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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Helen of the Old House, by Harold Bell Wright
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Helen of the Old House
+
+Author: Harold Bell Wright
+
+Posting Date: August 7, 2012 [EBook #9410]
+Release Date: December, 2005
+First Posted: September 30, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELEN OF THE OLD HOUSE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan Lane, Josephine Paolucci and PG
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HELEN OF THE OLD HOUSE
+
+
+BY HAROLD BELL WRIGHT
+
+
+1921
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+BOOK ONE
+
+THE INTERPRETER
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I. THE HUT ON THE CLIFF
+
+II. LITTLE MAGGIE'S PRINCESS LADY
+
+III. THE INTERPRETER
+
+IV. PETER MARTIN AT HOME
+
+V. ADAM WARD'S ESTATE
+
+VI. ON THE OLD ROAD
+
+VII. THE HIDDEN THING
+
+VIII. WHILE THE PEOPLE SLEEP
+
+IX. THE MILL
+
+X. CONCERNING THE NEW MANAGER
+
+XI. COMRADES
+
+XII. TWO SIDES OF A QUESTION
+
+
+BOOK TWO
+
+THE TWO HELENS
+
+
+XIII. THE AWAKENING
+
+XIV. THE WAY BACK
+
+XV. AT THE OLD HOUSE
+
+XVI. HER OWN PEOPLE
+
+XVII. IN THE NIGHT
+
+
+BOOK THREE
+
+THE STRIKE
+
+
+XVIII. THE GATHERING STORM
+
+XIX. ADAM WARD'S WORK
+
+XX. THE PEOPLE'S AMERICA
+
+XXI. PETER MARTIN'S PROBLEM
+
+XXII. OLD FRIENDS
+
+XXIII. A LAST CHANCE
+
+XXIV. THE FLATS
+
+XXV. McIVER's OPPORTUNITY
+
+XXVI. AT THE CALL OF THE WHISTLE
+
+XXVII. JAKE VODELL'S MISTAKE
+
+XXVIII. THE MOB AND THE MILL
+
+XXIX. CONTRACTS
+
+
+BOOK FOUR
+
+THE OLD HOUSE
+
+
+XXX. "JEST LIKE THE INTERPRETER SAID"
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+THE INTERPRETER
+
+
+"_Take up our quarrel with the foe:
+To you from failing hands we throw
+  The torch; be yours to hold it high.
+  If ye break faith with us who die
+We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
+    In Flanders fields_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE HUT ON THE CLIFF
+
+
+No well informed resident of Millsburgh, when referring to the
+principal industry of his little manufacturing city, ever says "the
+mills"--it is always "the Mill."
+
+The reason for this common habit of mind is that one mill so
+overshadows all others, and so dominates the industrial and civic life
+of this community, that in the people's thought it stands for all.
+
+The philosopher who keeps the cigar stand on the corner of Congress
+Street and Ward Avenue explained it very clearly when he answered an
+inquiring stranger, "You just can't think Millsburgh without thinkin'
+mills; an' you can't think mills without thinkin' _the_ Mill."
+
+As he turned from the cash register to throw his customer's change on
+the scratched top of the glass show case, the philosopher added with a
+grin that was a curious blend of admiration, contempt and envy, "An'
+you just can't think the Mill without thinkin' Adam Ward."
+
+That grin was another distinguishing mark of the well informed resident
+of Millsburgh. Always, in those days, when the citizens mentioned the
+owner of the Mill, their faces took on that curious half-laughing
+expression of mingled admiration, contempt and envy.
+
+But it has come to pass that in these days when the people speak of
+Adam Ward they do not smile. When they speak of Adam Ward's daughter,
+Helen, they smile, indeed, but with quite a different meaning.
+
+The history of Millsburgh is not essentially different from that of a
+thousand other cities of its class.
+
+Born of the natural resources of the hills and forests, the first rude
+mill was located on that wide sweeping bend of the river. About this
+industrial beginning a settlement gathered. As the farm lands of the
+valley were developed, the railroad came, bringing more mills. And so
+the town grew up around its smoky heart.
+
+It was in those earlier days that Adam Ward, a workman then, patented
+and introduced the new process. It was the new process, together with
+its owner's native genius for "getting on," that, in time, made Adam
+the owner of the Mill. And, finally, it was this combination of Adam
+and the new process that gave this one mill dominion over all others.
+
+As the Mill increased in size, importance and power, and the town grew
+into the city, Adam Ward's material possessions were multiplied many
+times.
+
+Then came the year of this story.
+
+It was midsummer. The green, wooded hills that form the southern
+boundary of the valley seemed to be painted on shimmering gauze. The
+grainfields on the lowlands across the river were shining gold. But the
+slate-colored dust from the unpaved streets of that section of
+Millsburgh known locally as the "Flats" covered the wretched houses,
+the dilapidated fences, the hovels and shanties, and everything animate
+or inanimate with a thick coating of dingy gray powder. Shut in as it
+is between a long curving line of cliffs on the south and a row of tall
+buildings on the river bank, the place was untouched by the refreshing
+breeze that stirred the trees on the hillside above. The hot,
+dust-filled atmosphere was vibrant with the dull, droning voice of the
+Mill. From the forest of tall stacks the smoke went up in slow,
+twisting columns to stain the clean blue sky with a heavy cloud of
+dirty brown.
+
+The deep-toned whistle of the Mill had barely called the workmen from
+their dinner pails and baskets when two children came along the road
+that for some distance follows close to the base of that high wall of
+cliffs. By their ragged, nondescript clothing which, to say the least,
+was scant enough to afford them comfort and freedom of limb, and by the
+dirt, that covered them from the crowns of their bare, unkempt heads to
+the bottoms of their bare, unwashed feet, it was easy to identify the
+children as belonging to that untidy community.
+
+One was a sturdy boy of eight or nine neglected years. On his rather
+heavy, freckled face and in his sharp blue eyes there was, already, a
+look of hardness that is not good to see in the countenance of a child.
+The other, his sister, was two years younger--a thin wisp of a girl,
+with tiny stooping shoulders, as though, even in her babyhood, she had
+found a burden too heavy. With her tired little face and grave,
+questioning eyes she looked at the world as if she were wondering,
+wistfully, why it should bother to be so unkind to such a helpless mite
+of humanity.
+
+As they came down the worn road, side by side they chose with
+experienced care those wheel ruts where the black dust lay thickest
+and, in solemn earnestness, plowed the hot tracks with their bare feet,
+as if their one mission in life were to add the largest possible cloud
+of powdered dirt to the already murky atmosphere of the vicinity.
+
+Suddenly they stood still.
+
+For a long, silent moment they gazed at a rickety old wooden stairway
+that, at this point in the unbroken line of cliffs, climbs zigzag up
+the face of the rock-buttressed wall. Then, as if moved by a common
+impulse, they faced each other. The quick fire of adventure kindled in
+the eyes of the boy as he met the girl's look of understanding.
+
+"Let's go up--stump yer," he said, with a daredevil grin.
+
+"Huh, yer wouldn't dast."
+
+Womanlike, she was hoping that he would "dast" and, with the true
+instinct of her sex, she chose unerringly the one way to bring about
+the realization of her hope.
+
+Her companion met the challenge like a man. With a swaggering show of
+courage, he went to the stairway and climbed boldly up--six full steps.
+Then he paused and looked down, "I don't dast, don't I?"
+
+From the lower step she spurred his faltering spirit, "Dare yer--dare
+yer--dare yer."
+
+He came reluctantly down two steps, "Will yer go up if I do?"
+
+She nodded, "Uh-huh--but yer gotter go first."
+
+He looked doubtfully up at the edge of the cliff so far above them.
+"Shucks," he said, with conviction, "ain't nobody up there 'cept old
+Interpreter, an' that dummy, Billy Rand. I know 'cause Skinny Davis an'
+Chuck Wilson, they told me. They was up--old Interpreter, he can't do
+nothin' to nobody--he ain't got no legs."
+
+Gravely she considered with him the possible dangers of the proposed
+adventure. "Billy Rand has got legs."
+
+"He can't hear nothin', though--can't talk neither," said the leader of
+the expedition. "An' besides maybe he ain't there--we might catch him
+out. What d'yer say? Will we chance it?"
+
+She looked up doubtfully toward the unknown land above. "I dunno, will
+we?"
+
+"Skinny an' Chuck, they said the Interpreter give 'em cookies--an' told
+'em stories too."
+
+"Cookies, Gee! Go ahead--I'm a-comin'."
+
+That tiny house high on the cliff at the head of the old, zigzag
+stairway, up which the children now climbed with many doubtful stops
+and questioning fears, is a landmark of interest not only to Millsburgh
+but to the country people for miles around.
+
+Perched on the perilous brink of that curving wall of rocks, with its
+low, irregular, patched and weather-beaten roof, and its rough-boarded
+and storm-beaten walls half hidden in a tangle of vines and bushes, the
+little hut looks, from a distance, as though it might once have been
+the strange habitation of some gigantic winged creature of prehistoric
+ages. The place may be reached from a seldom-used road that leads along
+the steep hillside, a quarter of a mile back from the edge of the
+precipice, but the principal connecting link between the queer
+habitation and the world is that flight of rickety wooden steps.
+
+Taking advantage of an irregularity in the line of cliffs, the upper
+landing of the stairway is placed at the side of the hut. In the rear,
+a small garden is protected from the uncultivated life of the hillside
+by a fence of close-set pickets. Across the front of the curious
+structure, well out on the projecting point of rocks, and reached only
+through the interior, a wide, strongly railed porch overhangs the sheer
+wall like a balcony.
+
+With fast-beating hearts, the two small adventurers gained the top of
+the stairway. Cautiously they looked about--listening, conferring in
+whispers, ready for instant, headlong retreat.
+
+The tall grasses and flowering weeds on the hillside nodded sleepily in
+the sunlight. A bird perched on a near-by bush watched them with bright
+eyes for a moment, then fearlessly sought the shade of the vines that
+screened the side of the hut. Save the distant, droning, moaning voice
+of the Mill, there was no sound.
+
+Calling up the last reserves of their courage, the children crept
+softly along the board walk that connects the landing of the stairway
+with the rude dwelling. Once again they paused to look and listen.
+Then, timidly, they took the last cautious steps and stood in the open
+doorway. With big, wondering eyes they stared into the room.
+
+It was a rather large room, with a low-beamed ceiling of unfinished
+pine boards and gray, rough-plastered walls, and wide windows. A
+green-shaded student lamp with a pile of magazines and papers on the
+table caught their curious eyes, and they gazed in awe at the long
+shelves of books against the wall. Opposite the entrance where they
+stood they saw a strongly made workbench. And beneath this bench and
+piled in that corner of the room were baskets--dozens of them--of
+several shapes and sizes; while brackets and shelves above were filled
+with the materials of which the baskets were woven. There was very
+little furniture. The floors were bare, the windows without hangings.
