_ CHAPTER VIII. THE KEY TO A DOOR IN BLOCK TEN
Walker Farr gave the first policeman--a fat and sweltering individual--a piece of gruesome news and in return casually asked the location of Block Ten.
The policeman grudgingly growled the information over his shoulder while waiting for the station to answer the call from his box.
The young man, taking his time, found the place at last, one in an interminable row of tenement-houses, all identical in structure and squalor, bearing the mark of corporation niggardliness in their cheap lumber and stingy accommodations.
The hallway that Farr entered was narrow and stifling--stale odors of thousands of dead-and-gone boiled dinners mingled there, and a stairway with a greasy handrail invited him. The key bore a number. He hunted till he found a room, far up, flight after flight. Through open doors he saw here and there aged women or doddering old men who were guardians of dirty babes who tumbled about on the bare floors.
"Either too old to run a loom or too young to lug a bobbin," Farr informed himself; "that's why they aren't in the mill."
Old folks and babes stared at him without showing interest.
No one looked at him when he opened the door in which the key fitted.
He stepped in quickly and closed and locked the door behind him.
It was a little room and pitifully bare, and it was under the roof, and the ceiling slanted across it so sharply that the young man, tall above the average, was compelled to bow his head.
A little girl, a wraith of a child, pale with the pallor of a prisoner, hardly more than a toddler, sat on the floor and stared up at the intruder, frozen, silent, immobile with the sudden, paralyzing terror that grasps the frightened child. Pathetically poor little playthings were scattered about her: a doll fashioned from gingham and cotton-waste, makeshift dishes of pasteboard, a doll-carriage made from a broken flower-basket with spools for wheels. The man who entered saw all with one glance and understood that here in this bare room this child had been compelled to drag out the weary hours alone while the mother had toiled. Here now the child waited patiently for--for that water-soaked bundle, with the white, dead face, that lay on the canal bank waiting for the coroner.
And when he realized it and saw this and looked down on that lonely, patient, wistful little creature making the best shift she could with those pitiable playthings, something came up from that man's breast into his throat. He had not supposed he had any of it left in his soul--it was tender, agonizing, heartrending pity.
She still stared at him, terrorized. Probably she had never seen any face come in at that door except her mother's.
His pity must have given Walker Farr a hint of how to deal with this frightened child. He did not speak to her. He made no move toward her.
He smiled!
But it was not the smile he had given the fat plutocrat in the automobile, nor yet the jocular radiance he had displayed to old Etienne. It was such a smile as the man had never smiled before--and he realized it. He did not want to smile. He wanted to weep. But he brought that smile from tender depths in his soul--depths he had not known of before--and tears came with the smile.
Before that time the lines in his face had fitted the smile of the cynic, the grimace of banter, of irony and insolence. But the strange glory that now glowed upon his features came there after the mightiest effort he had ever made to control his feelings and his expression.
He smiled!
In that smile he soothed, he promised, he appealed. Then when he saw the tense expression of fear fade away he smiled more broadly--he provoked reply in kind. And slowly upon the child's face an answering smile began to dawn--little crinkles at the corners of the drooping mouth, little flickerings in the blue eyes, until at last the two beaming faces pledged--on the part of the man tender protection, on the part of the child unquestioning confidence.
But he said no word--he dared not trust his voice.
He went down on his knees cautiously, her smile welcoming him now.
He held out his hands. She hesitated a moment and then gave into them her chiefest possession--her rag doll. It was as if she had pledged her faith in him. He danced the doll upon his broad palm, and the child's eyes, dancing too, thanked him for the courtesy he was paying to her dearest friend.
But Walker Farr realized that something strange and disquieting in the case of a man who believed himself a cynic was stirring within him. That hostage of the doll was not sufficient to satisfy the sudden queer craving. The knowledge of the hopeless helplessness of that little girl throbbed through him. The memory of the spectacle of what he had left on the canal bank made the pathos of this little scene in the garret doubly poignant as he looked into the child's eyes. Never, in his memory, had he invited a child to come to him.
Now he put out his hand--and it trembled. She snuggled her warm little fist into his grasp. And then she scrambled up and came and nestled confidingly against him. She couldn't see his face then, and he allowed the tears of a strong man who is overcome before he has understood--who wonders at himself--he allowed those tears to streak his cheeks and did not wipe them away.
Walker Farr was too perturbed to soliloquize just then in his philosopher's style, but he did realize that some part of his altruism had come out of its trance.
And after he had knelt there on the floor for a time he rose and took the child in his arms and sat down in a creaky rocking-chair and crooned under his breath, and was astonished to find that she had gone sound asleep. He stared into the dusk that was gathering outside the dormer window and wondered what ailed him.
