The Landloper: The Romance of a Man on Foot
brought her away, just the same. I--I woke up--or something. I have
been awake all night--I have been thinking--I had nothing else to do.
Insomnia has made me insane--one night of it!” He laughed when the old
man blinked at him. “I'm so crazy that I want you to help me find some
good woman who will take this child to board in a comfortable home.”
“Who'll pay?”
“I'll pay. Oh, I am completely crazy--I'm going to work--earn money to
pay her board.”
“I know a good woman near by--she have leetle house, cat, plant in
window.”
“That's the kind.”
“I will tell you where she live. You shall say you come from Etienne
Provancher and it will make you good for her.” He paused, raised a brown
finger, then went on. “But you shall not know where she live onless
I may pay half the board money for the poor little one. We have been
togedder in it--I tell some lie to the coroner--we must be togedder in
help the childs.”
There was firm resolve in old Etienne's face and tones.
“Partnership it shall be, my old boy,” agreed the young man, heartily.
“I'm no pig--I won't keep a good man out of a real picnic.” He rose and
swept the child into his arms. “Give me the address and hand her over
the fence to me. I'll have to quit being nurse and find a real job.
By the way, Etienne, I heard a fat man weeping yesterday because he
couldn't get men to dig dirt for the Consolidated Water Company. He
seemed to take a great fancy to me. Where's their office?”
He received both the information and the child after he had climbed the
fence. Etienne was able to point out the little house of sanctuary from
where he stood--and he waved his rake reassuringly from a distance when
the good woman came to the door, answering Farr's knock. He danced
into the house with the child, behind the good woman, who had answered
Etienne's signal with a return flip of her apron; he was trying to bring
a smile to the little face.
“You'll have to lie to her more or less about her mother, good woman.
Etienne and I will tell you all about it when there's time. When she
asks about her mother just give her something to eat and lie a bit.”
He set the child upon the table where the good woman was making fresh
cookies. He piled the little toys about her. “I'm going to market, to
market to buy a fat pig, and I'll be home again, riggy-jig-jig,” he
declared in a singsong that fetched a chuckle from the waif, and she
followed him with a smile as he hurried out. “That smile will sweeten
a day's work in the trench,” he assured himself. “I sure am some
foster-father when I get started!”
A listless clerk at the Consolidated office gave him a ticket to be
delivered to the foreman of construction--the foreman sent him out with
other men on a rattling jigger-wagon. By being very humble, and with the
aid of his smile, he succeeded in begging a corned-beef sandwich for
his breakfast from a workman on the jigger who was carrying his lunch to
work. He ate it very slowly so as to make the most of it.
The new trench was in a suburban plot which had just been opened up by a
real-estate syndicate. It was a bare tract, flat and dusty, and the
only trees were newly planted saplings that were about as large as
fishing-poles. How the sun did beat into that trench! But Walker Farr
threw off his coat and used again his ready asset--his smile. He smiled
at the boss who sneered at the style of “fiddler's hair” worn by a
dirt-flinger--smiled so sweetly that the boss came over later and hit
him a friendly clap on the shoulder and said, “Well, old scout, here's
hoping that times will be better!”
“I'll take her out on the bank of the canal this evening before bedtime
and we'll have a lark,” reflected Walker Farr as he toiled in the hot
trench. And he stopped quizzing himself as to the whys of this sudden
devotion to a freakish notion. He seemed to know at last.
IX
THE GIRL FROM TADOUSAC
When the noon hour came Farr went and sat under a spindling tree and
began to read in one of his little books, dismissing thoughts of hunger
with the resoluteness of a man who had suffered hollow yearning of the
stomach and knew how to conquer it.
But he could not escape the keen eyes and kindly generosity of the
fraternity of toilers.
“A topper down on his luck a bit--see his clothes,” said the foreman,
and he took tithes from willing men who were eating from pails that were
pinched between their knees; he carried the food to the young man.
Farr accepted with gratitude, ate with thrifty moderation, and hid what
remained in the pockets of his coat; it would serve for his supper.
He ate that supper after his day's work was done and after he had laved
his face and hands in the overflow from a public fountain in a little
square.
Then he hurried to the house of the good woman.
She was busy with her dishes in the kitchen and Rosemarie was on the
knees of a young woman who sat and rocked in one of the sitting-room
chairs.
Farr entered by the kitchen door and stood there, looking in with some
confusion on the girl and child.
“It is only Zelie Dionne; she is my boarder,” the woman informed him.
“She is a good girl and she has the very nice job in the cloth-hall of
the big Haxton mill. She lives with me because I was neighbor of her
good folks in the Tadousac country, so far away from here in our Canada.
Come! I make you acquaint. You shall see. She is a good girl!”
Zelie Dionne rose and acknowledged the introduction with a French girl's
pretty grace. A bit of a flush lighted the dusky pallor of her cheeks
when Farr bent before her. The bow in her hair was cocked with true
Gallic chic and her gown was crisply smart in its simplicity. Her big,
dark eyes were the wonderful feature of her face, and Farr looked into
them and seemed to lose a bit of his cool self-possession; he faltered
in speech, groping for words in the first commonplaces.