+It was all so different from anything that these children of the Flats
+had ever seen that they felt their adventure assuming proportions.
+
+For what seemed a long time, the boy and the girl stood there,
+hesitating, on the threshold, expecting something--anything--to happen.
+Then the lad ventured a bold step or two into the room. His sister
+followed timidly.
+
+They were facing hungrily toward an open door that led, evidently, to
+the kitchen, when a deep voice from somewhere behind them said, "How do
+you do?"
+
+Startled nearly out of their small wits, the adventurers whirled to
+escape, but the voice halted them with, "Don't go. You came to see me,
+didn't you?"
+
+The voice, though so deep and strong, was unmistakably kind and
+gentle--quite the gentlest voice, in fact, that these children had ever
+heard.
+
+Hesitatingly, they went again into the room, and now, turning their
+backs upon the culinary end of the apartment, they saw, through the
+doorway opening on to the balcony porch, a man seated in a wheel chair.
+In his lap he held a half-finished basket.
+
+For a little while the man regarded them with grave, smiling eyes as
+though, understanding their fears, he would give them time to gain
+courage. Then he said, gently, "Won't you come out here on the porch
+and visit with me?"
+
+The boy and the girl exchanged questioning looks.
+
+"Come on," said the man, encouragingly.
+
+Perhaps the sight of that wheel chair recalled to the boy's mind the
+reports of his friends, Skinny and Chuck. Perhaps it was something in
+the man himself that appealed to the unerring instincts of the child.
+The doubt and hesitation in the urchin's freckled face suddenly gave
+way to a look of reckless daring and he marched forward with the
+swaggering air of an infant bravado. Shyly the little girl followed.
+
+Invariably one's first impression of that man in the wheel chair was a
+thought of the tremendous physical strength and vitality that must once
+have been his. But the great trunk, with its mighty shoulders and
+massive arms, that in the years past had marked him in the multitude,
+was little more than a framework now. His head with its silvery white
+hair and beard--save that in his countenance there was a look of more
+venerable age--reminded one of the sculptor Rodin. These details of the
+man's physical appearance held one's thoughts but for a moment. One
+look into the calm depths of those dark eyes that were filled with such
+an indescribable mingling of pathetic courage, of patient fortitude,
+and of sorrowful authority, and one so instantly felt the dominant
+spiritual and mental personality of this man that all else about him
+was forgotten.
+
+Squaring himself before his host, the boy said, aggressively, "I know
+who _yer_ are. Yer are the Interpreter. I know 'cause yer ain't got no
+legs."
+
+"Yes," returned the old basket maker, still smiling, "I am the
+Interpreter. At least," he continued, "that is what the people call
+me." Then, as he regarded the general appearance of the children, and
+noted particularly the tired face and pathetic eyes of the little girl,
+his smile was lost in a look of brooding sorrow and his deep voice was
+sad and gentle, as he added, "But some things I find very hard to
+interpret."
+
+The girl, with a shy smile, went a little nearer.
+
+The boy, with his eyes fixed upon the covering that in spite of the
+heat of the day hid the man in the wheel chair from his waist down,
+said with the cruel insistency of childhood, "Ain't yer got no
+legs--honest, now, ain't yer?"
+
+The Interpreter laughed understandingly. Placing the unfinished basket
+on a low table that held his tools and the material for his work within
+reach of his hand, he threw aside the light shawl. "See!" he said.
+
+For a moment the children gazed, breathlessly, at those shrunken and
+twisted limbs that resembled the limbs of a strong man no more than the
+empty, flapping sleeves of a scarecrow resemble the arms of a living
+human body.
+
+"They are legs all right," said the Interpreter, still smiling, "but
+they're not much good, are they? Do you think you could beat me in a
+race?"
+
+"Gee!" exclaimed the boy.
+
+Two bright tears rolled down the thin, dirty cheeks of the little
+girl's tired face, and she turned to look away over the dirty Flats,
+the smoke-grimed mills, and the golden fields of grain in the sunshiny
+valley, to something that she seemed to see in the far distant sky.
+
+With a quick movement the Interpreter again hid his useless limbs.
+
+"And now don't you think you might tell me about yourselves? What is
+your name, my boy?"
+
+"I'm Bobby Whaley," answered the lad. "She's my sister, Maggie."
+
+"Oh, yes," said the Interpreter. "Your father is Sam Whaley. He works
+in the Mill."
+
+"Uh-huh, some of the time he works--when there ain't no strikes ner
+nothin'."
+
+The Interpreter, with his eyes on that dark cloud that hung above the
+forest of grim stacks, appeared to attach rather more importance to
+Bobby's reply than the lad's simple words would justify.
+
+Then, looking gravely at Sam Whaley's son, he said, "And you will work
+in the Mill, too, I suppose, when you grow up?"
+
+"I dunno," returned the boy. "I ain't much stuck on work. An' dad, he
+says it don't git yer nothin', nohow."
+
+"I see," mused the Interpreter, and he seemed to see much more than lay
+on the surface of the child's characteristic expression.
+
+The little girl was still gazing wistfully at the faraway line of
+hills.
+
+As if struck by a sudden thought, the Interpreter asked, "Your father
+is working now, though, isn't he?"
+
+"Uh-huh, just now he is."
+
+"I suppose then you are not hungry."
+
+At this wee Maggie turned quickly from contemplating the distant
+horizon to consider the possible meaning in the man's remark.
+
+For a moment the children looked at each other. Then, as a grin of
+anticipation spread itself over his freckled face, the boy exclaimed,
+"Hungry! Gosh! Mister Interpreter, we're allus hungry!"
+
+For the first time the little girl spoke, in a thin, piping voice,
+"Skinny an' Chuck, they said yer give 'em cookies. Didn't they, Bobby?"
+
+"Uh-huh," agreed Bobby, hopefully.
+
+The man in the wheel chair laughed. "If you go into the house and look
+in the bottom part of that cupboard near the kitchen door you will find
+a big jar and--"
+
+But Bobby and Maggie had disappeared.
+
+The children had found the jar in the cupboard and, with their hands
+and their mouths filled with cookies, were gazing at each other in
+unbelieving wonder when the sound of a step on the bare floor of the
+kitchen startled them. One look through the open doorway and they fled
+with headlong haste back to the porch, where they unhesitatingly sought
+refuge behind their friend ha the wheel chair.
+
+The object of their fears appeared a short moment behind them.
+
+"Oh," said the Interpreter, reaching out to draw little Maggie within
+the protecting circle of his arm, "it is Billy Rand. You don't need to
+fear Billy."
+
+The man who stood looking kindly down upon them was fully as tall and
+heavy as the Interpreter had been in those years before the accident
+that condemned him to his chair. But Billy Rand lacked the commanding
+presence that had once so distinguished his older friend and guardian.
+His age was somewhere between twenty and thirty; but his face was still
+the face of an overgrown and rather slow-witted child.
+
+Raising his hands, Billy Rand talked to the Interpreter in the sign
+language of the deaf and dumb. The Interpreter replied in the same
+manner and, with a smiling nod to the children, Billy returned to the
+garden in the rear of the house.
+
+Tiny Maggie's eyes were big with wonder.
+
+"Gee!" breathed Bobby. "He sure enough can't talk, can he?"
+
+"No," returned the Interpreter. "Poor Billy has never spoken a word."
+
+"Gee!" said Bobby again. "An' can't he hear nothin,' neither?"
+
+"No, Bobby, he has never heard a sound."
+
+Too awe-stricken even to repeat his favorite exclamation, the boy
+munched his cooky in silence, while Maggie, enjoying her share of the
+old basket maker's hospitality, snuggled a little closer to the wheel
+of the big chair.
+
+"Billy Rand, you see," explained the Interpreter, "is my legs."
+
+Bobby laughed. "Funny legs, I'd say."
+
+"Yes," agreed the Interpreter, "but very good legs just the same. Billy
+runs all sorts of errands for me--goes to town to sell our baskets and
+to bring home our groceries, helps about the house and does many things
+that I can't do. He is hoeing the garden this afternoon. He comes in
+every once in a while to ask if I want anything. He sleeps in a little
+room next to mine and sometimes in the night, when I am not resting
+well, I hear him come to my bedside to see if I am all right."
+
+"An' yer keep him an' take care of him?" asked Bobby.
+
+"Yes," returned the Interpreter, "I take care of Billy and Billy takes
+care of me. He has fine legs but not much of a--but cannot speak or
+hear. I can talk and hear and think but have no legs. So with my
+reasonably good head and his very good legs we make a fairly good man,
+you see."
+
+Bobby laughed aloud and even wee Maggie chuckled at the Interpreter's
+quaint explanation of himself and Billy Rand.
+
+"Funny kind of a man," said Bobby.
+
+"Yes," agreed the Interpreter, "but most of us men are funny in one way
+or another--aren't we, Maggie?" He looked down into the upturned face
+of that tiny wisp of humanity at his side.
+
+Maggie smiled gravely in answer.
+
+Very confident now in his superiority over the Interpreter, whose deaf
+and dumb legs were safely out of sight in the garden back of the house,
+Bobby finished the last of his cookies, and began to explore.
+Accompanying his investigations with a running fire of questions, he
+fingered the unfinished basket and the tools and material on the table,
+examined the wheel chair, and went from end to end of the balcony
+porch. Hanging over the railing, he looked down from every possible
+angle upon the rocks, the stairway and the dusty road below.
+Exhausting, at last, the possibilities of the immediate vicinity, he
+turned his inquiring gaze upon the more distant landscape.
+
+"Gee! Yer can see a lot from here, can't yer?"
+
+"Yes," returned the Interpreter, gravely, "you can certainly see a lot.
+And do you know, Bobby, it is strange, but what you see depends almost
+wholly on what you are?"
+
+The boy turned his freckled face toward the Interpreter. "Huh?"
+
+"I mean," explained the Interpreter, "that different people see
+different things. Some who come to visit me can see nothing but the
+Mill over there; some see only the Flats down below; others see the
+stores and offices; others look at nothing but the different houses on
+the hillsides; still others can see nothing but the farms. It is funny,
+but that's the way it is with people, Bobby."
+
+"Aw--what are yer givin' us?" returned Bobby, and, with an unmistakably
+superior air, he faced again toward the scene before them. "I can see
+the whole darned thing--I can."
+
+The Interpreter laughed. "And that," he said, "is exactly what every
+one says, Bobby. But, after all, they don't see the whole darned
+thing--they only think they do."
+
+"Huh," retorted the boy, scornfully, "I guess I can see the Mill, can't
+I?--over there by the river--with the smoke a-rollin' out of her
+chimneys? Listen, I can hear her, too."