He had heard many feet thudding on the stairs below. The workers were returning. The beehive was filling. There were many voices, clatter of dishes, chatter of patois.
He wondered how well the woman Sirois was known in the house--whether she had relatives--how soon somebody would come and beat upon the door.
He wondered just what disposition was made of children left in this manner.
If the woman had relatives who were forced to take the child it meant more of this horrible tenement life. The child in his arms was pale and thin; her bones seemed as inconsiderable as a bird's.
He did not know much about children's homes, orphanages, institutions for the reception of the homeless, but it seemed to him that such a tiny, frail little girl would be very, very lonely in such a place.
The skies grew dark without. He was cramped because he had sat for hours in one position, fearing to waken her. But when he moved she did not waken--he did not understand how soundly childhood can sleep. He laid her on the foot of the narrow bed and looked about the room, shielding a match with his hands. He had resolved to carry her out of that fetid, overcrowded babel of a tenement. Where? He did not know. He hunted to find her belongings. He found a few clothes. There was no receptacle in which he could pack them. He folded them and crowded the articles in his pockets. He stuffed in the doll and the rude playthings and hooked the basket doll-carriage upon his arm. She did not waken when he picked her up. He tiptoed down the stairs and nobody noticed him, In his own dizzy mind he could not determine whether he felt most like a thief or a lunatic. At any rate, he found himself walking the streets of the mill city at ten o'clock at night, carrying a little girl in his arms and all her earthly possessions in his pockets.
It came over him at last that the longer he kept her the more uncertain he became as to what disposal he should make of her, or else he was more loath to part with her; he didn't exactly know which.
Then she woke and spoke for the first time. "Me is te'bble hungry--and firsty," she mourned.
"Good Lord! What's the matter with me?" grunted the young man. "If I had found a cat or a dog, the first thing I would have done would be to give 'em something to eat. I reckon I must have thought I had picked up an angel." To her he said, smoothing her hair with his free hand. "We'll have sumpin for baby's tummy mighty quick." He flushed at sound of that baby prattle from his lips. But it had popped out in the most natural manner possible.
He headed for the nearest night lunch-cart. He entered with his burden.
He elbowed aside men who were eating sandwiches and pie at the counter. With complete and rueful knowledge as to the extent of his resources, he ordered a bowl of bread and milk--"the best you can do for a hungry kiddie for ten cents," he added.
"Anything for yourself?" inquired the waiter.
He shook his head and paid for the child's supper with his whole capital, two nickels. He held her on the end of the counter and, awkwardly but with tender carefulness, fed the bread and milk to her with a spoon. A healthy man's hunger gnawed within him and the savor of coffee from the big, bubbling urn tantalized him. He tipped the bowl to her lips and she drank the last of the milk with a happy little sigh, and he went out into the night again, carrying her in his arms.
He understood all the suspicions that policemen entertain in the case of night prowlers, and knew that they would be particularly and meddlesomely interested in one who prowled with a child in his arms. The child began to whimper softly. Her interest in the stranger who had won her with a smile, her slumber in his arms, her feast in strange surroundings, had kept her child's mind busy and pacified till then. Now she voiced childhood's unvarying lament--"I wants my mamma!"
He soothed her as best he could, promising, giving her all manner of assurance regarding her mother, wondering all the time what was to be done. Why had he interfered? Why had he taken upon himself the custody of this mite, so trifling a weight in his arms, but now resting--a giant of a burden--on his responsibility? He did not know. He owned up to that ignorance frankly. But he walked on, carrying her, and put away from his thoughts the sensible alternative of placing her in the hands of those duly appointed to care for such cases.
He told himself that, as a stranger in the city, he would not be able to find a refuge--an institution that time of night--and he knew that he was lying to himself, and wondered why.
The impulse that directed his course toward the canal was rather grim, but he remembered the tree which had been sanctuary for him that day. He carefully lowered the little girl over the fence and climbed after her. And she did not call any more for her mother because this strange new scene seemed to impress her and fill her with wonderment. She stared up into the dim, mysterious, rustling foliage of the tree for a long time. She patted her hands upon the grass as if it were something she had never seen or felt before. She seemed to be making her first acquaintance with Mother Nature--claiming the heritage of outdoors that children so intensely covet. The sloped ceiling and the walls of the attic room had been sky and landscape for her. She peered into the still waters of the canal and saw the stars reflected there, and cocked her ear to listen when sleepy birds stirred above and chirped in their dreams. And then she fell asleep again and he tucked her within his coat to keep from her the dampness of the faint mist rising from the canal.
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. _