Ford, if he had tried to put his
gloomy unrest into words, would have transposed his trouble and would
have mistaken effect for cause. In other words, he would have ignored
Josephine and Dick entirely, and would have said that he wanted
whisky--and wanted it as the damned are said to want water.
CHAPTER XII
At Hand-Grips with the Demon
Mose was mad. He was flinging tinware about the kitchen with a fine
disregard of the din or the dents, and whenever the blue cat ventured
out from under the stove, he kicked at it viciously. He was mad at Ford;
and when a man gets mad at his foreman--without knowing that the foreman
has been instructed to bear with his faults and keep him on the pay-roll
at any price--he must, if he be the cook, have recourse to kicking cats
and banging dishes about, since he dare not kick the foreman. For in
late November "jobs" are not at all plentiful in the range land, and
even an angry cook must keep his job or face the world-old economic
problem of food, clothing, and shelter.
But if he dared not speak his mind plainly to Ford, he was not averse to
pouring his woes into the first sympathetic ear that came his way.
Pages:
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165