Part 6 (1/2)
”See here, Jim, them boys of yours can go along helping Mrs. Jones while you're here; but of course, if they were at work on the ca.n.a.l, they would have their own quarters along with the other coloured men. Pity you're not staying. Where do you go after New York?”
It was a leading question, and Jim explained his position frankly.
”I don't complain,” he said, ”but we certainly have had our share of ill fortune. First Father lost his money, then his life. Afterwards my brother went off his head with fever, and was lost in the forest way down there below Colon. I've got to find work other than diving.”
”You've done a bit of that, then?” asked Phineas.
Jim nodded. ”A lot,” he said. ”But I'm not really skilled.”
”You've handled tools and machinery?”
”Many a time; Father made me learn from the very beginning.”
”See here!” cried Phineas suddenly; ”you're after a job, and look to earn dollars. Well, there are dollars to earn here for a good man. Try a spell on the ca.n.a.l works. We've vacancies almost all the while, for men get tired of the job, while others fall sick. Then there's every sort of work, to suit the knowledge of everyone. Of course white men have the pick. They're skilled men, and naturally enough they get posts of responsibility. Some drive steam navvies, others rock drills, while some are powder men, and place the charges which we fire every night after five. At the locks there's pile driving and concrete laying, with white men to run the engines or supervise. As to diving--well, there may be some of that, but it's the land we're chiefly engaged with.”
The temptation to accept the proposal right off was strong, and Jim found it difficult to keep from answering. Then he suddenly asked a question.
”There's my sister,” he said. ”I suppose Tom and the others could easily get work, and so stay here; but this place hasn't the best of reputations for health. I must look after her.”
”And she'll be as well looked after here as anywhere,” said Phineas eagerly. ”We're high up out of the valley, the house has lately been built, while that yarn about the health of the isthmus is old history.
We've changed all that. An American army surgeon, with others to help him, discovered that yellow fever was given by a particular form of mosquito. Well, he set to work to find where that mosquito lived and bred. Then he formed a sanitary corps, drainage was looked to, scrub cut down, windows barred by copper gauze. And we've fixed that mosquito.
Yellow fever is now unheard of on the isthmus, while there's very little malarial fever. The ca.n.a.l zone, particularly in these high parts, is as healthy as New York. Come now.”
”I agree to stop if she cares to do so,” cried Jim suddenly, for there was an eagerness about the man before him which captivated him. It was clear, in fact, that Phineas was anxious that Jim should stay; and since he promised work, and stated that no harm could come to Sadie from residence there, why, if matters could be arranged, Jim made up his mind he would stay. Perhaps here he would find the means to cut the first steps in that flight which was to lead to a revival of his fortunes.
”Then here's a plan,” said Phineas. ”I'm real glad you'll stay on here, for I want a companion. I lost my wife five years ago, and by rights should be living way over there in one of the hotels the American Government has built for its employees. But I chose to have a house alone, and at times it's lonesome. You'll stay along with me, and Sadie'll have Mrs. Jones to look after her. There's a Government school a quarter of a mile away, with plenty of boys and girls going. As for the darkies and the Chinaman, I can't promise anything at present.
Depends on the work they have to do; but I've an idea I could make that fellow Tom extra useful.”
Exactly what was in the mind of this American official Jim could not guess. He went to bed that night with a feeling of exultation to which he had been a stranger for a long while, for Sadie had taken to Mrs.
Jones, and was delighted at the thought of remaining.
”Why trouble to go along to New York?” she asked him, in her wise little way, when he asked her what she would like. ”This place is glorious. The view from the house is really magnificent, and there's no loneliness anywhere. Look at the works going on, with thousands of men. Then Mrs.
Jones tells me that there are a number of boys and girls, so that I am sure to have companions. You can earn good wages here, Jim, and perhaps rise to a position of responsibility.”
”Rise! that I will!” our hero told himself, for he was bubbling over with enthusiasm. ”I've myself alone to look to, and I'll work and make those in authority over me see that I'm trustworthy. I'll show 'em I'm not a skulker. Wonder what job I'll get?”
It was at an early hour on the following morning that he was up and out, only to find Phineas abroad before him.
”That you, youngster?” he sang out cheerily, seeing Jim. ”I've been down to the office of the Commission doctor, who's fixed this arm for me. The man who saw to it aboard the s.h.i.+p that brought us in hadn't too much time, for there were others who'd been injured by some of those Spaniards who'd been fighting. In consequence I had a bit of pain last night; but I'm easy now. Let's get some breakfast, then you and I'll be off.”
An hour later found the two down at the point where the dirt trains were already dumping their contents, and just where the huge Gatun dam was to be erected, so, standing on an eminence, Jim was able, with the help of his friend, to follow in a logical manner the plans of the American engineers. For he could look into the long, winding hollow along which at that moment flowed the tributaries of the Chagres River.
”It's just as clear as daylight,” said Phineas, his face aglow, for anything to do with the Panama Ca.n.a.l warmed him, so great was his enthusiasm. ”Away there below us, where you see two rivers coming together to form what is known as the Chagres River, you may take it that the level of the land is just a trifle above that of the sea, and of course the water on this isthmus has found the lowest level possible.
It could not get away to the east because of the hill, and west here, where we are, there's another. So that water just flows out between them, the hills themselves forming, as it were, the neck of a bottle.
Well, we're just putting a cork into that neck. We're erecting a dam across the valley between these two hills which will be 7700 feet in length, measured across the top, while its base measurement will be 2060 feet.”
”Enormous!” exclaimed Jim. ”But surely such a tremendous ma.s.s is hardly necessary?”