+
+Faintly, on a passing breath of air, came the heavy droning, moaning
+voice of the Mill.
+
+"Yes," agreed the Interpreter, with an odd note in his deep, kindly
+voice, "I can nearly always hear it. I was sure you would see the
+Mill."
+
+"An' look-ee, look-ee," shouted the boy, forgetting, in his quick
+excitement, to maintain this superior air, "look-ee, Mag! Come here,
+quick." With energetic gestures he beckoned his sister to his side.
+"Look-ee, right over there by that bunch of dust, see? It's our
+house--where we live. That there's Tony's old place on the corner. An'
+there's the lot where us kids plays ball. Gee, yer could almost see mom
+if she'd only come outside to talk to Missus Grafton er somethin'!"
+
+From his wheel chair the Interpreter watched the children at the porch
+railing. "Of course you would see your home," he said, gravely. "The
+Mill first, and then the place where you live. Nearly every one sees
+those things first. Now tell what else you see."
+
+"I see, I see--" The boy hesitated. There was so much to be seen from
+the Interpreter's balcony porch.
+
+The little girl's thin voice piped up with shrill eagerness, "Look at
+the pretty yeller fields an' the green trees away over there across the
+river, Bobby. Gee, but wouldn't yer just love to be over there
+an'--an'--roll 'round in the grass, an' pick flowers, an' everything?"
+
+"Huh," retorted Bobby. "Look-ee, that there's McIver's factory up the
+river there. It's 'most as big as the Mill. An' see all the stores an'
+barber shops an' things downtown--an' look-ee, there's the courthouse
+where the jail is an'--"
+
+Maggie chimed in with, "An' all the steeples of the churches--an'
+everythin'."
+
+"An' right down there," continued the boy, pointing more toward the
+east where, at the edge of the Flats, the ground begins to rise toward
+the higher slope of the hills, "in that there bunch of trees is where
+Pete Martin lives, an' Mary an' Captain Charlie. Look-ee, Mag, yer can
+see the little white house a-showin' through the green leaves."
+
+"You know the Martins, do you?" asked the Interpreter.
+
+"You bet we do," returned Bobby, without taking his gaze from the scene
+before him, while Maggie confirmed her brother's words by turning to
+look shyly at her new-found friend. "Pete and Charlie they work in the
+Mill. Charlie he was a captain in the war. He's one of the head guys in
+our union now. Mary she used to give us stuff to eat when dad was
+a-strikin' the last time."
+
+"An' look-ee," continued the boy, "right there next to the Martins' yer
+can see the old house where Adam Ward used to live before the Mill made
+him rich an' he moved to his big place up on the hill. I know 'cause I
+heard dad an' another man talkin' 'bout it onct. Ain't nobody lives in
+the old house now. She's all tumbled down with windows broke an'
+everything. I wonder--" He paused to search the hillside to the east.
+"Yep," he shouted, pointing, "there she is--there's the castle--there's
+where old Adam an' his folks lives now. Some place to live I'd say.
+Gee, but wouldn't I like to put a chunk o' danermite er somethin' under
+there! I'd blow the whole darned thing into nothin' at all an that old
+devil Adam with it. I'd--"
+
+Little Maggie caught her warlike brother's arm. "But, Bobby--Bobby, yer
+wouldn't dast to do that, yer know yer wouldn't!"
+
+"Huh," returned the boy, scornfully. "I'd show yer if I had a chanct."
+
+"But, Bobby, yer'd maybe kill the beautiful princess lady if yer was to
+blow up the castle an' every-thin'."
+
+"Aw shucks," returned the boy, shaking off his sister's hand with manly
+impatience. "Couldn't I wait 'til she was away somewheres else 'fore I
+touched it off? An', anyway, what if yer wonderful princess lady _was_
+to git hurt, I guess she's one of 'em, ain't she?"
+
+Poor Maggie, almost in tears, was considering this doubtful reassurance
+when Bobby suddenly pointed again toward that pretentious estate on the
+hillside, and cried in quick excitement: "Look-ee, Mag, there's a
+autermobile a-comin' out from the castle, right now--see? She's a-goin'
+down the hill toward town. Who'll yer bet it is? Old Adam Ward
+his-self, heh?"
+
+Little Maggie's face brightened joyously. "Maybe it's the princess
+lady, Bobby."
+
+"And who is this that you call the princess lady, Maggie?" asked the
+Interpreter.
+
+Bobby answered for his sister. "Aw, she means old Adam's daughter.
+She's allus a-callin' her that an' a-makin' up stories about her."
+
+"Oh, so you know Miss Helen Ward, too, do you?" The Interpreter was
+surprised.
+
+The boy turned his back on the landscape as though it held nothing more
+of interest to him. "Naw, we've just seen her, that's all."
+
+Stealing timidly back to the side of the wheel chair, the little girl
+looked wistfully up into the Interpreter's face. "Do yer--do yer know
+the princess lady what lives in the castle?" she asked.
+
+The old basket maker, smiling down at her, answered, "Yes, dear, I have
+known your princess lady ever since she was a tiny baby--much smaller
+than you. And did you know, Maggie, that she was born in the old house
+down there, next door to Charlie and Mary Martin?"
+
+"An'--an' did she live there when she was--when she was as big as me?"
+
+Bobby interrupted with an important "Huh, I know her brother John is a
+boss in the Mill. He was in the war, too, with Captain Charlie. Did he
+live in the old house when he was a kid?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"An'--an' when the princess lady was little like me, an' lived in the
+old house, did yer play with her?" asked Maggie.
+
+The Interpreter laughed softly. "Yes, indeed, often. You see I worked
+in the Mill, too, in those days, Maggie, with her father and Peter
+Martin and--"
+
+"That was when yer had yer real, sure-nuff legs, wasn't it?" the boy
+interrupted.
+
+"Yes, Bobby. And every Sunday, almost, I used to be at the old house
+where the little princess lady lived, or at the Martin home next door,
+and Helen and John and Charlie and Mary and I would always have such
+good times together."
+
+Little Maggie's face shone with appreciative interest. "An' did yer
+tell them fairy stories sometimes?"
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+The little girl sighed and tried to get still closer to the man in the
+wheel chair. "I like fairies, don't yer?"
+
+"Indeed, I do," he answered heartily.
+
+"Skinny and Chuck, they said yer tol' _them_ stories, too."
+
+The Interpreter laughed quietly. "I expect perhaps I did."
+
+"I don't suppose yer know any fairy stories right now, do yer?"
+
+"Let me see," said the Interpreter, seeming to think very hard. "Why,
+yes, I believe I do know one. It starts out like this: Once upon a time
+there was a most beautiful princess, just like your princess lady, who
+lived in a most wonderful palace. Isn't that the way for a fairy story
+to begin?"
+
+"Uh-huh, that's the way. An' then what happened?"
+
+With a great show of indifference the boy drew near and stretched
+himself on the floor on the other side of the old basket maker's chair.
+
+"Well, this beautiful princess in the story, perhaps because she was so
+beautiful herself, loved more than anything else in all the world to
+have lots and lots of jewels. You know what jewels are, don't you?"
+
+"Uh-huh, the princess lady she has 'em--heaps of 'em. I seen her onct
+close, when she was a-gettin' into her autermobile, in front of one of
+them big stores."
+
+"Well," continued the story-teller, "it was strange, but with all her
+diamonds and pearls and rubies and things there was _one_ jewel that
+the princess did _not_ have. And, of course, she wanted that one
+particular gem more than all the others. That is the way it almost
+always is, you know."
+
+"Huh," grunted Bobby.
+
+"What was that there jewel she wanted?" asked Maggie.
+
+"It was called the jewel of happiness," answered the Interpreter,
+"because whoever possessed it was sure to be always as happy as happy
+could be. And so, you see, because she did not have that particular
+jewel the princess did not have as good times as such a beautiful
+princess, living in such a wonderful palace, with so many lovely
+things, really ought to have.
+
+"But because this princess' heart was kind, a fairy appeared to her one
+night, and told her that if she would go down to the shore of the great
+sea that was not far from the castle, and look carefully among the
+rocks and in the sand and dirt, she would find the jewel of happiness.
+Then the fairy disappeared--poof! just like that."
+
+Little Maggie squirmed with thrills of delight. "Some story, I'd say.
+An' then what happened?"
+
+"Why, of course, the very next day the princess went to walk on the
+seashore, just as the fairy had told her. And, sure enough, among the
+rocks and in the sand and dirt, she found hundreds and hundreds of
+bright, shiny jewels. And she picked them up, and picked them up, and
+picked them up, until she just couldn't carry another one. Then she
+began to throw away the smaller ones that she had picked up at first,
+and to hunt for larger ones to take instead. And then, all at once,
+right there beside her, was a poor, ragged and crooked old woman, and
+the old woman was picking up the ugly, dirt-colored pebbles that the
+princess would not touch.
+
+"'What are you doing, mother?' asked the beautiful princess, whose
+heart was kind.
+
+"And the crooked old woman answered, 'I am gathering jewels of
+happiness on the shore of the sea of life.'
+
+"'But those ugly, dirty pebbles are not jewels, mother,' said the lady.
+'See, these are the jewels of happiness.' And she showed the poor,
+ignorant old woman the bright, shiny stones that she had gathered.
+
+"And the crooked old crone looked at the princess and laughed--a
+curious, creepy, crawly, crooked laugh.
+
+"Then the old woman offered to the princess one of the ugly,
+dirt-colored pebbles that she had gathered. 'Take this, my dear,' she
+croaked, 'and wear it, and you shall see that I am right--that this is
+the jewel of happiness.'
+
+"Now the beautiful princess did not want to wear that ugly,
+dirt-colored stone--no princess would, you know. But, nevertheless,
+because her heart was kind and she saw that the poor, crooked old woman
+would feel very bad if her gift was not accepted, she took the dull,
+common pebble and put it with the bright, shiny jewels that she had
+gathered.
+
+"And that very night the fairy appeared to the princess again.
+
+"'Did you do as I told you?' the fairy asked. 'Did you look for the
+jewel of happiness on the shore of the sea of life?'
+
+"'Oh, yes,' cried the princess. 'And see what a world of lovely ones I
+found!'
+
+"The fairy looked at all the pretty, shiny stones that the princess had
+gathered. 'And what is this?' the fairy asked, pointing to the ugly,
+dirt-colored pebble.
+
+"'Oh, that,' replied the princess, hanging her head in
+embarrassment,--'that is nothing but a worthless pebble. A poor old
+woman gave it to me to wear because she thinks it is beautiful.'
+
+"'But you will not wear the ugly thing, will you?' asked the fairy.
+'Think how every one would point at you, and laugh, and call you
+strange and foolish.'
