Babcock, with all his curiosity aroused, watched her for a moment, forgetting for the time his own anxieties. He liked a skilled hand, and he liked push and grit. This woman seemed to possess all three. He was amazed at the way in which she handled her men. He wished somebody as clearheaded and as capable were unloading his boat. He began to wonder who she might be. There was no mistaking her nationality. Slight as was her accent, her direct descent from the land of the shamrock and the shilla-lah was not to be doubted. The very tones of her voice seemed saturated with its national spirit—“a flower for you when you agree with me, and a broken head when you don't.” But underneath all these outward indications of dominant power and great physical strength he detected in the lines of the mouth and eyes a certain refinement of nature. There was, too, a fresh, rosy wholesomeness, a sweet cleanliness, about the woman. These, added to the noble lines of her figure, would have appealed to one as beauty, and only that had it not been that the firm mouth, well-set chin, and deep, penetrating glance of the eye overpowered all other impressions.
Babcock moved down beside her.
“Can you tell me, madam, where I can find Thomas Grogan?”
“Right in front of ye,” she answered, turning quickly, with a toss of her head like that of a great hound baffled in hunt. “I'm Tom Grogan. What can I do for ye?”
“Not Grogan the stevedore?” Babcock asked in astonishment.
“Yes, Grogan the stevedore. Come! Make it short,—what can I do for ye?”
“Then this must be my boat. I came down”—
“Ye're not the boss?”—looking him over slowly from his feet up, a good-natured smile irradiating her face, her eyes beaming, every tooth glistening. “There's me hand, I'm glad to see ye. I've worked for ye off and on for four years, and niver laid eyes on ye till this minute. Don't say a word. I know it. I've kept the concrete gangs back half a day, but I couldn't help it. I've had four horses down with the 'zooty, and two men laid up with dip'thery. The Big Gray Cully's drivin' over there—the one that's a-hoistin'—ain't fit to be out of the stables. If ye weren't behind in the work, he'd have two blankets on him this minute. But I'm here meself now, and I'll have her out to-night if I work till daylight. Here, cap'n, pull yerself together. This is the boss.”
Then catching sight of the boy turning a handspring behind the horse, she called out again:—
“Now, look here, Cully, none of your skylarkin'. There's the dinner whistle. Unhitch the Big Gray; he's as dry as a bone.”