1. For the purpose of preserving any ditch, drain, dike, levee or other work constructed or erected under the provisions of sections 242.010 to 242.690, the board of supervisors shall have power to appoint an overseer or overseers of the district, who shall hold their positions at the will of the board.

2. It shall be the duty of such overseer or overseers to keep the ditches, drains, levees, dikes and other works of the district in good repair, and remove all obstructions from ditches, drains or watercourses within or without said district that may affect the works of the district. It shall be the further duty of said appointees to report at such times as the board may require the condition of the levees, drains and other works of the district assigned to each by the board; to make such examinations of all levees during high water periods as he may be directed by the board of supervisors; and upon any emergency or danger to levees or other works of the district, of which the overseer has charge, he may call out all able-bodied men over sixteen years of age and under fifty years within the district, and compel such persons to perform such work as said overseer may deem necessary to be made in order to protect the levees, grades or other works of the district.

3. Any person who shall refuse to perform such work assigned to him by said overseer shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and upon affidavit made before any associate circuit judge of the county by the overseer or any other person, that the offender has defaulted in obeying such call or summons of said overseer, said associate circuit judge shall issue a warrant for the arrest of such offender, and upon conviction before said associate circuit judge, upon information or any other modes provided by law for trials of cases of misdemeanor, he shall be fined in any sum not less than twenty nor more than one hundred dollars, or imprisonment in the county jail not less than fifteen nor more than sixty days, or both such fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the associate circuit judge. For each day’s work any person shall perform under such requisition, he shall be paid the sum of one dollar and fifty cents out of the funds of the district.