+
+"'I know,' answered the princess, sadly, 'but I must wear it because I
+promised, and because if I did not and the poor old lady should see me
+without it, she would be so very, very unhappy.'
+
+"And, would you believe it, no sooner had the beautiful princess said
+those words than the fairy disappeared--poof! just like that! And right
+there, on the identical spot where she had been, was that old ragged
+and crooked woman.
+
+"'Oh!' cried the princess.
+
+"And the old woman laughed her curious, creepy, crawly, crooked laugh.
+'Don't be afraid, my dear,' she said, 'you shall have your jewel of
+happiness. But look!' She pointed a long, skinny, crooked finger at the
+shiny jewels on the table and there, right before the princess' eyes,
+they were all at once nothing but lumps of worthless dirt.
+
+"'Oh!' screamed the princess again. 'All my lovely jewels of
+happiness!'
+
+"'But look,' said the old woman again, and once more pointed with her
+skinny finger. And would you believe it, the princess saw that ugly,
+dirt-colored pebble turn into the most wonderfully splendid jewel that
+ever was--the true jewel of happiness.
+
+"And so," concluded the Interpreter, "the beautiful princess whose
+heart was kind lived happy ever after."
+
+Little Maggie clapped her thin hands with delight.
+
+"Gee," said Bobby, "wish I knowed where that there place was. I'd get
+me enough of them there jewel things to swap for a autermobile an'
+a--an' a flyin' machine."
+
+"If you keep your eyes open, Bobby," answered the old basket maker,
+"you will find the place all right. Only," he added, looking away
+toward the big house on the hill, "you must be very careful not to make
+the mistake that the princess lady is making--I mean," he corrected
+himself with a smile, "you must be careful not to pick up only the
+bright and shiny pebbles as the princess in the story did."
+
+"Huh--I guess I'd know better'n that," retorted the boy. "Come on, Mag,
+we gotter go."
+
+"You will come to see me again, won't you?" asked the Interpreter, as
+the children stood on the threshold. "You have legs, you know, that can
+easily bring you."
+
+"Yer bet we'll come," said Bobby, "won't we, Mag?"
+
+The little girl, looking back at the man in the wheel chair, smiled.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+For some time after the children had gone the Interpreter sat very
+still. His dark eyes were fixed upon the Mill with its tall, grim
+stacks and the columns of smoke that twisted upward to form that
+overshadowing cloud. The voices of the children, as they started down
+the stairway to the dusty road and to their wretched home in the Flats,
+came to him muffled and indistinct from under the cliff.
+
+Perhaps the man in the wheel chair was thinking of the days when
+Maggie's princess lady was a little girl and lived in the old house
+next door to Mary and Charlie Martin. Perhaps his mind still dwelt on
+the fairy story and the princess who found her jewel of happiness. It
+may have been that he was listening to the droning, moaning voice of
+the Mill, as one listens to the distant roar of the surf on a dangerous
+coast.
+
+With a weary movement he took the unfinished basket from the table and
+began to work. But it was not his basket making that caused the
+weariness of the Interpreter--it was not his work that put the light of
+sorrow in his dark eyes.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Bobby and Maggie went leisurely down the zigzag steps, proud of
+the tremendous success of their adventure, the boy paused several times
+to execute an inspirational "stunt" that would in some degree express
+his triumphant emotions.
+
+"Gee!" he exulted. "Wait 'til I see Skinny and Chuck an' the rest of
+the gang! Gee, won't I tell 'em! Just yer wait. I'll knock 'em dead.
+Gee!"
+
+On the bottom step they deliberately seated themselves as if they had
+suddenly found the duty of leaving the charmed vicinity of that hut on
+the cliff above impossible.
+
+Suddenly, from around the curve in the road followed by a whirling
+cloud of dust, came an automobile. It was a big car, very imposing with
+its shiny black body, its gleaming metal, and its liveried chauffeur.
+
+The children gazed in open-mouthed wonder. The car drew nearer, and
+they saw, behind the dignified personality at the wheel, a lady who
+might well have been the beautiful princess of the Interpreter's fairy
+tale.
+
+Little Maggie caught her brother's arm. "Bobby! It's--it's _her_--it's
+the princess lady herself."
+
+"Gee!" gasped the boy. "She's a slowin' down--what d'yer--"
+
+The automobile stopped not thirty feet from where the children sat on
+the lower step of the old stairway. Springing to the ground, the
+chauffeur, with the dignity of a prime minister, opened the door.
+
+But the princess lady sat motionless in her car. With an expression of
+questioning disapproval she looked at the Interpreter's friends on that
+lower step of the Interpreter's stairway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+LITTLE MAGGIE'S PRINCESS LADY
+
+
+By nine out of ten of the Millsburgh people, the Interpreter would be
+described as a strange character. But the judge once said to the
+cigar-store philosopher, when that worthy had so spoken of the old
+basket maker, "Sir, the Interpreter is more than a character; he is a
+conviction, a conscience, an institution."
+
+It was about the time when the patents on the new process were issued
+that the Interpreter--or Wallace Gordon, as he was then known--appeared
+from no one knows where, and went to work in the Mill. Because of the
+stranger's distinguished appearance, his evident culture, and his
+slightly foreign air, there were many who sought curiously to learn his
+history. But Wallace Gordon's history remained as it, indeed, remains
+still, an unopened book. Within a few months his ability to speak
+several of the various languages spoken by the immigrants who were
+drawn to the manufacturing city caused his fellow workers to call him
+the Interpreter.
+
+Working at the same bench in the Mill with Adam Ward and Peter Martin,
+the Interpreter naturally saw much of the two families that, in those
+days, lived such close neighbors. Sober, hard working, modest in his
+needs, he acquired, during his first year in the Mill, that little plot
+of ground on the edge of the cliff, and built the tiny hut with its
+zigzag stairway. But often on a Sunday or a holiday, or for an hour of
+the long evenings after work, this man who was so alone in the world
+would seek companionship in the homes of his two workmen friends. The
+four children, who were so much together that their mothers used to say
+laughingly they could scarcely tell which were Wards and which were
+Martins, claimed the Interpreter as their own. With his never-failing
+fund of stories, his ultimate acquaintance with the fairies, his ready
+understanding of their childish interests, and his joyous comradeship
+in their sports, he won his own peculiar place in their hearts.
+
+It was during the second year of his residence in Millsburgh that he
+adopted the deaf and dumb orphan boy, Billy Rand.
+
+That such a workman should become a leader among his fellow workers was
+inevitable. More and more his advice and counsel were sought by those
+who toiled under the black cloud that rolled up in ever-increasing
+volumes from the roaring furnaces.
+
+The accident which so nearly cost him his life occurred soon after the
+new process had taken Adam from his bench to a desk in the office of
+the Mill. Helen and John were away at school. At the hospital they
+asked him about his people. He smiled grimly and shook his head. When
+the surgeons were finally through with him, and it was known that he
+would live but could never stand on his feet again, he was still silent
+as to his family and his life before he came to the Mill. So they
+carried him around by the road on the hillside to his little hut on the
+top of the cliff where, with Billy Rand to help him, he made baskets
+and lived with his books, which he purchased as he could from time to
+time during the more profitable periods of his industry.
+
+As the years passed and the Mill, under Adam Ward's hand, grew in
+importance, Millsburgh experienced the usual trials of such industrial
+centers. Periodic labor wars alternated with times of industrial peace.
+Months of prosperity were followed by months of "hard times," and want
+was in turn succeeded by plenty. When the community was at work the
+more intelligent and thrifty among those who toiled with their hands
+and the more conservative of those who labored in business were able to
+put by in store enough to tide them over the next period of idleness
+and consequent business depression.
+
+From his hut on the cliff the Interpreter watched it all with
+never-failing interest and sympathy. Indeed, although he never left his
+work of basket making, the Interpreter was a part of it all. For more
+and more the workers from the Mill, the shops and the factories, and
+the workers from the offices and stores came to counsel with this
+white-haired man in the wheel chair.
+
+The school years of John and Helen, the new home on the hill, and all
+the changes brought by Adam Ward's material prosperity separated the
+two families that had once been so intimate. But, in spite of the wall
+that the Mill owner had built between himself and his old workmen
+comrades, the children of Adam Ward and the children of Peter Martin
+still held the Interpreter in their hearts. To the man condemned to his
+wheel chair and his basket making, little Maggie's princess lady was
+still the Helen of the old house.
+
+Sam Whaley's children sitting on the lower step of the zigzag stairway
+that afternoon had no thought for the Interpreter's Helen of the old
+house. Bobby's rapt attention was held by that imposing figure in
+uniform. Work in the Mill when he became a man! Not much! Not as long
+as there were automobiles like that to drive and clothes like those to
+wear while driving them! Little Maggie's pathetically serious eyes saw
+only the beautiful princess of the Interpreter's story--the princess
+who lived in a wonderful palace and who because her heart was so kind
+was told by the fairy how to find the jewel of happiness. Only this
+princess lady did not look as though she had found her jewel of
+happiness yet. But she would find it--the fairies would be sure to help
+her because her heart was kind. How could any princess lady--so
+beautiful, with such lovely clothes, and such a grand automobile, and
+such a wonderful servant--how could any princess lady like that help
+having a kind heart!
+
+"Tom, send those dirty, impossible children away!"
+
+The man touched his cap and turned to obey.
+
+Poor little Maggie could not believe. It was not what the lady said; it
+was the tone of her voice, the expression of her face, that hurt so.
+The princess lady must be very unhappy, indeed, to look and speak like
+that. And the tiny wisp of humanity, with her thin, stooping shoulders
+and her tired little face--dirty, half clothed and poorly fed--felt
+very sorry because the beautiful lady in the automobile was not happy.
+
+But Bobby's emotions were of quite a different sort. Sam Whaley would
+have been proud of his son had he seen the boy at that moment.
+Springing to his feet, the lad snarled with all the menacing hate he
+could muster, "Drive us away, will yer! I'd just like to see yer try it
+on. These here are the Interpreter's steps. If the Interpreter lets us
+come to see him, an' gives us cookies, an' tells us stories, I guess
+we've got a right to set on his steps if we want to."
+
+"Go on wid ye--git out o' here," said the man in livery. But Bobby's
+sharp eyes saw what the lady in the automobile could not see--a faint
+smile accompanied the chauffeur's attempt to obey his orders.
+
+"Go on yerself," retorted the urchin, defiantly, "I'll go when I git
+good an' ready. Ain't no darned rich folks what thinks they's so
+grand--with all their autermobiles, an' swell drivers, 'n' things--can
+tell _me_ what to do. I know her--she's old Adam Ward's daughter, she
+is. An' she lives by grindin' the life out of us poor workin' folks,
+that's what she does; 'cause my dad and Jake Vodell they say so. Yer
+touch me an' yer'll see what'll happen to yer, when I tell Jake
+Vodell."
