THE APPLE OF HIS EYE

...is little Michel Dumont, at ten an orphan living in the factory town of Groveton Falls, Maine, in the summer of 1925. Michel is cared for by Aunt Francine, but when a pain in her belly spells la grande operation , it looks as though he will end in an orphanage. Then, there is young Uncle Victor up from Boston to make the necessary dispositions. Michel is much more worried about the end of the world prophesied by Crackerjack the knife grinder, and about the money found in a dead workman's pocket that constitutes the treasure of his club. On Father Prevost's advice, and with the aid of his friends, he sets out to ""restitute."" His mission takes him to Snitchnose the shopkeeper, Mr. Seigelberg the department store owner, dying old Memere. The hat he buys for pretty Denise Michaud and the pay-up he makes to Mrs. Quackenbush of the Dreamland theatre resolve Michel's problem: Victor decides to stay and marry Denise, devastating in her hat, and Mrs. Quackenbush offers the job that makes this possible. So Michel has a home. Gerard Robichaud relies on sentiment to bulwark a story that has little else. The milieu is that described in Papa Martel (1961).