Farr gazed on these pitiful memorials of the children--from those graves to the new mound which covered Rosemarie. The ache that had been in his throat for so many hours grew more excruciating. He realized that a father in those circumstances would weep, but he did not feel like shedding tears, and he was ashamed of himself for what seemed lack of something within himself. What he felt then, what he had felt ever since that young doctor had passed sentence of death was surly, bitter rancor--the anger of a man who is robbed.
“Look all around at the graves,” said Etienne, tears in his wrinkles. “I know something better since I take off that faucet. Not all the martyr die when the lion eat 'em up and the fire burn 'em; there be some martyr these day, too. And sometimes, mebbe, some man what have the power will come here and see all these poor little grave and then he go and choke the lion what eat all these poor childs.”
“What kind of man would that be?” pondered Farr. At that moment he had little faith--much less faith than usual--in the decency of any human being; and for many years his faith in humankind had been expressed by a contemptuous snap of his finger.
To sit there longer and look at that fresh earth with the pathetic toys sprinkled over it was a torment his soul could not endure.
He arose and hurried away and Etienne followed him. They trudged in silence back to the city--Etienne to take his rake and pike-pole from the hands of the man who had substituted at the rack, and Farr to resume surly domination over his sweating Italians.
“The martyrs,” Etienne had called them. The notion of that stuck in Farr's brooding thoughts.
He tried to look deeper into his own heart than he had ever looked before and explain to himself just what motive had attracted him to the child in the first place; he had never been especially interested in children before. He found himself muttering, “And a little child shall lead them,” without understanding just why this child had led him so strangely.
If one Walker Farr had understood it at all and had been able to explain it to himself, he would have penetrated the mystery of the dynamics of love--the great gift to humanity that God has not seen fit to expose in its inner workings. Therefore, Farr strode here and there in the hot sun, spurred his diggers with crisp oaths, and on the heels of his profanity muttered to himself, “And a little child shall lead them.”
The tile boss of the Consolidated, whose crew was following the trench-diggers, accosted Farr, after several inspections of his lugubrious countenance.
“Don't you think you need to be cheered up a little?”
Farr scowled at him.
“I don't know what has disagreed with you, but you're certainly in a bad way,” pursued the boss. “Go up with the crowd to City Hall to-night and hear 'em open up the police scandals. Plenty of free fun for the heavy-hearted! There are about half a dozen fat cops in this city who'll be fried to a crisp on both sides, and the sound of the sizzling will be pleasant in the ears.”
“I'm not interested.”
“You will be, if you tend out. The hearing is before the mayor and the whole city government. Nothing very hefty in the way of charges--only loafing in beer-coolers during the heat of the day, spending their time chasing the labor-agitators out of the parks, and letting burglars keep house all summer in the mansions up-town while the owners are away at the seashore. It's all more or less of a joke.”
“Why don't the mayor and aldermen of this city attend to duty instead of jokes?”
“Oh, this city is run so smooth that there's nothing to do in the summer except stage a little farce comedy at City Hall.”
“Let me tell you that there's something to be investigated in this city that isn't a joke,” raged Farr, his bitter ponderings blossoming into speech.
“What's that?”
“Murder going on every day in this damnable town.”
“Well, I guess if there was any murder going on which we didn't hear about, even from our fat cops, it would be investigated, all right. What's the matter with you?”
“I'm glad now you told me about that hearing to-night,” stated Farr, ignoring the other's curiosity. “I'm glad I know when and where to locate the mayor and his men in session. I'll find out if they propose to waste the people's time hearing funny stories about policemen and are going to let murder go on while they are laughing.”
He strode away, cursing at his workmen as he tramped along the side of the ditch.
Farr knocked at the garret room of Etienne early that evening.
“I want you to come with me,” he commanded.
The old man obeyed without questions. As they walked along the streets Farr did not volunteer information. He was grimly sure that if Etienne should receive an inkling of what was expected of him the old man would not stop running until he had crossed the Canadian border.
They were ten minutes worming their way through the press that packed the corridors of City Hall. Groups were bulked at the doors admitting to the aldermen's room--men thatched against each other and overlapping like bees in a swarm at the door of a hive.
But the young man was tall and his shoulders were broad and he kept uttering the magic words, “Room for witnesses!” In his own consciousness he knew that what he should attempt to testify to that night was not on the slate, but the crowd accepted him as one of those from whom they anticipated entertainment, and allowed him to pass--and Etienne, holding to his young friend's coat, followed close and made his way before the throng could close in again.
The hearing began and progressed, and there was much laughter when the delinquencies of certain fat policemen were related--it was a free-and-easy affair--a sort of midsummer fantasy in municipal politics--a squabble between ward bosses who had become jealous in matters of the distribution of police patronage.
Walker Farr, standing against the wall of the audience-chamber, did not laugh. He was busy with thoughts of his own. This bland fooling in municipal matters while stealthy death, protected by city franchise, dripped, so he believed, from every faucet in the tenement-house district, stirred his bitter indignation. Etienne Provancher stood beside him, and the old man did not laugh, either, because he did not understand in the least what those men were talking about. And he was very uneasy, wistfully awe-stricken, hardly daring to touch with his hands the polished oak at his back. He was in the great _hotel de ville_ whose exterior he had stared at many times without presuming or daring to enter the broad portals.
Then there came a recess while the mayor examined papers at his desk. The aldermen leaned back in their chairs with lighted cigars.
“Etienne,” whispered the young man, deep resolve thrilling him, his eyes blazing into the wondering gaze of the old man, “those men who sit behind those desks can do something to save the children and the poor folks in the tenements. But they must wake up, these men here must. You and I must try to wake them up!”
Etienne's eyes opened wide. He did not in the least comprehend how he could serve.
“I know you will not desert a friend, Etienne. I know you'll stand behind me. I know you love the children. So be a brave man now!”
The next moment Etienne was so frightened that he feared he would drop where he stood, because the young man raised his voice so that it rang through the great hall and all eyes were turned that way.
“Your honor the mayor, and gentlemen; I am a stranger here. But I humbly ask permission to address you.”
“If you are a witness in the police matter you will be called on in your turn after the recess,” stated the mayor.
“I am not a witness in the police matter. I am here on other business.”
“There is no other business before this meeting.”
“But there should be, sir, for the business I have come on is a dreadful matter. It is a matter of life and death.”
A hush fell on those in the chamber, and the mayor and his aldermen leaned forward, staring apprehensively. They had been warned that there were dangerous labor-agitators in the city. Many meetings had been broken up by the police at the request of Colonel Dodd, president of the Consolidated Water Company, and other employers had backed him. This tall young man had startled them with his sudden outbreak.
“It is a matter, gentlemen, which concerns every man, woman, and child in this city--vitally concerns them every hour of the day--every hour they are awake. You say you have no other business now except this silly police investigation. For God's sake, wake up and attend to real business--save the people's lives. Here you are in session and here are the people to listen.”
“State your complaint. Be very brief,” commanded the mayor.
But Walker Farr, it was plain, possessed craft as well as courage; he realized that curiosity, properly tickled, will make men more patient in listening.
“First, I want to call a witness. I am not known to this city. But I have here a man whom many of you know, I'm sure, for he has stood out in plain view of a street where many pass, and has worked there for thirty years. It is Etienne Provancher.”