+
+Unseen by his mistress, the smile on the servant's face grew more
+pronounced; and the small defender of the rights of the poor saw one of
+the man's blue Irish eyes close slowly in a deliberate wink of good
+fellowship. In a voice too low to be heard distinctly in the automobile
+behind him, he said, "Yer all right, kid, but fer the love o' God beat
+it before I have to lay hands on ye." Then, louder, he added gruffly,
+"Get along wid ye or do ye want me to help ye?"
+
+Bobby retreated in good order to a position of safety a little way down
+the road where his sister was waiting for him.
+
+With decorous gravity the imposing chauffeur went back to his place at
+the door of the automobile.
+
+"Gee!" exclaimed Bobby. "What do yer know about that! Old Adam Ward's
+swell daughter a-goin' up to see the Interpreter. Gee!"
+
+On the lower step of the zigzag stairway, with her hand on the railing,
+the young woman paused suddenly and turned about. To the watching
+children she must have looked very much indeed like the beautiful
+princess of the Interpreter's fairy tale.
+
+"Tom--" She hesitated and looked doubtfully toward the children.
+
+"Yes, Miss."
+
+"What was it that boy said about his rights?"
+
+"He said, Miss, as how they had just been to visit the Interpreter an'
+the old man give 'em cookies, and so they thought they was privileged
+to sit on his steps."
+
+A puzzled frown marred the really unusual loveliness of her face. "But
+that was not all he said, Tom."
+
+"No, Miss."
+
+She looked upward to the top of the cliff where one corner of the
+Interpreter's hut was just visible above the edge of the rock. And
+then, as the quick light of a smile drove away the trouble shadows, she
+said to the servant, "Tom, you will take those children for a ride in
+the car. Take them wherever they wish to go, and return here for me. I
+shall be ready in about an hour."
+
+The man gasped. "But, Miss, beggin' yer pardon,--the car--think av the
+upholsterin'--an' the dirt av thim little divils--beggin' yer pardon,
+but 'tis ruined the car will be--an' yer gowns! Please, Miss, I'll give
+them a dollar an' 'twill do just as well--think av the car!"
+
+"Never mind the car, Tom, do as I say, please."
+
+In spite of his training, a pleased smile stole over the Irish face of
+the chauffeur; and there was a note of ungrudging loyalty and honest
+affection in his voice as he said, touching his cap, "Yes, Miss, I will
+have the car here in an hour--thank ye, Miss."
+
+A moment later the young woman saw her car stop beside the wondering
+children. With all his high-salaried dignity the chauffeur left the
+wheel and opened the door as if for royalty itself.
+
+The children stood as if petrified with wonder, although the boy was
+still a trifle belligerent and suspicious.
+
+In his best manner the chauffeur announced, "Miss Ward's compliments,
+Sir and Miss, an' she has ordered me to place her automobile at yer
+disposal if ye would be so minded as to go for a bit of a pleasure
+ride."
+
+"Oh!" gulped little Maggie.
+
+"Aw, what are yer givin' us!" said Bobby.
+
+The man's voice changed, but his manner was unaltered. "'Tis the truth
+I'm a-tellin' ye, kids, wid the lady herself back there a-watchin' to
+see that I carry out her orders. So hop in, quick, and don't keep her
+a-waitin'."
+
+"Gee!" exclaimed the boy.
+
+Maggie looked at her brother doubtfully. "Dast we, Bobby? Dast we?"
+
+"Dast we!--Huh! Who's afraid? I'll say we dast."
+
+Another second and they were in the car. The chauffeur gravely touched
+his cap. "An' where will I be drivin' ye, Sir?"
+
+"Huh?"
+
+"Where is it ye would like for to go?"
+
+The two children looked at each other questioningly. Then a grin of
+wild delight spread itself over the countenance of the boy and he
+fairly exploded with triumphant glee, "Gee! Mag, now's our chance." To
+the man he said, eagerly, "Just you take us all 'round the Flats,
+mister, so's folks can see. An'--an', mind yer, toot that old horn good
+an' loud, so as everybody'll know we're a-comin'." As the automobile
+moved away he beamed with proud satisfaction. "Some swells we are--heh?
+Skinny an' Chuck an' the gang'll be plumb crazy when they see us. Some
+class, I'll tell the world."
+
+"Well, why not?" demanded the cigar-stand philosopher, when Tom
+described that triumphant drive of Sam Whaley's children through the
+Flats. "Them kids was only doin' what we're all a-tryin' to do in one
+way or another."
+
+The lawyer, who had stopped for a light, laughed. "I heard the
+Interpreter say once that 'to live on some sort of an elevation was to
+most people one of the prime necessities of life.'"
+
+"Sure," agreed the philosopher, reaching for another box for the
+real-estate agent, "I'll bet old Adam Ward himself is just as human as
+the rest of us if you could only catch him at it."
+
+For some time after her car, with Bobby and Maggie, had disappeared in
+its cloud of dust, among the wretched buildings of the Flats, Helen
+stood there, on the lower step of the zigzag stairway, looking after
+them. She was thinking, or perhaps she was wondering a little at
+herself. She might even have been living again for the moment those
+old-house days when, with her brother and Mary and Charlie Martin, she
+had played there on these same steps.
+
+Those old-house days had been joyous and carefree. Her school years,
+too, had been filled with delightful and satisfying activities. After
+her graduation she had been content with the gayeties and triumphs of
+the life to which she had been arbitrarily removed by her father and
+the new process, and for which she had been educated. She had felt the
+need of nothing more. Then came the war, and, in her brother's
+enlistment and in her work with the various departments of the women
+forces at home, she had felt herself a part of the great world
+movement. But now when the victorious soldiers--brothers and
+sweethearts and husbands and friends--had returned, and the days of
+excited rejoicing were past, life had suddenly presented to her a
+different front. It would have been hard to find in all Millsburgh, not
+excepting the most wretched home in the Flats, a more unhappy and
+discontented person than this young woman who was so unanimously held
+to have everything in the world that any one could possibly desire.
+
+Slowly she turned to climb the zigzag stairway to the Interpreter's
+hut.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE INTERPRETER
+
+
+The young woman announced her presence at the open door of the hut by
+calling, "Are you there?"
+
+The deep voice of the Interpreter answered, "Helen! Here I am,
+child--on the porch. Come!" As she passed swiftly through the house and
+appeared in the porch doorway, he added, "This is a happy surprise,
+indeed. I thought you were not expected home for another month. It
+seems ages since you went away."
+
+She tried bravely to smile in response to the gladness in her old
+friend's greeting. "I had planned to stay another month," she said,
+"but I--" She paused as if for some reason she found it hard to explain
+why she had returned to Millsburgh so long before the end of the summer
+season. Then she continued slowly, as if remembering that she must
+guard her words, "Brother wrote me that they were expecting serious
+labor troubles, and with father as he is--" Her voice broke and she
+finished lamely, "Mother is _so_ worried and unhappy. I--I felt that I
+really ought not to be away."
+
+She turned quickly and went to stand at the porch railing, where she
+watched the cloud of dust that marked the progress of Bobby and Maggie
+through the Flats.
+
+"I can't understand father's condition at all," she said, presently,
+without looking at the Interpreter. "He is so--so--" Again she paused
+as if she could not find courage to speak the thought that so disturbed
+her mind.
+
+From his wheel chair the Interpreter silently watched the young woman
+who was so envied by the people. And because the white-haired old
+basket maker knew many things that were hidden from the multitude, his
+eyes were as the eyes of the Master when He looked upon the rich young
+ruler whom He loved.
+
+Then, as if returning to a thought that had been interrupted by the
+unwelcome intrusion of a forbidden subject, Helen said, "I can't
+understand how you tolerate such dirty, rude and vicious little animals
+as those two children."
+
+The Interpreter smiled understandingly at the back of her very becoming
+and very correctly fashioned hat. "You met my little friends, did you?"
+
+"I did," she answered, with decided emphasis, "at the foot of your
+stairs, and I was forced to listen to the young ruffian's very frank
+opinion of me and of all that he is taught to believe I represent. I
+wonder _you_ did not hear. But I suppose you can guess what he would
+say."
+
+"Yes," said the man in the wheel chair, gently, "I can guess Bobby's
+opinion of you, quite as accurately as Bobby guesses your opinion of
+him."
+
+At that she turned on him with a short laugh that was rather more
+bitter than mirthful. "Well, the little villain is guessing another
+guess just now. I sent Tom to take them for a ride in the car."
+
+"And why did you do that?"
+
+She waited a little before she answered. "I don't know exactly. Perhaps
+it was your Helen of the old house that did it. She may have been a
+little ashamed of me and wanted to make it up to them. I am afraid I
+really wasn't very kind at first."
+
+"I see," said the Interpreter, gravely.
+
+"There might possibly have been the shade of another reason," she
+continued, after a moment, and there was a hint of bitterness in her
+voice now.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Yes, it is conceivable, perhaps, that, in spite of the prevailing
+opinions of such people, even _I_ might have felt a wee bit sorry for
+the poor kiddies--especially for the girl. She is such a tiny,
+tired-looking mite."
+
+The old basket maker was smiling now, as he said, "I have known for a
+long time that there were _two_ Helens. Little Maggie, it seems, has
+found still another."
+
+"How interesting!"
+
+"Yes, Maggie has discovered, somehow, that you are really a beautiful
+princess, living on most intimate terms with the fairies. She will
+think so more than ever now."
+
+The young woman laughed at this. "And the boy--what do you suppose _he_
+will think after his ride with Tom in the limousine?"
+
+The Interpreter shook his head doubtfully. "Bobby will probably reserve
+his judgment for a while, on the possible chance of another ride in
+your car."
+
+"Tell me about them," said Helen.
+
+"Are you really interested?"
+
+She flushed a little as she answered, "I am at least curious."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Perhaps because of your interest in them," she retorted. "Who are
+they?"
+
+The Interpreter did not answer for a moment; then, with his dark eyes
+fixed on the heavy cloud of smoke that hung above the Mill and
+overshadowed the Flats, he said, slowly, "They are Sam Whaley's
+children. Their father works--when he works--in your father's Mill. I
+knew both Sam and his wife before they were married. She was a bright
+girl, with fine instincts for the best things of life and a capacity
+for great happiness. Sam was a good worker in those days, and their
+marriage promised well. Then he became interested in the wrong sort of
+what is called socialism, and began to associate with a certain element
+that does not value homes and children very highly. The man is honest,
+and fairly capable, up to a certain point; but there never was much
+capacity there for clear thinking. He is one of those who always follow
+the leader who yells the loudest and he mistakes vituperation for
+argument. He is strong on loyalty to class, but is not so particular as
+he might be when it comes to choosing his class. And so, for several
+years now, in every little difference between the workmen and the
+management, Sam has been too ready to quit his job and let his wife and
+children go hungry for the good of the cause, while he vociferates
+loudly against the cruelty of all who refuse to offer their families as
+sacrifice on the altar of his particular and impracticable ideas."
