“He is hungry, he is poor,” she said, with tears in her eyes. She had known the song in her childhood, and he who used to sing it to her was in her sight no more. In vain the gentlemen would have taken the cap from her; she gathered the money herself, and others followed, and Parpon sang on.
A night later a crowd gathered in the great hall of the city, filling it to the doors, to hear the dwarf sing. He came on the platform dressed as he had entered the city, with heavy, home-made coat and trousers, and moccasins, and a red woollen comforter about his neck—but this comforter he took off when he began to sing. Old France and New France, and the loves and hates and joys and sorrows of all lands, met that night in the soul of this dwarf with the divine voice, who did not give them his name, so that they called him, for want of a better title, the Provencal. And again two nights afterwards it was the same, and yet again a third night and a fourth, and the simple folk, and wise folk also, went mad after Parpon the dwarf.
Then, suddenly, he disappeared from Quebec City, and the next Sunday morning, while the Cure was saying the last words of the Mass, he entered the Church of St. Saviour’s at Pontiac. Going up to the chancel steps he waited. The murmuring of the people drew the Cure’s attention, and then, seeing Parpon, he came forward.
Parpon drew from his breast a bag, and put it in his hands, and beckoning down the Cure’s head, he whispered.
The Cure turned to the altar and raised the bag towards it in ascription and thanksgiving, then he turned to Parpon again, but the dwarf was trotting away down the aisle and from the church.
“Dear children,” said the Cure, “we are saved, and we are not shamed.” He held up the bag. “Parpon has brought us two thousand dollars: we shall have food to eat, and there shall be more money against seed-time. The giver of this good gift demands that his name be not known. Such is all true charity. Let us pray.”
So hard times passed from Pontiac as the months went on; but none save the Cure and the Avocat knew who had helped her in her hour of need.
MEDALLION’S WHIM
When the Avocat began to lose his health and spirits, and there crept through his shrewd gravity and kindliness a petulance and dejection, Medallion was the only person who had an inspiriting effect upon him. The Little Chemist had decided that the change in him was due to bad circulation and failing powers: which was only partially true.