Bye and bye the youth took the empty seat by the side of the girl, and endeavored to draw her into conversation to the exclusion of the motorman. She responded, twisting her body and face towards him, so that her sweet and ingratiating smiles could not be seen by the motorman. Then, she reversed the process and gave a few fleeting smiles to the grim-looking motorman. It was as clear a case of How happy could I be with either, Were t'other dear charmer away,
as one could well see.
Just then the car came to a transfer point. The girl had a transfer and left, smiling sweetly, but separately, in turn, to the motorman and her young Italian friend. The latter watched her go. Then a new look came over his face, which I wondered at. It was soon explained. The transfer point was also a division point for this car. The motorman and conductor were changed, and the moment the new crew came, our motorman jumped from his own car, ran to the one the brunette had taken, and swung himself on, as it crossed at right angles over the track we were to take. Rising to his feet the youth watched the passing car, with keenest interest until it was out of sight, clearly revealing the jealousy, worry, and unrest he felt.
In another chapter I have dealt more fully with the subject of the worries of jealousy. They are demons of unrest and distress, destroying the very vitals with their incessant gnawing.
Too great emphasis cannot be placed upon the physical ills that come from worry. The body unconsciously reflects our mental states. A fretful and worrying mother should never be allowed to suckle her child, for she directly injures it by the poison secreted in her milk by the disturbances caused in her body by the worry of her mind. Among the many wonderfully good things said in his lifetime Henry Ward Beecher never said a wiser and truer thing than that "it is not the revolution which destroys the machinery, but the friction." Worry is the friction that shatters the machine. Work, to the healthy body and serene mind, is a joy, a blessing, a health-giving exercise, but to the worried is a burden, a curse and a destroyer.
Go where you will, when you will, how you will, and you will find most people worrying to a greater or lesser extent. Indeed so full has our Western world become of worry that a harsh and complaining note is far more prevalent than we are willing to believe, which is expressed in a rude motto to be found hung on many an office, bedroom, library, study, and laboratory wall which reads:
Life is one Damn Thing after Another
Those gifted with a sense of humor laugh at the motto; the very serious frown at it and reprobate its apparent profanity, those who see no humor in anything regard it with gloom, the careless with assumed indifference, but in the minds of all, more or less latent or subconscious, there is a recognition that there is "an awful lot of truth in it."
Hence it will be seen that worry is by no means confined to the poor. The well-to-do, the prosperous, and the rich, indeed, have far more to worry about than the poor, and for one victim who suffers keenly from worry among the poor, ten can be found among the rich who are its abject victims.
