Jim Furness saw her from
a parlor car window one day and threw
his baggage off and lost his ticket just
through a crazy idea of winning her
Lois turned him down so quick that |
didn't have chance to say a word,
mad as l was. You know how Lois
is when she's stirred up like this. She
just looks and turns away, and there's
no need for her nor anybody else to say
a word.
'Well, with other folks that would
have ended it, but Jim he just turned
round and got job firing on local
engine that helped pull freight up our
side of the divide. You see, he seemed
to understand by instinct that Lois and
| believed in work and didn't care for
dressed up effect. But, pshaw You
know how it is with Jim. Put him on
the dirtiest job going and his hands
will stay white and soft like a girls,
and the toughest clothes ever was have
a way of hanging on him like they
were tailor made, and, as to his voice,
if you turned his engine end over and
down the mountain, when it got to the
bottom Jim's voice, if he had any left,
would be as soft and drawing as ever.
1--WE saw a good deal of Jim now, for,
with me as station agent and our liv-
ing rooms upstairs, Lois and I were
sort Of chums with everything on the
railroad Maybe that was what started
Jim to getting his job so quick and
having 1t so he could switch back and
forth in front of the station every few
hours and stay in our town over night.
railroad man would be a sort of rec
ommendation.
But if so it didn't seem to help him
much There were big, strapping engi.
neers on the road who had done things,
risked life and looked square at death
without winking, and. there were con
ductors and section bosses and one To-
cal superintendent and a passenger
agent who liked Lois and who would
have been glad for her to have liked
them, and nearly all had done things
You see, our section right along here is
a tough piece of road, and all the en-
ployees who have been on it a few years
and are noe killed have stories to tell.
Now but Lois hates personal talk
that touches on brag, so it doesn't mat
ter.
But, as I was saying, pretty much
the whole road liked Lois, and Lois.
she liked the whole road as a whole,
but wouldn't single out any one in par
ticular. And, as for Jim, she scorned
him openly, and he knew it.
Now, l didn't like Jim myself, so of
course L couldn't feel the pity for him
that l would for anybody else. But,
pshaw! If he felt it he never showed
by any signs. He just came and took
his scorn and joked and laughed and
made US laugh ana then came back for
more scorn the very next time his en-
CINE pulled in. Now, l ask candidly
what can you do with a fellow like
that? The others laughed at him, and
he laughed with them Then after a
while some of the more rough ones,
thinking him soft and good natured and
without backbone, went little too far,
and his white fingers closed together
like steel springs, and more than one
Of them had to lay of for repairs. But
jim didn't seem to hold any grudges.
He laughed and talked to those who
treated him the worst until they had
to laugh and talk back, and thea the
first anybody knew they were all the
best of friends.
But the strangest part, of course,
was about Lois. Jim never did sin
gle brave thing so far as l know, risk
his life in saving.a train of passengers
or anything like that. and he spent
lot Of money in helping people in one
than his salary could possibly amount
toand either of these things was
enough to keep Lois scornful. She had
no use at all for a man unless he was
brave and no use for one who wasn't
absolutely honest, and of course spend
ing more than one earned would seem
70 have only one meaning.
However. Jim kept right on in his
Guiet, good natured way until he had
made the railroad men his friends, and
even Lois and l began to look forward
to his spending an evening, things
went off 50 swinging and pleasant-like.
NO, l don't know as he ever did
ask me in so many words for my con-
sent or even if he asked Lois 1t all
came about as il twas made TO be so,
minister and al. and it want until
after they were married and gone to
his home that we found out he was
one of the biggest owners of the rail
road. with more money than he could
throw away That first time be saw
Lois he was just from college and
gone into partnership with his father
and was taking an observation trip
over their road
His father like it? Seemed SO. Any
way he's never said or looked a word
| against it when I've been there, and
he's just as proud of Lois as Jim him
self. And Lois, why, up there the
city is just full of society queens, as
they call them, and Lois leads the
whole lot-takes to it naturally. they