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!"