Flamsted quarries Part 53

"Wot yer givin' us about his Riverince, eh?"

"Le Pere Honore, hein? Ah-h-h-rr, le bon Pere Honore! Attendez--he tol'

mah Ah was best non raconter--mais, Ah raconte you, s.h.i.+m--"

"Go ahead, Johnny Frog; let's hear."

"Ah was been lee'l garcon--lee'l bebe, no pere; ma mere was been--how you say?--gypsee a cheval, hein?" he appealed to McCann.

"You mane a gypsy that rides round the counthry?"

Antoine nodded emphatically. "Yah--oui, gypsee a cheval, an' bars--"

"Bears?"

"Mais oui, bruins--bars; pour les faire dancer--"

"You mane your mother was a gypsy that went round the counthry showin'

off dancin' bears?"

"Yah-oui. Ah mane so. She haf been seek--malade--how you say, pet.i.te verole--so like de Pere Honore?" He made with his forefinger dents in his face and forehead.

"An' is it the shmall pox yer mane?"

"Yah-oui, shmall pookes. She was haf it, an' tout le monde--how you say?--efferybodyee was haf fear. She was haf nottin' to eat--nottin' to drrink; le Pere Honore was fin' her in de bois--foret, an' was been tak'

ma pauvre mere in hees ahrms, an' he place her in de sugair-house, an'

il l'a soignee--how you say?" He appealed to the Italian whose interest was on the increase.

"Nurrsed?"

"Yah--oui, nurrsed her, an' moi aussi--lee'l bebe'--"

"D' yer mane his Riverince nursed you and yer mother through the shmall pox?" demanded McCann. Several of the workmen stopped short with hammers uplifted to hear Antoine's answer.

"Mais oui, il l'a soignee jusqu'a ce qu'elle was been dead; he l'a enterree--place in de terre--airth, an' moi he haf place chez un farmyer a Mo'real. An' le Pere Honore was tak' la pet.i.te verole--shmall pookes in de sugair-house, an' de farmyer was gif him to eat an' to drrink par la porte--de door; de farmyer haf non pa.s.se par de door. Le Pere Honore m'a sauve--haf safe, hein? An' Ah was been work ten, twenty, dirty year, Ah tink. Ah gagne--gain, hein?--two hundert pieces. Ah been come to de quairries, pour l'amour de bon Pere Honore qui m'a safe, hein? Ah be tres content; Ah gagne, gain two, tree pieces--dollaires--par jour."

He nodded at one and all, his gold half-moon earrings twinkling in his evident satisfaction with himself and "le bon Pere Honore."

The men were silent. Jim McCann's eyes were blurred with tears. The thought of his own six-months boy presented itself in contrast to the small waif in the Canada woods and the dying gypsy mother, nursed by the priest who had christened his own little Billy.

"It's a bad night for the lecture," said a Scotchman, and broke therewith the emotional spell that was holding the men who had made out the princ.i.p.al points of Antoine's story.

"Yes, but Father Honore says it's all about the cathedrals, an' not many will want to miss it," said another. "They say there's a crowd coming down from the quarries to-night to hear it."

"Faith, an' it's Mr. Van Ostend will be after havin' to put on an a trailer to his new hall," said McCann; "the b'ys know a good thing whin they see it, an' we was like to smother, the whole kit of us, whin they had the last pitchers of them mountins in Alasky on the sheet. It's the stairioptican that takes best wid the b'ys."

The four o'clock whistle began to sound. Three hundred chisels and hammers were dropped on the instant. The men hurried to the doors that were opened their full width to give egress to the hastening throngs.

They streamed out; there was laughing and chaffing; now and then, among the younger ones, some good-natured fisticuffs were exchanged. Many sought the electrics to The Gore; others took the car to The Corners.

From the three sheds, the power-house, the engine-house, the office, the dark files streamed forth from their toil. Within fifteen minutes the lights were turned out, the watchman was making his first round. Instead of the sounds of a vast industry, nothing was heard but the _sz-szz-szzz_ of the vanis.h.i.+ng trams, the sputter of an arc-light, the barking of a dog. The gray twilight of a bleak March day shut down rapidly over frozen field and ice-rimmed lake.