+
+"And his wife--the mother of his children--the girl with fine instincts
+for the best things and a capacity for great happiness--what of her?"
+demanded Helen.
+
+The Interpreter pointed toward the Flats. "She lives down there," he
+said, sadly. "You have seen her children."
+
+The young woman turned again to the porch railing and looked down on
+the wretched dwellings of the Flats below.
+
+"It is strange," she said, presently, as if speaking to herself, "but
+that poor woman makes me think of mother. Mother is like that, isn't
+she? I mean," she added, quickly, "in her instincts and in her capacity
+for happiness."
+
+"Yes," agreed the Interpreter, "your mother is like that."
+
+She faced him once more, to say thoughtfully, but with decisive warmth,
+"It is a shame the way such children--I mean the children of such
+people as this man Whaley--are being educated in lawlessness. Those
+youngsters are nothing less than juvenile anarchists. They will grow up
+a menace to our government, to society, to our homes, and to everything
+that is decent and right. They are taught to hate work. And they fairly
+revel in their hatred of every one and every thing that is not of their
+own miserable class."
+
+There was a note of gentle authority in the Interpreter's deep voice,
+and in his dark eyes there was a look of patient sorrow, as he replied,
+"Yes, Helen, all that you say of our Bobbies and Maggies is true. But
+have you ever considered whether it might not be equally true of the
+children of wealth?"
+
+"Is the possession of what we call wealth a crime?" the young woman
+asked, bitterly. "Is poverty _always_ such a virtue?"
+
+The Interpreter answered, "I mean, child, that wealth which comes
+unearned from the industries of life--that wealth for which no service
+is rendered--for which no equivalent in human strength, mental or
+physical, is returned. Are not the children of such conditions being
+educated in lawlessness when the influence of their money so often
+permits them to break our laws with impunity? Are they not a menace to
+our government when they coerce and bribe our public servants to enact
+laws and enforce measures that are for the advantage of a few favored
+ones and against the welfare of our people as a whole? Are they not a
+menace to society when they would limit the meaning of the very word to
+their own select circles and cliques? Are they not a menace to our
+homes by the standards of morals that too often govern their daily
+living? For that hatred of class taught the Bobbies and Maggies of the
+Flats, Helen, these other children are taught an intolerance and
+contempt for everything that is not of their class--an intolerance and
+contempt that breed class hatred as surely as blow flies breed
+maggots."
+
+For some time the silence was broken only by the dull, droning voice of
+the Mill. They listened as they would have listened to the first low
+moaning of the wind that might rise later into a destructive storm.
+
+The Interpreter spoke again. "Helen, this nation cannot tolerate one
+standard of citizenship for one class and a totally different standard
+for another. Whatever is right for the children of the hill, yonder, is
+right for the children of the Flats, down there."
+
+Helen asked, abruptly, "Is there any truth in all this talk about
+coming trouble with the labor unions?"
+
+The man in the wheel chair did not answer immediately. Then he replied,
+gravely, with another question, "And who is it that says there is going
+to be trouble again, Helen?"
+
+"John says everybody is expecting it. And Mr. McIver is so sure that he
+is already preparing for it at his factory. _He_ says it will be the
+worst industrial war that Millsburgh has ever experienced--that it must
+be a fight to the finish this time--that nothing but starvation will
+bring the working classes to their senses."
+
+"Yes," agreed the Interpreter, thoughtfully, "McIver would say just
+that. And many of our labor agitators would declare, in exactly the
+same spirit, that nothing but the final and absolute downfall of the
+employer class can ever end the struggle. I wonder what little Bobby
+and Maggie Whaley and their mother would say if they could have their
+way about it, Helen?"
+
+Helen Ward's face flushed as she said in a low, deliberate voice,
+"Father agrees with Mr. McIver--you know how bitter he is against the
+unions?"
+
+"Yes, I know."
+
+"But John says that Mr. McIver, with his talk of force and of starving
+helpless women and children, is as bad as this man Jake Vodell who has
+come to Millsburgh to organize a strike. It is really brother's
+attitude toward the workmen and their unions and his disagreement with
+Mr. McIver's views that make father as--as he is."
+
+The Interpreter's voice was gentle as he asked, "Your father is not
+worse, is he, Helen? I have heard nothing."
+
+"Oh, no," she returned, quickly. "That is--"
+
+She hesitated, then continued, with careful exactness, "For a time he
+even seemed much better. When I went away he was really almost like his
+old self. But this labor situation and John's not seeing things exactly
+as he does worries him. The doctors all agree, you know, that father
+must give up everything in the nature of business and have absolute
+mental rest; but he insists that in the face of this expected trouble
+with the workmen he dares not trust the management of the Mill wholly
+to John, because of what he calls brother's wild and impracticable
+ideas. Everybody knows how father has given his life to building up the
+Mill. And now, he--he--It is terrible the way he is about things. Poor
+mother is almost beside herself." The young woman's eyes filled and her
+lips trembled.
+
+The man in the wheel chair turned to the unfinished basket on the table
+beside him and handled his work aimlessly, as if in sorrow that he had
+no word of comfort for her.
+
+When Adam Ward's daughter spoke again there was a curious note of
+defiance in her voice, but her eyes, when the Interpreter turned to
+look at her, were fixed upon her old friend with an expression of
+painful anxiety and fear. "Of course his condition is all due to his
+years of hard work and to the mental and nervous strain of his
+business. It--it couldn't be anything else, could it?"
+
+The Interpreter, who seemed to be watching the intricate and constantly
+changing forms that the columns of smoke from the tall stacks were
+shaping, apparently did not hear.
+
+"Don't--don't you think it is all because of his worry over the Mill?"
+
+"Yes, Helen," the Interpreter answered, at last, "I am sure your
+father's trouble all comes from the Mill."
+
+For a while she did not speak, but sat looking wistfully toward the
+clump of trees that shaded her birthplace and the white cottage where
+Peter Martin lived with Charlie and Mary.
+
+Then she said, musingly, "How happy we all were in the old house, when
+father worked in the Mill with you and Uncle Pete, and you used to come
+for Sunday dinner with us. Do you know, sometimes"--she hesitated as if
+making a confession of which she was a little ashamed--"sometimes--that
+is, since brother came home from France, I--I almost hate it. I think I
+feel just as mother does, only neither of us dares admit it--scarcely
+even to ourselves."
+
+"You almost hate what, Helen?"
+
+"Oh, everything--the way we live, the people we know, the stupid things
+I am expected to do. It all seems so useless--so futile--so--so--such a
+waste of time."
+
+The Interpreter was studying her with kindly interest.
+
+"I never felt this way before brother went away. And during the war
+everybody was so much excited and interested, helping in every way he
+or she could. But now--now that it is over and John is safely home
+again, I can't seem to get back into the old ways at all. Life seems to
+have flattened out into a dull, monotonous round of nothing that really
+matters."
+
+The Interpreter spoke, thoughtfully, "Many people, I find, feel that
+way these days, Helen."
+
+"As for brother," she continued, "he is so changed that I simply can't
+understand him at all. He is like a different man--just grinds away in
+that dirty old Mill day after day, as if he were nothing more than a
+common laborer who had to work or starve. In fact," she finished with
+an air of triumph, "that is exactly what he says he is--simply a
+laborer like--like Charlie Martin and the rest of them."
+
+The Interpreter smiled.
+
+"It was all very well for John and Charlie Martin to be buddies, as
+they call it, during the war," she went on. "It was different over
+there in France. But now that it is all over and they are home again,
+and Captain Martin has gone back to his old work in the Mill where John
+has practically become the manager, there is no sense in brother's
+keeping up the intimacy. Really I don't wonder that father is worried
+almost to death over it all. I suppose the next thing John will be
+chumming with this Jake Vodell himself."
+
+"I don't suppose you see much of your old friends the Martins these
+days, do you, Helen?" said the old basket maker, reflectively.
+
+She retorted quickly with an air, "Certainly not."
+
+"But I remember, in the old-house days, before you went away to school,
+you and Charlie Martin were--"
+
+She interrupted him with "I was a silly child. I suppose every girl at
+about that age has to have her foolish little romance."
+
+And the Interpreter saw that her cheeks were crimson.
+
+"A young girl's first love is not in the least silly or foolish, my
+dear," he said.
+
+She made an effort to speak lightly. "Well, fortunately, mine did not
+last long."
+
+"I know," he returned, "but I thought perhaps because of the friendship
+between John and the Captain--"
+
+"I could scarcely see much of one of the common workmen in my father's
+mill, could I?" she asked, warmly. "I must admit, though," she added,
+with an odd note in her voice, "that I admire his good sense in never
+accepting John's invitations to the house."
+
+And then, suddenly, to the consternation of her companion, her eyes
+filled with tears.
+
+The Interpreter looked away toward the beautiful country beyond the
+squalid Plats, the busy city, the smoke-clouded Mill.
+
+There was a sound of some one knocking at the front door of the hut.
+Through the living room Helen saw her chauffeur.
+
+"Yes, Tom," she called, "I am coming."
+
+To the Interpreter she said, hurriedly, "I have really stayed longer
+than I should. I promised mother that I would be home early. She is so
+worried about father, I do not like to leave her, but I felt that I
+must see you. I--I haven't said at all the things I--wanted to say.
+Father--" She looked at the man in the wheel chair appealingly, as she
+hesitated again with the manner of one who feels compelled to speak,
+yet fears to betray a secret. "You feel sure, don't you, that father's
+condition is nothing more than the natural result of his nervous
+breakdown and his worry over business?"
+
+The Interpreter thought how like the look in her eyes was to the look
+in the eyes of timid little Maggie. And again he waited, before
+answering, "Yes, Helen, I am sure that your father's trouble is all
+caused by the Mill. Is there anything that I can do, child?"
+
+"There is nothing that any one can do, I fear," she returned, with a
+little gesture of hopelessness. Then, avoiding the grave, kindly eyes
+of the old basket maker, she forced herself to say, in a tone that was
+little more than a whisper, "I sometimes think--at tines I am almost
+compelled to believe that there _is_ something more--something that
+we--that no one knows about." With sudden desperate earnestness she
+went on with nervous haste as if she feared her momentary courage would
+fail. "I can't explain--but it is as if he were hiding something and
+dreaded every moment that it would be discovered. He is so--so afraid.
+Can it be possible that there is something that we do not know--some
+hidden thing?" And then, before the Interpreter could speak, she
+exclaimed, with a forced laugh of embarrassment, "How silly of me to
+talk like this--you will think that I am going insane."
