But Pen was not to be distracted. "What can I do, Jane? Must I just sit with folded hands while the rest of you work?"
"You do your share in supplying ideas, Penelope," said Jane.
Pen answered with a little sob, "I get tired of that job! I want to be on the firing line, just once!"
That night they consulted with Oscar. At first he was very hostile to the thought of either of them undertaking such work. Then in the midst of his tirade on woman's sphere, he stopped with a roar of laughter.
"And I'm a fine example of what a woman can do with a man when she gets busy! All right, Jane, go ahead. Hanged if I ain't proud of you! But Mrs. Pen is hurting the cause. The women folks won't stand for you, Mrs. Pen; you are too pretty."
So Pen withdrew from the campaign and Jane and Bill Evans went on alone.
When Oscar was not with Jim, he brought visitors to the dam. These visitors were farmers and business men from the entire Project. Ames was careful to time the visits, so that about the time he strolled up to the dam site with the callers, Jim would be on his tour of inspection. Oscar would then follow unostentatiously in Jim's wake, but close enough to get a good idea of the ground that Jim covered. Often he would make Jim stop and give an explanation of some point the visitors could not understand. Penelope, consumed with curiosity, joined the touring party one day.
"I wish you could see him in full action," Oscar was saying. "Like the day of the flood or the night Dad Robins was killed. He can handle fifteen hundred men better'n I handle my three. Now you watch him. Those there fellows he's joshing have been with him seven years. You ought to hear their stories about driving the tunnel up on the Makon. Say, he'd go right in with 'em. Never asked 'em to go somewhere he wouldn't go himself. They all laugh at us farmers, those rough-necks. Say, we don't know a real man when we see one."
The bronzed elderly man who was with Oscar listened intently. Oscar went on:
"The details on a place like this are enough to drive a man crazy. He dassent let 'em pour concrete without him or his cement expert is round. If the rocks aren't just right or the surface of the section isn't just right or they slip up a little on the mixture, the whole thing will go to thunder some day. He's got to spend ten million dollars with eighty million people watching him and all us farmers kicking every minute. How'd you like his job?"