“That'll do you, sport,” was Billy's retort. “You can't talk that way to yours truly. I got your number an' your tag, my son. You're standin' on your foot. Back up the grade an' get off of it. Stop on the outside at the first psssin'-place an' we'll pass you. You've got the juice. Throw on the reverse.”
After a nervous consultation, the chauffeur obeyed, and the car backed up the hill and out of sight around the turn.
“Them cheap skates,” Billy sneered to Saxon, “with a couple of gallons of gasoline an' the price of a machine a-thinkin' they own the roads your folks an' my folks made.”
“Talkin' all night about it?” came the chauffeur's voice from around the bend. “Get a move on. You can pass.”
“Get off your foot,” Billy retorted contemptuously. “I'm a-comin' when I'm ready to come, an' if you ain't given room enough I'll go clean over you an' your load of chicken meat.”
He slightly slacked the reins on the restless, head-tossing animals, and without need of chirrup they took the weight of the light vehicle and passed up the hill and apprehensively on the inside of the purring machine.
“Where was we?” Billy queried, as the clear road showed in front. “Yep, take my boss. Why should he own two hundred horses, an' women, an' the rest, an' you an' me own nothin'?”
“You own your silk, Billy,” she said softly.
“An' you yours. Yet we sell it to 'em like it was cloth across the counter at so much a yard. I guess you're hep to what a few more years in the laundry'll do to you. Take me. I'm sellin' my silk slow every day I work. See that little finger?” He shifted the reins to one hand for a moment and held up the free hand for inspection. “I can't straighten it like the others, an' it's growin'. I never put it out fightin'. The teamin's done it. That's silk gone across the counter, that's all. Ever see a old four-horse teamster's hands? They look like claws they're that crippled an' twisted.”
“Things weren't like that in the old days when our folks crossed the plains,” she answered. “They might a-got their fingers twisted, but they owned the best goin' in the way of horses and such.”