Those who accompanied the then Prime Minister on his memorable tour of the West in the summer of 1910 will never forget an incident while he was speaking at Edmonton. So great was the crowd that had assembled in Alberta’s capital that hot August afternoon to hear his message that all attempts to hold an indoor meeting were abandoned. Sir Wilfrid spoke from a balcony at the central corner of the main thoroughfare, and windows, balconies and streets were peopled with spectators. Suddenly, in the midst of his speech he paused, and gazing over the seething mass of humanity, pointed to one of the upper windows in a block diagonally opposite to the balcony from which he spoke. A midget was seated alone on the ledge, swinging her feet over the street far below. Anxiously he inquired: “Is that little one safe?” Amid all the display and acclaim Sir Wilfrid’s eyes were on the child in danger.
One of the most charming revelations of Sir Wilfrid’s thought for children and his understanding of them occurred on the same tour during a public reception at a temporary stand built upon a Manitoba prairie. An eight-year-old maid of the harvest field, with unadorned straw hat and bare feet, stood, like the publican of old, afar off. She looked on with wide, wondering eyes while a more fortunate little lady, in the fluffy, beribboned, spotless daintiness so dear to all daughters of Eve, be they big or little, gave the great man a beautiful bouquet of roses. She had seen him stoop and kiss her. Then she separated herself from the cheering crowd. She strayed to a spot on the prairie where she knew they grew. She gathered them herself, a little ill-assorted bunch of wild weed blossoms. Then she edged her way back through the throng. She had almost reached him as he was moving on, when a badged committeeman stopped her, and taking her by the sleeve of her patched print dress thrust her back. Tears sprang to her eyes.
For an instant the procession wavered. There was a break in the line. Sir Wilfrid turned. Unwittingly the little one found herself almost confronting him. Feverishly now she sought to squirm back into the oblivion of the crowd. But he had seen her. He stepped toward her, and the committeeman released his hold.
“Were you good enough to mean those flowers for me, little girl?” he asked with a smile. She thrust them toward him now half-frightened.
He bowed and took them. He kissed her. Then he drew a sprig from the bunch and fastened it upon the lapel of his coat. And when the great man mounted his car and waved his hat to the cheering hundreds there was one happy little girl who feasted her eyes upon a faded wild weed blossom still drooping on his breast.
Sir Wilfrid never lost a chance to “make up” to the little folk. He travelled on the first passenger train over the National Transcontinental from Fort William to Winnipeg, when construction gangs were still at work and the primitive condition of the country caused the workmen to be housed in log and frame shanties along the line, and took a remarkable interest in the several children who had accompanied their pioneer parents to the wild and picturesque outposts of coming civilization. He was the earliest riser on the train, and one morning, when the call of breakfast found him missing, there was some anxiety as to whether he had lost his way in an early morning walk through the bush. “No need for worry,” volunteered one, who knew his Chief well; “you’ll likely find him outside somewhere with the youngsters.” He was right. Sir Wilfrid was “playing catch” with a sturdy four-year-old behind a nearby shanty.
One day as the train lay in a switch near Humboldt a boy mounted the steps with a new birthday present, and explained that he wanted to take his first picture of “Mister Laurier.” A few moments later the tall figure was standing patiently on the track till the juvenile photographer “got it right.” The little fellow secured first-hand what scores of correspondents and local photographers had for weeks been struggling with crowds and erecting pedestals to obtain.
The devotion of the habitant of rural Quebec to Sir Wilfrid Laurier was well illustrated by an incident during the campaign of 1911. The Liberal leader was leaving Bonaventure station, in Montreal, very early one morning to proceed, via Coteau, to accept the nomination for Soulanges. At the station he passed a little girl, the daughter of a basket-laden woman, on her way to market. He stopped to pat the child’s head and exchange a greeting.
“Qui est l’homme?” (“Who is the man?”) asked the astonished mother of a bystander.
“Sir Wilfrid Laurier,” replied one of the group of newspapermen nearby.