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Years afterward the reviewers always talked of Mizzi’s walk. They called it her superb carriage. They didn’t know that you have to walk very straight, on the balls of your feet, with your hips firm, your stomach held in flat, your shoulders back, your chest out, your chin out and a little down, if you are going to be at all successful in balancing a pail of mortar on your head. After a while that walk becomes a habit.

“Watch her with that pail,” said Wallie.

Mizzi filled the pail almost to the top with the heavy white mixture. She filled it quickly, expertly. The pail, filled, weighed between seventeen and twenty kilos. One kilo is equal to about two and one fifth pounds. The girl threw down her scoop, stooped, grasped the pail by its two handles, and with one superb, unbroken motion raised the pail high in her two strong arms and placed it on her head. Then she breathed deeply, once, set her whole figure, turned stiffly, and was off with it. Sid Hahn took on a long breath as though he himself had just accomplished the gymnastic feat.

“Well, so far it’s pretty good. But I don’t know that the American stage is clamouring for any hod carriers and mortar mixers, exactly.”

A whistle blew. Twelve o’clock. Bricks, mortar, scoops, shovels were abandoned. The women, in their great clod-hopping shoes, flew chattering to the tiny hut where their lunch boxes were stored. The men followed more slowly, a mere handful of them. Not one of them wore overalls or apron. Out again with their bundles and boxes of food–very small bundles. Very tiny boxes. They ate ravenously the bread and sausage and drank their beer in great gulps. Fifteen minutes after the whistle had blown the last crumb had vanished.

“Now, then,” said Wallie, and guided Hahn nearer. He looked toward Mizzi. Everyone looked toward her. Mizzi stood up, brushing crumbs from her lap. She had a little four-cornered black shawl, folded cross-wise, over her head and tied under her chin. Her face was round and her cheeks red. The shawl, framing this, made her look very young and cherubic.

She did not put her hands on her hips, or do any of those story-book things. She grinned, broadly, showing strong white teeth made strong and white through much munching of coarse black bread; not yet showing the neglect common to her class. She asked a question in a loud, clear voice.

“What’s that?” asked Hahn.

“She’s talking a kind of hunky Hungarian, I guess. The people here won’t speak German, did you know that? They hate it.”

The crowd shouted back with one voice. They settled themselves comfortably, sitting or standing. Their faces held the broad smile of anticipation.

“She asked them what they want her to sing. They told her. It’s the same every day.”

Mizzi Markis stood there before them in the mud, and clay, and straw of the building debris. And she sang for them a Hungarian popular song of the day which, translated, sounds idiotic and which runs something like this:

A hundred geese in a row
Going into the coop.
At the head of the procession
A stick over his shoulder–

No, you can’t do it. It means less than nothing that way, and certainly would not warrant the shrieks of mirth that came from the audience gathered round the girl. Still, when you recall the words of “A Hot Time”:

When you hear dem bells go ding-ling-ling,
All join round and sweetly you must sing
And when the words am through in the chorus all join in
There’ll be a hot time
In the old town
To-night.
My
Ba-
By.

And yet it swept this continent, and Europe, and in Japan they still think it’s our national anthem.

When she had finished, the crowd gave a roar of delight, and clapped their hands, and stamped their feet, and shouted. She had no unusual beauty. Her voice was untrained though possessed of strength and flexibility. It wasn’t what she had sung, surely. You heard the song in a hundred cafes. Every street boy whistled it. It wasn’t that expressive pair of shoulders, exactly. It wasn’t a certain soothing tonal quality that made you forget all the things you’d been trying not to remember.