+
+
+When he was alone, the Interpreter turned again to his basket making.
+"Yes, Billy," he said aloud as his deaf and dumb companion appeared in
+the doorway a few minutes later, "yes, Billy, she will find her jewel
+of happiness. But it will not be easy, Billy--it will not be easy."
+
+To which, of course, Billy made no reply. And that--the Interpreter
+always maintained--was one of the traits that made his companion such a
+delightful conversationalist. He invariably found your pet arguments
+and theories unanswerable, and accepted your every assertion without
+question.
+
+
+Helen Ward could not feel that her father's condition--much as it
+alarmed and distressed her--was, in itself, the reason of her own
+unrest and discontent. She felt, rather, in a vague, instinctive way,
+that the source of her parent's trouble was somehow identical with the
+cause of her own unhappiness. But what was it that caused her father's
+affliction and her own dissatisfied and restless mental state? The
+young woman questioned herself in vain.
+
+Pausing at one of the turns in the stairway, she stood for some time
+looking at the life that lay before her, as though wondering if the
+answer to her questions might not be found somewhere in that familiar
+scene.
+
+But the Mill, with its smoking stacks and the steady song of its
+industry, had no meaning for her. The dingy, dust-veiled Flats spoke a
+language that she was not schooled to understand. The farms of the
+valley beyond the river, so beautiful in their productiveness, were as
+meaningless to her as the life on some unknown planet. To her the busy
+city with its varied interests was without significance. The many homes
+on the hillside held, for her, nothing. And yet as she looked she was
+possessed of a curious feeling that everything in that world before her
+eyes was occupied with some definite purpose--was living to some fixed
+end--was a part of life--belonged to life. Below her, on the road at
+the foot of the cliffs, an old negro with an ancient skeleton of a
+horse and a shaky wreck of a wagon was making slow progress toward the
+Flats. To Helen, even this poor creature was going somewhere--to some
+definite place--on some definite mission. She felt strangely alone.
+
+In those years of the war Adam Ward's daughter, like many thousands of
+her class, had been inevitably forced into a closer touch with life
+than she had ever known before. She had felt, as never before, the
+great oneness of humanity. She had sensed a little the thrilling power
+of a great human purpose. Now it was as though life ignored her, passed
+her by. She felt left out, overlooked, forgotten.
+
+Slowly she went on down the zigzag stairway to her waiting automobile.
+
+As she entered her car, the chauffeur looked at her curiously. When she
+gave him no instructions, he asked, quietly, "Home, Miss?"
+
+She started. "Yes, Tom."
+
+The man was in his place at the wheel when she added, "Did those
+children enjoy their ride, Tom?"
+
+"That they did, Miss--it was the treat of their lives."
+
+Little Maggie's princess lady smiled wistfully--almost as Maggie
+herself might have smiled.
+
+As the car was moving slowly away from the foot of the old stairway,
+she spoke again. "Tom!"
+
+"Yes, Miss."
+
+"You may drive around by the old house, please."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+PETER MARTIN AT HOME
+
+
+Peter Martin, with his children, Charlie and Mary, lived in the oldest
+part of Millsburgh, where the quiet streets are arched with great trees
+and the modest houses, if they seem to lack in modern smartness, more
+than make good the loss by their air of homelike comfort. The Martin
+cottage was built in the days before the success of Adam Ward and his
+new process had brought to Millsburgh the two extremes of the Flats and
+the hillside estates. The little home was equally removed from the
+wretched dwellings of Sam Whaley and his neighbors, on the one hand,
+and from the imposing residences of Adam Ward and his circle, on the
+other.
+
+The house--painted white, with old-fashioned green shutters--is only a
+story and a half, with a low wing on the east, and a bit of porch in
+front, with wooden seats on either side the door. The porch step is a
+large uncut stone that nature shaped to the purpose, and the walk that
+connects the entrance with the front gate is of the same untooled flat
+rock. On the right of the walk, as one enters, a space of green lawn, a
+great tree, and rustic chairs invite one to rest in the shade; while on
+the left, the yard is filled with old-fashioned flowers, and a row of
+flowering shrubs and bushes extends the full width of the lot along the
+picket fence which parallels the board walk of the tree-bordered
+street. The fence, like the house, is painted white.
+
+The other homes in the neighborhood are of the same modest, well kept
+type.
+
+The only thing that marred the quiet domestic beauty of the scene at
+the time of this story was the place where Adam Ward had lived with his
+little family before material prosperity removed them to their estate
+on the hill. Joining the Martin home on the east, the old house,
+unpainted, with broken shutters, shattered windows, and sagging porch,
+in its setting of neglected, weed-grown yard and tumble-down fences,
+was pathetic in its contrast.
+
+Since the death of her mother, Mary Martin had been the housekeeper for
+her father and her brother. She was a wholesome, clear-visioned girl,
+with an attractive face that glowed with the good color of health and
+happiness. And if at times, when the Ward automobile passed, there was
+a shadow of wistfulness in Mary's eyes, it did not mar for long the
+expression of her habitually contented and cheerful spirit. She worked
+at her household tasks with a song, entered into the pleasures of her
+friends and neighbors with hearty delight, and was known, as well, to
+many poverty-stricken homes in the Flats in times of need.
+
+More than one young workman in the Mill had wanted Pete Martin's girl
+to help him realize his dreams of home building. But Mary had always
+answered "No."
+
+Mary's brother Charlie was a strong-shouldered, athletic workman, with
+a fine, clean countenance and the bearing of his military experience.
+
+At supper, that evening, the young woman remarked casually, "Helen Ward
+went by this afternoon. I was working in the roses. I thought for a
+moment she was going to stop--at the old house, I mean."
+
+Captain Charlie's level gaze met his sister's look. "Did she see you?"
+
+"She did and she didn't," replied Mary.
+
+"Never mind, dear," returned the soldier workman, "it'll be all right."
+
+Peter Martin--a gray-haired veteran with rather a stolid English
+face--looked up at his children questioningly. Presently he said, "It's
+a wonder Adam wouldn't fix up the old place a bit--for pride's sake if
+for nothing else. It's a disgrace to the neighborhood."
+
+"I guess that's the reason he lets it go," said Captain Charlie,
+pushing his chair back from the table.
+
+"What's the reason?" asked Peter.
+
+"For his pride's sake. As it stands now, the old house advertises
+Adam's success. When people see it in ruins like that they always speak
+of the big new house on the hill. If the old house was fixed up and
+occupied it wouldn't cause any comment on Adam's prosperity, you see.
+John told me once that he had begged his father to let him do something
+with it, but Adam ordered him never to set foot on the place."
+
+"Well," said Mary, "I suppose he can afford to keep the old house as a
+sort of monument if he wants to."
+
+Peter Martin commented, in his slow way, "If Charlie is right about his
+reason for leaving it as it is, I am not so sure, daughter, that even
+Adam Ward can afford to do such a thing."
+
+Captain Charlie's eyes twinkled as he addressed his sister. "Father
+evidently believes with the Interpreter that houses have souls or
+spirits or something--like human beings."
+
+"Of course," she returned, "if the Interpreter believes it father is
+bound to."
+
+The old workman smiled. "You children will believe it, too, some day;
+at least I hope so."
+
+"I wonder if Helen ever goes to see the Interpreter," said Mary.
+
+Captain Charlie returned, quickly, "I know she does."
+
+"How do you know? Did you ever meet her there?"
+
+The Captain answered grimly, "I hid out in the garden once with Billy
+Rand to keep from meeting her."
+
+Flushed with the unparalleled adventures of the day, Bobby Whaley asked
+his father, "Dad, ain't the old Interpreter one of us?--ain't he?"
+
+"Sure he is."
+
+"Well, then, what for did old Adam Ward's daughter go to see him just
+like Mag an' me did?"
+
+"I don't know nothin' about that," growled Sam Whaley, "but I can tell
+you kids one thing. You're a-goin' to stay out of that there automobile
+of hers. You let me catch you takin' up with such as Adam Ward's
+daughter and I'll teach you somethin' you won't fergit."
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+The cigar-store philosopher remarked casually to the chief of police,
+"This here savior of the people, Jake Vodell, that's recently descended
+upon us, is gatherin' to himself a choice bunch of disciples--I'll tell
+the world."
+
+"What do you know about it?" demanded the officer of the law.
+
+The philosopher grinned. "Oh, they most of them smoke or chew, the same
+as your cops. Vodell himself smokes your brand. Have one on me chief."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ADAM WARD'S ESTATE
+
+
+In spite of that smile of mingled admiration, contempt and envy, with
+which the people always accompanied any mention of Adam Ward,
+Millsburgh took no little pride in the dominant Mill owner's
+achievements. In particular, was the Ward home, most pretentious of all
+the imposing estates on the hillside, an object of never-failing
+interest and conversational speculation. "Adam Ward's castle," the
+people called it, smiling. And no visiting stranger of any importance
+whatever could escape being driven past that glaring architectural
+monstrosity which stood so boldly on its most conspicuous hillside
+elevation and proclaimed so defiantly to all the world its owner's
+material prosperity.
+
+But the sight-seers always viewed the "castle" and the "palatial
+grounds" (the Millsburgh _Clarion_, in a special Sunday article for
+which Adam paid, so described the place) through a strong, ornamental
+iron fence, with a more than ornamental gate guarded by massive stone
+columns. Only when the visiting strangers were of sufficient importance
+in the owner's eyes were they permitted to pass the conspicuous PRIVATE
+PROPERTY, NO ADMITTANCE sign at the entrance. As the cigar-stand
+philosopher explained, Adam Ward did not propose to give anything away.
+
+The chief value of his possessions, in Adam's thoughts, lay in the fact
+that they were _his_. He always said, "_My_ house--_my_ grounds--_my_
+flowers--_my_ trees--_my_ fountain--_my_ fence." He even extended his
+ownership and spoke of the very birds who dared to ignore the PRIVATE
+PROPERTY, No ADMITTANCE sign as _my_ birds. So marked, indeed, was this
+characteristic habit of his speech, that no one in Millsburgh would
+have been surprised to hear him say, "_My_ sun--_my_ moonlight." And
+never did he so forget himself as to include his wife and children in
+such an expression as "our home." Why, indeed, should he? His wife and
+his children were as much _his_ as any of the other items on the long
+list of the personal possessions which he had so industriously
+acquired.
