Part 25

The dawn flushed early and she woke when the birds did, and found so much to interest her--ants who ran up and down the tree, funny bugs that tumbled, robins who bounced along the sward on stiff legs--that she did not ask for her mother nor seem to find at all strange the companionship of this tall man whose face was so kind.

And so Etienne Provancher found them when he came with his rake and pike-pole at six o'clock, the hour when the great turbines began to grunt and rumble in their deep pits.

“It is Rosemarie--I found her in the room,” said Walker Farr.

The old man came close and gazed down on the pallor and pathos of this little snipped who still stared at the new wonders of outdoors.

“Anodder one, hey? You found her lock up?”

“Yes, and I brought her away--and I don't know just what the matter is with me, Etienne. I have not been inclined to put myself out for anybody in this world--man, woman, or child--of late years. I had made up my mind to let the world run itself.”

“It is the way the rich man say--he do not care. But the poor man should care--he should try to help odder poor man. He should care.”

“Oh, there are things that can happen to make a man stop caring. But I 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.

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.