Page:The Popular Magazine v72 n1 (1924-04-20).djvu/163

 “Come back, Jessica. Come back. You'll get left.”

“I'm already left. Make the porter hurry with my trunk.”

“Then I'll have to get off too.”

“Suit yourself,” she laughed.

“What shall I do?” The senator appealed to Colonel Clancy.

“Do something,” the officer replied. “Get off. Or stay aboard. Do it now.”

Rutherford couldn't leave the daughter of so important a constituent as Joshua K. Faison. He turned and went running through the cabin. Along the carpeted floor to stateroom No. 5, a presidential possibility left his trail of muddy tracks, grabbed a suit case, toilet articles, pajamas, trousers, and dry shoes. Rushing back with both arms full, he spilled socks and toothbrushes and razor strops; he stumbled down the stairway, and leaped onto the levee beside Jessica's trunk. There the steamer left him.

It never pays a presidential possibility to get riled. He is supposed to hold his temper under any and all circumstances. That's what makes him possible. One of his dry shoes dropped into the water. He fished it out with dignity and decorum. Then the girl laughed.

“Jessica,” he choked as he demanded, “what do you mean by such an infernal caper?”

From behind a grimy window of the shanty boat Elvira Huckens eyed the curious behavior of these city folks. It tickled Elvira to see how grittily that gal toted her own skillet, stood square up to the huffy man and told him in his teeth, “I'm going to stay here and see this thing through.”

Senator Rutherford had twice stampeded a national convention, yet for all his fiery eloquence poured upon her, he failed to budge Miss Faison.

“It's done now,” she said calmly. “Help me with this trunk.”

Help her with a trunk? Help her where? There was no taxi, no baggage wagon. With both arms full, Rutherford glared at the heavy trunk, glanced at the long hot levee, and mopped his face.

“Never mind!” Jessica snapped. “Don't trouble yourself. I'll get what I want, right here.”

Like a terrier scratching for rats the girl burrowed into her trunk, throwing out lingerie and fripperies behind her, until she dug up a pair of riding breeches, strong boots, and a shirt.

“There! That's all I need.” She had abandoned her rifled trunk and started toward the main levee, when Elvira's voice warned her from within the shanty boat:

“Better not leave sech a scatteration o' yo' things,” and Jessica recognized the same girl that she had noticed when their steamer first tied up.

“Thank you. They'll be safe,” she answered.

“Dunno.” Elvira appeared on deck, shaking her head. “Water riz nigh two foot yistiddy. By night it's liable to run plumb over the top o' this here levee.”

“Couldn't you let me throw my clothes on your boat?”

“Reckin so.”

In a jumble the city girl raked up her belongings, like armfuls of hay, and tossed them aboard the fisher craft, while Elvira's gingham figure moved down the gangplank to the levee.

“Mebbe you wants me to take keer o' yo' trunk?” she questioned.

“Oh! If you would! Thanks. And please let me go into your boat and change my clothes—please!”

“You're more'n welcome.”

The shanty boat's dingy interior reeked of fish and tar as Jessica bent low to enter. There she tossed her hat on a bunk, stepped out of her draggled skirt, then sat down and stripped off shoes and stockings.

“Would you care to have these clothes? And the hat?” she inquired sweetly. “I'm sorry they are so muddy.”

“I mought buy yo' hat,” Elvira considered the purchase. “But this here skirt's too all-fired skimpy. An' white stockings makes me feel too naked.”

After Jessica had made her change into a tan-colored shirt, riding breeches of Bedford cord, boots and belt, she stood erect before Elvira, the amazed and shocked Elvira.

“You ain't aimin' to wear them pants?” The fisher girl doubted her own bulging eyes,

“Certainly. Skirts get in my way.”

“They shows yo' legs scan'alous plain.”

“Oh! Do they? But those sacks must be filled, and I can't work in a dress.”

Before Miss Faison bounded away she snatched up a silver mirror from her trunk, and gave it to Elvira with such a smile of thanks that the fisher girl accepted both. Then Jessica, in breeches, went racing along