Part 8 (2/2)

”Who's dat?” asked Jeff's mother from the bedroom where she was sleeping. ”Who's dat knockin' at de do'?”

Bang! Bang! Bang! came the sound again.

”Can that be thunder?” whispered the China Cat to the Cloth Dog.

”No, this isn't a thunderstorm,” answered the Dog. ”It is much worse than any thunderstorm I ever heard. There is going to be a bad time here, with a flood and everything.”

”Who's dat?” asked the voice of Jeff's mother again, as the pounding at the door sounded a second time.

”The police!” was the answer.

Jeff, who had been awakened, heard this answer. He covered his head with the clothes, and cowered down in the bed.

”Oh, mah good land!” thought Jeff when he heard this. ”De p'lice has done come to git me 'cause I took de China Cat! Oh, good land! I ain't so smart as I thought! Oh, dey's gwine 'rest me suah!”

But the police had not come to get Jeff. Once more the officer pounded with his club on the bas.e.m.e.nt door.

”Come there!” he cried. ”Get up and dress and skip out if you don't want to be drowned! The river is rising. It will flood all these bas.e.m.e.nt tenements! You'll have to clear out--all of you! Wake up and get out!

We'll help you! Open the door!”

”Oh, ma.s.sy me! A flood!” cried Jeff's mother. ”Does yo' heah dat, Rastus?” she called to her husband. ”Dere's a flood an' we's done got to run out! Git up an' open de do' an' I'll roust up de chilluns!”

”I'll open the do,' Ma,” said Jeff, slipping out of his bed, and as he swung the door open there stood a policeman.

”Come, boy; lively!” cried the officer. ”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.

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