The Landloper Part 17

He turned to Zelie Dionne and found her regarding him with grave eyes.

"It is as M'sieu' Etienne says," she a.s.sured the young man. "La Bonne Sainte listens very tenderly when the children come to her. She is good to all, but her spirit leans over the poor little children and comforts them."

"You have been there?"

"Many times, sir. It is not only the sick body that the good Sainte Anne heals--she comforts anybody who is in much sorrow--she tells the right way to go. There are many roads to take in this life--and if any one goes to her with prayer and humble soul she will guide. Ah, it is true, sir."

There was earnestness in her features and conviction in her tones and it was plain that Zelie Dionne was speaking out of the depths of her heart, and Farr remembered what old Etienne had said about the son of Farmer Leroux.

"Yes, she will lead to the right way and make all well in the end,"

a.s.serted the girl. "And, most of all, she is kind and gentle to the little children."

Between her and the wistful old man Farr divided tolerant and kindly gaze.

"I believe in more things than I used to," he said. "I'm willing to admit in these days that things I do not understand may have truth in them. The doctor is not making her well. But it is a long way to that shrine."

"It is a long way, so! But I am very scare for her as she lie here all day. I will carry her very tender--on the railway car--on the big boat.

The good Sainte Anne is everywhere, too. She will help."

"If faith can move mountains it ought to heal easily one poor, little toddlekins," muttered Farr.

A new doctor came the next day, a breezy young man, a talkative and frank young man, the a.s.sistant of the over-worked city physician, whose munic.i.p.al duties had obliged him to take on helpers.

"I shall ask him, hey--about the shrine?" whispered Etienne to Farr while the doctor was examining the child.

"Yes; he'll be more patient with you than with me."

"And do you think that pretty soon she can go on the railway if I be very careful, good docteur?" asked the old man, wistfully, apologetically.

"Go where?"

"On the pilgrimage to the shrine of the good Sainte Anne in the Canada country."

"Don't you realize what this case is?" demanded the young physician.

"He have not say--he hurry in, he hurry out."

"You the grandfather?"

"No!"

The doctor turned on Farr.

"Father?"

"No."

"Then I can talk right out to you two. This is a case of typhoid that will be fatal in twenty-four hours. There's no use lying about it."

Old Etienne's mouth and eyes seemed to sink deep into his wrinkles, as if Time had forced him suddenly to swallow an extra score of years. He looked at Farr's blank and whitening face, and as quickly looked away.

"Break it to her grandmother," advised the doctor, nodding toward the kitchen where the good woman was at work.

"But you don't know what you say," stammered the old man.

"It so happens that I do, my man. I've been handling too many of these cases to be fooled. Why, I've got more than fifty cases of typhoid in this city--just myself."

"But she has had sun and fresh air--on the ca.n.a.l bank where I tend the rack."

"Sun and fresh air can't cure victims of the poison that is being pumped through the water-mains of this city," snapped the doctor.

"Water-mains!"

The doctor turned and stared at Farr, for the husky croak of his exclamation had not sounded human.

"That's what I said. You can't have lived very long in this state not to know what we're up against on the water proposition."

"I haven't lived here long. But about the child--it can't--"

"Why, this Consolidated Company is owned by Colonel Dodd and his politicians--and they own all the city and town water systems in this state," said the doctor, no longer interested in his patient--exploding with the violence of imprudent youth. "They boss mayors, the aldermen, the politicians--boss the governor himself. That's because they've got the machine and the money. They've got a lot of money, because they won't wake up and spend it to lay lines far enough to tap the lakes in the hills. They tap these rotten rivers at our back doors, pump poison through the mains, sell it at prices that yield them twenty percent dividends. They say the water is all right--and back it up with a.n.a.lyses. I say it's all wrong."

"And you d.a.m.nation doctors are letting this go on--letting folks drink poison--telling us when it's too late!" shouted Farr, purple replacing the white in his face.

"Well, the folks up-town who have got wisdom and the money buy spring-water and mineral water. All the doctors don't agree that the river is responsible for the typhoid. With the governor and the legislature bossed by Dodd and his a.s.sociates, and the city governments tied up by them, and the banks taking orders from the syndicate in case any town or an independent company tries to borrow money and install a water system, and the mill corporations and the tenement-block owners all in cahoots, a crusader who expected to get anywhere in politics or make money out of his business would stand a fine and dandy show, now wouldn't he? And the most of us in this world are trying to get ahead either in business or in politics." He snapped the catch of his little black case. "Forget what I have said, you two. I hold my job through politics. I'm apt to talk too much when I get started. But don't drink city water, no matter if Colonel Dodd's a.n.a.lyses do give it a clean bill."

Farr caught him at the door, restraining him with a heavy hand.

"You stay here, don't you let that baby die. By the G.o.ds, she sha'n't die!"

"My staying will do no good, my friend. The little girl is death-struck already. It's quick work with the children. Sometimes we can bring the grown folks through. Get another doctor, if you feel like it, but I've got to keep moving--there are lots of folks waiting for me in these tenements."

He shook off Farr's hand and hurried away.

Old Etienne stood by the bedside, gazing down on the little sufferer, closing and unclosing his shriveled hands as if he were grasping at straws of hope, dragging the depths of his soul for rea.s.surance even as he dragged his rake in the black waters of the ca.n.a.l.

"The whippersnapper lied about her. Because she's a baby he won't bother," stormed Farr. "I'll ransack this town for doctors--I'll find one who knows his business." He tiptoed to the bed and laid tender palm against the child's cheek. "I say her face isn't as hot as it was," he persisted. "Where can I find a doctor with gray whiskers, Etienne? That young fool doesn't know."

"There are many wise old docteurs in the long street named Western Boulevard--they live in the big houses--but they don't come to the tenement folks."

"One of them will come this time even if I have to lug him on my back."

He began to search for his hat, not remembering where he had tossed it in the haste and eagerness of his arrival at the good woman's house. He did not find it readily and he rushed out bareheaded.

"The sun and the air they do no good! It is the poison water--and the poor folks of the tenements they do not know!" muttered the old man.

"That is what he say?" He went to the kitchen sink and unscrewed the faucet. He sniffed and made a wry face, then he ran his thin finger into the valve-chamber. He hooked and brought forth stringy slime, held it near his nose, and groaned. "The poor folks do not know. They who ask for the votes of the slashers, the weavers, the beamers--the men of the mills--they who ask votes do not want the poor folks to know, because the votes would not be given to them who sell poison in the water," he told the astonished good woman who had watched his act.

"I am careful about my kitchen--I am neat--I wash everything, Etienne,"

she a.s.sured him, sniffing at the slime in the sink, overcome by confusion, her housewife's reputation at stake.