"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.




IX

THE GIRL FROM TADOUSAC

When the noon hour came Farr went and sat under a spindling tree and
began to read in one of his little books, dismissing thoughts of hunger
with the resoluteness of a man who had suffered hollow yearning of the
stomach and knew how to conquer it.

But he could not escape the keen eyes and kindly generosity of the
fraternity of toilers.

"A topper down on his luck a bit--see his clothes," said the foreman,
and he took tithes from willing men who were eating from pails that were
pinched between their knees; he carried the food to the young man.

Farr accepted with gratitude, ate with thrifty moderation, and hid what
remained in the pockets of his coat; it would serve for his supper.

He ate that supper after his day's work was done and after he had laved
his face and hands in the overflow from a public fountain in a little
square.