"You were long enough answering
my knock. You've all got to leave here! How many of you are there?"
"Ten," answered Jeff, and he looked over the mantel shelf to see if the
officer noticed the China Cat.
But the policeman had something else to do just then. He and others had
been sent to the tenement district, near the rising river, to rouse and
save the poor people from the flood.
"Ten, eh?" cried the policeman. "That's quite a family. Well, don't stop
to put on more than a few clothes. There isn't any time to save things.
The river will be pouring in here soon."
"Some of it's heah already," remarked Jeff, as he saw the water on the
floor.
"Lively now!" called the policeman again. "Here, let me take some of
those," he said, as Jeff's father came out of a bedroom carrying in his
arms two sleepy little colored girls.
The policeman wore a big rubber raincoat, which was dripping wet, and in
the gleam of a light, which Jeff's father made, the wet rubber coat
glistened brightly.
The policeman took the two little sisters of Jeff, and tucked them under
his rubber coat. They were too sleepy to cry, having just been lifted
from bed.
"This will keep you dry," said the officer. "I'll put you in the wagon
and send you to the station house."
"Is yo'--is yo' gwine to 'rest 'em?" asked Jeff.
"Arrest 'em? No. What for?" asked the officer, with a smile, as he
splashed, with his rubber boots, into the puddle of water on the
tenement floor.
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