The Landloper Part 15

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 c.o.c.ked 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 compa.s.sionate. 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 a.n.a.lyze 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, rea.s.suringly. 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 pet.i.te 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 gra.s.s beside the ca.n.a.l."

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 embarra.s.sing 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 ca.n.a.l bank where the waters were still and gla.s.sy, 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 gra.s.s 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 where the hills are all so blue, or off across the wide bay. The white houses are very small and they crowd along the road, and the farms are narrow, and there is not much money in the homespun clothes or in the old clock, but the good world is wide about them and the people are not sad like those who sit yonder."

She pointed across the ca.n.a.l to rows of wooden tenement-houses many stories in height; on narrow porches, nicked one above another, and on fire-escapes which were slowly cooling after hours on the forge of the sun, men, women, and children were packed, seeking a breath of fresh air.

"They stand at loom and spinner and slasher all day," she said. "They are too tired to walk afar to the parks. They wait there for good air to come and it does not come."

"I don't understand why they flock down here from Canada--why they stay," he declared, bluntly.

"Ah, you look at me when you say that!" she cried, arching her brows.

"You hear me talk about the sunset over the meadows and the hills, and you wonder why I am not there? Well, listen! There are fourteen sons and daughters of Onesime Dionne--that's my father--for all the habitant folks marry young, and the priest smiles and blesses the household when there are many children. And girls are not of much account in the house.

The sons claim and receive their shares of the arpents of land when those boys are grown and married. The girl may marry--yes! But what if the right one does not ask? What if the right one has a father who says to him that he must obey and marry one the father has chosen? All kinds of things can happen in the habitant country, m'sieu'. So, then, the girl is less account in the house. And the letters come back from the girls who have gone down into the mills in the States. The pictures come back showing the new gown and the smart hat--and so!" She shrugged her shoulders and tossed her free hand. "One more girl for the big mill!"

He stared at her with some curiosity.

"You ask yourself which one of those things happened to me, do you not?"

"Perhaps," he confessed.

"I talk little about myself. I talk about the habitant girls. I am fortunate. I do not breathe the air where the looms clack. I inspect in the cloth-hall because I have sharp eyes and nimble fingers."