"Though Heaven alone can tell," grumbled the
friar, "what the Mississippi will do for its own amusement. All the able
slaves in Kaskaskia should be set to work on the levee before this day
is an hour older."
Carrying the hoe on his shoulder like any laborer, and drawing the hood
of his garment over his bald crown as the mist of rain increased to a
driving sheet, Father Baby tramped along the river edge toward an
unfinished defense against the waters. It was a high dike, beginning on
a shoulder of the peninsula above the town, but extending barely a mile
across a marsh where the river had once continuously raveled the shore
even in dry seasons. The friar was glad to discern a number of figures
at work carting earth to the most exposed and sunken spots of this dike.
The marsh inside the embankment was now a little lake, and some shouting
black boys were paddling about there in a canoe which had probably been
made during the leisure enforced by wet weather. It was a rough and
clumsy thing, but very strongly put together.
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