V

Champney Googe left the shed with the rest; no one spoke to him, although many a curious look was turned his way when he had pa.s.sed, and he spoke to no one. He waited for a car to Flamsted. There he got out.

He found a restaurant near The Greenbush and ordered something to eat.

Afterwards he went about the town, changed almost beyond recognition. He saw no face he knew. There were foreigners everywhere--men who were to be the fathers of the future American race. A fairly large opera house attracted his attention; it was evidently new. He looked for the year--1901. A little farther on he found the hall, built, so he had gathered from the few words among the men in the sheds, by Mr. Van Ostend. The name was on the lintel: "Flamsted Quarries Hall." Every few minutes an electric tram went whizzing through Main Street towards The Bow. Crowds of young people were on the street.

He looked upon all he saw almost indifferently, feeling little, caring little. It was as if a mental and spiritual numbness had possession of every faculty except the manual; he felt at home only while he was working for that short half-hour in the shed. He was not at ease here among this merry careless crowd. He stopped to look in at the windows of a large fine shop for fruits and groceries; he glanced up at the sign:--"Poggi and Company."

"Poggi--Poggi" he said to himself; he was thinking it out. "Luigi Poggi--Luigi--Ah!" It was a long-drawn breath. He had found his clew.

He heard again that cry: "Champney,--O Champney! what has he done to you!" The night came back to him in all its detail. It sickened him.

He was about to turn from the window and seek the quiet of The Bow until the hall should be open--at "sharp seven" he heard the men say--when a woman pa.s.sed him and entered the shop. She took a seat at the counter just inside the show-window. He stood gazing at her, unable to move his eyes from the form, the face. It was she--Aileen!

The sickening feeling increased for a moment, then it gave place to strange electric currents that pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed through every nerve.

It was a sensation as if his whole body--flesh, muscles, nerves, arteries, veins, every lobe of his brain, every cell within each lobe, had been, as the saying is of an arm or leg, "asleep" and was now "coming to." The tingling sensation increased almost to torture; but he could not move. That face held him.

He must get away before she came out! That was his one thought. The first torment of awakening sensation to a new life was pa.s.sing. He advanced a foot, then the other; he moved slowly, but he moved at last.

He walked on down the street, not up towards The Bow as he had intended; walked on past The Greenbush towards The Corners; walked on and on till the nightmare of this awakening from a nearly seven-years abnormal sleep of feeling was over. Then he turned back to the town. The town clock was striking seven. The men were entering the hall by tens and twenties.

He took his seat in a corner beneath the shadow of a large gallery at the back, over the entrance.

There were only men admitted. He looked upon the hundreds a.s.sembled, and realized for the first time in more than six years that he was again a free man among free men. He drew a long breath of relief, of realization.

At a quarter past seven Father Honore made his appearance on the platform. The men settled at once into silence, and the priest began without preface:

"My friends, we will take up to-night what we may call the Brotherhood of Stone."

The men looked at one another and smiled. Here was something new.

"That is the right thought for all of you to take with you into the quarries and the sheds. Don't forget it!"

He made certain distinct pauses after a few sentences. This was done with intention; for the men before him were of various nationalities, although he called this his "English night." But many were learning and understood imperfectly; it was for them he paused frequently. He wanted to give them time to take in what he was saying. Sometimes he repeated his words in Italian, in French, that the foreigners might better comprehend his meaning.

"Perhaps some of you have worked in the limestone quarries on the Bay?

All who have hold up hands."

A hundred hands, perhaps more, were raised.

"Any worked in the marble quarries of Vermont?"

A dozen or more Canucks waved their hands vigorously.

"Here are three pieces--limestone, marble, and granite." He held up specimens of the three. "All of them are well known to most of you. Now mark what I say of these three:--first, the limestone gets burned princ.i.p.ally; second, the marble gets sculptured princ.i.p.ally; third, the granite gets hammered and chiselled princ.i.p.ally. Fire, chisel, and hammer at work on these three rocks; but, they are all _quarried_ first.

This fact of their being quarried puts them in the Brotherhood--of Labor."

The men nudged one another, and nodded emphatically.