Page:George Collins - A Strange Railroad Wreck.pdf/31

This page has been validated.
A STRANGE RAILROAD WRECK
17

and won the confession that she "liked him a little better than she had ever liked any one before." But when she attempted to "pump" Joe Fleming along the same line, she met his usual quiet smile, but there was no flush nor sign of confusion to indicate a tender feeling, when Miss Morris' name was mentioned. The questioner had something of the match-making tendency in her nature, and was disappointed at the coolness with which the handsome railroader spoke of her girl chum. There was something about the young man which puzzled her very much; so much that she frequently found herself looking intently at him and wondering why he seemed so different from any man she had ever known, what there was about him that had won the confidence and trust of her mother and self in a few weeks?

********

"Did you hear that I am to work on the M————— Division, Ethel?" asked Mercedes Morris a few weeks later.

"Why, no; why do you leave the Postal Company?"

"Higher salary, and a vacation each year under pay. Employees also get transportation to go away during vacation."

"But think of the long hours, dear, and, oh, the awful responsibilities telegraphers have on a railroad!"

"Yes, I have thought of all that, but Mr. Fleming