“You must talk together. I must work,” said the good woman. She hurried
back into her kitchen.
The child ran to Farr and climbed upon his knees.
“You have been good to Rosemarie. I thank you,” he said. “I suppose the
good woman has told you how it has happened.”
“Yes, when I came at noon.” Her tones were peculiarly sweet and
compassionate. A touch of accent gave piquancy to what she said. She
looked at him meaningly. “I have been talking to our little Rosemarie
and she will not cry any more for her good mamma who has gone up to
the green hills because she is sick and must rest. So Rosemarie will be
patient and live here and I will be play-mamma.”
“Yes, play-mamma,” agreed the child. “Good play-mamma! Two mammas! But
only one papa!” She put up her arms and tucked them about his neck
and snuggled down with a happy sense of complete understanding of his
protection. At last, so it seemed to her, she had recovered the father
she had never known. Poor, little, caged bird, her release from that
lonely prison was dated in her happy consciousness from his appearance
in the doorway, and all things had been well for her after he
came--sunlight, the trees, the blue sky, and tender care, and the
companionship of human beings. Therefore, the rush of a love her child's
comprehension could not analyze had gone out to him.
Farr returned with significance the look Zelie Dionne's dark eyes gave
him.
“I found the note. It made me go a-meddling. It left a legacy to
somebody--and I accepted--without understanding why I did so.” He
stroked the child's curls.
“I did not understand at first--when Madame Maillet told me,” she
confessed, with a smile. “Old Etienne came at noon to tell her and she
has told it to me. It is very sad--but yet it is comical when I look at
you. But as I look at you I understand better. You have a good heart. I
can see!”
“I am only a strolling stranger--here to-day and there to-morrow,”
protested Farr. “I think the heat must have affected my head. It has
been very warm lately. But when I saw her--” He choked suddenly.
“Oh, it is easy to understand,” said the girl, reassuringly. A mist
of tears came across her big eyes, though her mouth did not lose the
wistful smile. “The poor folks help one another--and they understand.”
“It wouldn't be right to give her to an orphanage,” insisted Farr. “She
has missed too much already. Of course I don't pretend to know what a
little girl needs--but I am willing to be told.”
“I will tell you and I will help.”
“I think old Etienne and I need you in the partnership--as adviser. I
thank you.”
Then came the old Canadian, his wrinkled face tender with solicitous
interest, and he chuckled when he welcomed the new member of the firm.
“Ah, Mam'selle Zelie she shall help us the very much in what we do not
know,” he informed the young man, and continued, while the dark eyes
flashed protest: “I am of the Tadousac country, and she is a good girl,
for I have know her all the years since I trot her on my knee when she
much small as the petite Rosemarie. I can tell you how she dance down
the meadows in the ring-a-rosy play and how she--”
“Phut! Your tongue is as long as your rake and it goes reaching
down into other folks' affairs, old Etienne! What cares this strange
gentleman for what happened in Tadousac? Go use your key instead of your
tongue. Unlock your little door so that Rosemarie may walk on the cool
grass beside the canal.”
The old man grinned and started away.
“We're going out where the birds will sing good night to you,” Farr told
the child and lifted her off his knees. But at the door she stopped and
turned to Zelie Dionne, who had not risen.
“Come, play-mamma!”
“I will wait here till you come back, Rosemarie.”
But the child was coaxingly insistent, holding out her hand.
“I think it is because she has been so lonely all her life,” suggested
Farr. “Now that she has found friends she wants them to be with her
in her little pleasures. May I presume enough to add my invitation to
hers?”
She came and the child walked between them, holding their hands.
“One papa and my play-mamma!” she said, looking up at them in turn.
Mother Maillet came to the kitchen door and waved adieu with her
dish-towel.
“Ah, the family!” she cried. “Yesterday it was not--to-day it is. And
grandpere marching off ahead!”
“Old folks and children--they say embarrassing things,” remarked Farr
when they were on their way.
“One must be silly along with them to be disturbed by such chatter,”
said Zelie Dionne, tartly.
They followed old Etienne through his little door and walked along the
canal bank where the waters were still and glassy, for the big gates
had been closed and power lay motionless and locked in the sullen depths
till morning. The sunset behind the big mills glowed redly through the
myriad windows.
They walked slowly because little Rosemarie found marvels for childish
eyes at every step, and even the cool carpet of the grass provided
unfailing delight as she set slow and cautious footsteps into its
yielding luxuriance. The old man plodded ahead, muttering and frowning
as he peered down at the flotsam in the motionless waters.
The silence between the two who accompanied the child continued a long
time and Farr found it oppressive.
“I have never been in Canada,” he said. “I am sorry you did not care to
have Etienne talk about your home. I would like to know more about that
country.”
“He was talking about me instead of my home in Tadousac. I am not so
important that I am to be talked about.”
“Where is Tadousac?”
Her vivacity returned, her dark eyes glowed. “Ah, m'sieu', you should go
there. It is in the country of the good habitants where the St. Lawrence
and the Saguenay meet. And now, as the sun is setting, the people are
resting under the wide eaves of the little white houses, looking up