Page:The Popular Magazine v72 n1 (1924-04-20).djvu/161

 his face as he repeated: “Pick that up! Put it there!”

Before the presidential possibility realized it, he found himself in the picturesque attitude of placing a bag on the ring that circled the sand boil, while his friends burst into applause.

“One moment, senator. Hold your pose.” The Associated Press reporter chuckled as he snapped his camera. “There! 'Our Next President Saving a Levee.' That ought to catch the Southern delegates.”

Their hilarity rasped on Jessica until she turned away and joined two senators who went climbing upward to observe the method of filling sacks.

Thick as men could be jammed together on the barge, whites and negroes worked side by side, shoveling sand into bags that other men immediately snatched away. Every shoveler had his helper, except one tall, thin, white-haired old gentleman who kept trying to hold open his sack with one hand, while he fumbled at a shovel with the other, making such a mess that the irritated Jessica squirmed as she eyed his awkwardness. Like her competent father she detested inefficient people.

Sack bearers filed on and filed off in a never-ending procession. They jostled her and didn't apologize. Dry dust blew into her face; black mud spattered the whiteness of her shoes, and sweaty smells offended the universe. The sun roasted Jessica outside, and she boiled within, furious at Furlong. That puttering old chap kept spilling sand on the floor until she couldn't keep her hands

“Allow me.” Jessica spoke peremptorily and caught the sack. “I'll hold this bag myself.”

“Oh. Thank you. I am very grateful.”

The courtly voice surprised her; it was so gentle, so deliciously modulated by soft inflections of the Southern speech. His slender fingers were rubbed raw with blisters; gray hair dabbled about his forehead; yet he stuck to his job like a gamecock—and Jessica admired grit. She felt rebuked, and no child of Joshua K. Faison ever made halfway amends. Old Josh himself always went the whole hog, or none. So after holding his second bag to be filled, Jessica rose from her knees and said positively: “Now, it's my turn.”

“Oh, no, my dear—you cannot do this.”

“I can.”

“But,” he protested, “you are a lady, and you”

“And a long-distance swimmer, and a tennis champion. Just watch me qualify in this sack-filling tournament.”

Jessica always got what she wanted, and rarely wanted what she got. This time it was a long-handled shovel, with brawny blacks to set the pace.

“Queer,” the old gentleman looked up and mused aloud. “I have never seen you before. And surely I could not have forgotten.”

At his sincere tribute the girl laughed genuinely, resting on her shovel to confide: “We came on the commission steamer. I live in New York. I'm Jessica.”

“Jessica. Jessica.” He pronounced the syllables most exquisitely. “'In such a night did pretty Jessica' Yes, yes, dear, the name suits you well. And you live in New York? People are so kind. Every stranger helps us during the high water.”

“Where do you live?” She kept him talking, just to hear the stately music of his tones.

“At Brookfield House.” His withered finger pointed. “You can see the gable—behind those trees. I'm Mr. Brookfield. It's a comfortable old place, and if this levee breaks we will be washed away.”

“This levee isn't going to break. We won't let it.”

In her wrath at Furlong, Jessica felt that she must do something; and she'd found her job, got interested in the old man, and stuffed bag after bag like Christmas stockings. When people were fighting to hold their levees such incongruous things happened that nobody noticed the stranger girl in white, handling her shovel like a man. Her gloves, thrown aside, were trampled in the sand. With a midday sun glittering down upon the river, it was hot work. Whew! She passed a grimy hand across her face, and Mr. Brookfield smiled at the smudge.

“Never mind a little dirt,” he said. “My daughters are coming presently to bring coffee for these men. You shall go home with us to wash your face and have dinner. That is, if we get a chance. Everybody works at night to save a levee.”

“Then it's all night for us,” she answered sturdily. “We're no quitters.”

The city girl shoveled manfully, and was having a very chummy time with her an-