+
+In perfect harmony with the principles that ordered his life, the owner
+of the castle made great show of hospitality at times. But the
+recipients of his effusive welcome were invariably those from whom, or
+through whom, he had reason to think he might derive a definite
+material gain in return for his graciousness. The chief entertainment
+offered these occasional utilitarian guests was a verbal catalogue of
+the estate, with an itemized statement of the cost of everything
+mentioned. If the architecture of the house was noticed, Adam proudly
+disclaimed any knowledge of architecture, but named the architect's
+fee, and gave the building cost in detail, from the heating system to
+the window screens. If one chanced to betray an interest in a flower or
+shrub or tree, he boasted that he could not name a plant on the place,
+and told how many thousands he had paid the landscape architect, and
+what it cost him each year to maintain the lawns and gardens. If the
+visitor admired the fountain or the statuary he declared--quite
+unnecessarily--that he knew nothing of art, but had paid the various
+artists represented various definite dollars and cents. And never was
+there a guest of that house that poor Adam did not seek to discredit to
+his family and to other guests, lest by any chance any one should fail
+to recognize the host's superiority.
+
+In his youth the Mill owner had received from his parents certain
+exaggerated religious convictions as to the desirability of gaining
+heaven and escaping, hell when one's years of material gains and losses
+should be forever past. Therefore, his spiritual life, also, was wholly
+a matter of personal bargain and profit. The church was an insurance
+corporation, of a sort, to which he paid his dues, as he paid the
+premiums on his policies in other less pretentious companies. As a
+matter of additional security--which cost nothing in the way of
+additional premiums--he never failed to say grace at the table.
+
+This matter of grace, Adam found, was also a character asset of no
+little value when there were guests whom he, for good material reasons,
+wished to impress with the fine combination of business ability and
+sterling Christian virtue that so distinguished his simple and sincere
+nature. Profess yourself the disinterested friend of a man--make him
+believe that you value his friendship for its own sake and, on that
+ground, invite him to your home as your honored guest. And then, when
+he sits at your table, ask God to bless the food, the home, and the
+guest, and you have unquestionably maneuvered your friend into a
+position where he will contribute liberally to your business
+triumphs--if your contracts are cleverly drawn and you strike for the
+necessary signature while the glow of your generous hospitality is
+still warm.
+
+And thus, with his patented process and his cleverly drawn contracts,
+this man had reaped from hospitality, religion and friendship the
+abundant gains that made him the object of his neighbors' admiration,
+contempt and envy.
+
+But the end of Adam Ward's material harvest day was come. As Helen had
+told the Interpreter, the doctors were agreed that her father must give
+up everything in the nature of business and have absolute mental rest.
+The Mill owner must retire.
+
+Retire! Retire to what?
+
+The world of literature--of history and romance, of poetry and the
+lives of men--the world of art, with its magic of color and form--the
+world of music, with its power to rest the weary souls of men--the
+world of nature, that with its myriad interests lay about him on every
+side--the world of true friendships, with their inspiring sympathies
+and unselfish love--in these worlds there is no place for Adam Wards.
+
+Retire! Retire to what?
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+One afternoon, a few days after her visit to the Interpreter, Helen sat
+with a book in a little vine-covered arbor, in a secluded part of the
+grounds, some distance from the house. She had been in the quiet
+retreat an hour, perhaps, when her attention was attracted by the sound
+of some one approaching. Through a tiny opening in the lattice and vine
+wall she saw her father.
+
+Adam Ward apparently was on his way to the very spot his daughter had
+chosen, and the young woman smiled to herself as she pictured his
+finding her there. But a moment before the seemingly inevitable
+discovery, the man turned aside to a rustic seat in the shade of a
+great tree not far away.
+
+Helen was about to reveal her presence by calling to him when something
+in her father's manner caused her to hesitate. Through the leafy screen
+of the arbor wall she saw him stop beside the bench and look carefully
+about on every side, as if to assure himself that he was alone. The
+young woman flushed guiltily, but, as if against her will, she remained
+silent. As she watched her father's face, a feeling of pity, fear and
+wonder held her breathless.
+
+Helen had often seen her father suffering under an attack of nervous
+excitement. She had witnessed his spells of ungoverned rage that left
+him white and trembling with exhaustion. She had known his fears that
+he tried so hard to hide. She knew of his sleepless nights, of his
+dreams of horror, of his hours of lonely brooding. But never had she
+seen her father like this. It was as if Adam Ward, believing himself
+unobserved, let fall the mask that hid his secret self from even those
+who loved him most. Sinking down upon the bench, he groaned aloud,
+while his daughter, looking upon that huddled figure of abject misery
+and despair, knew that she was witnessing a mental anguish that could
+come only from some source deep hidden beneath the surface of her
+father's life. She could not move. As one under some strange spell, she
+was helpless.
+
+The doctors had said--diplomatically--that Adam Ward's ill health was a
+nervous trouble, resulting from his lifelong devotion to his work, with
+no play spell or rest, and no relief through interest in other things.
+But Adam Ward knew the real reason for the medical men's insistent
+advice that he retire from the stress of the Mill to the quiet of his
+estate. He knew it from his wife's anxious care and untiring
+watchfulness. He knew it from the manner of his business associates
+when they asked how he felt. He knew when, at some trivial incident or
+word, he would be caught, helpless, in the grip of an ungovernable rage
+that would leave him exhausted for many weary, brooding hours. He felt
+it in the haunting, unconquerable fears that beset him--by the feeling
+of some dread presence watching him--by the convictions that unknown
+enemies were seeking his life--by his terrifying dreams of the hell of
+his inherited religion.
+
+And the real reason for his condition Adam Ward knew. It was not the
+business to which he had driven himself so relentlessly. It was not
+that he had no other interests to take his mind from the Mill. It was a
+thing that he had fought, in secret, almost every hour of every year of
+his accumulating successes. It was a thing which his neighbors and
+associates and family felt in his presence but could not name--a thing
+which made him turn his eyes away from a frank, straightforward look
+and forbade him to look his fellows in the face save by an exertion of
+his will.
+
+Through the vines, Helen saw her father stoop to pick from the ground a
+few twigs that had escaped the eyes of the caretakers. Deliberately he
+broke the twigs into tiny bits, and threw the pieces one by one aside.
+His gray face, drawn and haggard, twitched and worked with the nervous
+stress of his thoughts. From under his heavy brows he glanced with the
+quick, furtive look of a hunted thing, as though fearing some enemy
+that might be hidden in the near-by shrubbery. The young woman,
+shrinking from the look in his eyes, and not daring to make her
+presence known, remembered, suddenly, how the Interpreter had been
+reluctant to discuss her father's illness.
+
+Casting aside the last tiny bit of the twig which he had broken so
+aimlessly, he found another and continued his senseless occupation.
+
+With pity and love in her heart, Helen wanted to go to him--to help
+him, but she could not--some invisible presence seemed to forbid.
+
+Suddenly Adam raised his head. A moment he listened, then cautiously he
+rose to his feet--listening, listening. It was no trick of his fancy
+this tune. He could hear voices on the other side of a dense growth of
+shrubbery near the fence. Two people were talking. He could not
+distinguish the words but he could hear distinctly the low murmur of
+their voices.
+
+Helen, too, heard the voices and looked in that direction. From her
+position in the arbor she could see the speakers. With the shadow of a
+quick smile, she turned her eyes again toward her father. He was
+looking about cautiously, as if to assure himself that he was alone.
+The shadow of a smile vanished from Helen's face as she watched in
+wondering fear.
+
+Stooping low, Adam Ward crept swiftly to a clump of bushes near the
+spot from which the sound of the voices came. Crouching behind the
+shrubbery, he silently parted the branches and peered through. Bobby
+and Maggie Whaley stood on the outer side of the fence with their
+little faces thrust between the iron pickets, looking in.
+
+
+Still in the glow of their wonderful experience at the Interpreter's
+hut and the magnificent climax of that day's adventure, the children
+had determined to go yet farther afield. It was true that their father
+had threatened dire results if they should continue the acquaintance
+begun at the foot of the Interpreter's zigzag stairway, but, sufficient
+unto the day.--They would visit the great castle on the hill where
+their beautiful princess lady lived. And, who could tell, perhaps they
+might see her once more. Perhaps--"But that," said tiny Maggie, "was
+too wonderful ever to happen again."
+
+The way had been rather long for bare little feet. But excited hope had
+strengthened them. And so they had climbed the hill, and had come at
+last to the iron fence through which they could see the world of bright
+flowers and clean grass and shady trees, and, in the midst of it all,
+the big house. With their hungry little faces thrust between the strong
+iron pickets, Sam Whaley's children feasted their eyes on the beauties
+of Adam Ward's possessions. Even Bobby, in his rapture over the
+loveliness of the scene, forgot for the moment his desire to blow up
+the castle, with its owner and all.
+
+Behind his clump of shrubbery, Adam Ward, crouching like some stealthy
+creature of the jungle, watched and listened.
+
+From the shelter of the arbor, Adam Ward's daughter looked upon the
+scene with white-faced interest.
+
+"Gee," said Bobby, "some place, I'd say!"
+
+"Ain't it pretty?" murmured little Maggie. "Just like them places where
+the fairies live."
+
+"Huh," returned the boy, "old Adam Ward, he ain't no fairy I'm
+a-tellin' yer."
+
+To which Maggie, hurt by this suggested break in the spell of her
+enchantment, returned indignantly, "Well, I guess the fairies can live
+in all them there pretty flowers an' things just the same, if old Adam
+does own 'em. You can't shut fairies out with no big iron fences."
+
+"That's so," admitted Bobby. "Gee, I wisht we was fairies, so's we
+could sneak in! Gee, wouldn't yer like ter take a roll on that there
+grass?"
+
+"Huh," returned the little girl, "I know what I'd do if I was a fairy.
+I'd hide in that there bunch of flowers over there, an' I'd watch till
+the beautiful princess lady with the kind heart come along, an' I'd
+tell her where she could find them there jewels of happiness what the
+Interpreter told us about."
+
+"Do yer reckon she's in the castle there, right now?" asked Bobby.
+
+"I wonder!" murmured Maggie.
+
+"Betcher can't guess which winder is hern."
+
+"Bet I kin; it's that there one with all them vines around it. Princess
+ladies allus has vines a-growin' 'roun' their castle winders--so's when
+the prince comes ter rescue 'em he kin climb up."
+
+"Wisht she'd come out."
+
+"I wish--"
+
+Little Maggie's wish was never expressed, for at that moment, from
+behind that near-by clump of shrubbery a man sprang toward them, his
+face distorted with passion and his arms tossing in threatening
+gestures.
+
+The children, too frightened to realize the safety of their position on
+the other side of those iron bars, stood speechless. For the moment
+they could neither cry out nor run.
+
+"Get out!" Adam Ward yelled, hoarse with rage, as he would have driven
+off a trespassing dog. "Get out! Go home where you belong! Don't you
+know this is private property? Do you think I am keeping a circus here
+for all the dirty brats in the country to look at? Get out, I tell you,
+or I'll--"
+
+With frantic speed the two children fled down the hill.
+
+Adam Ward laughed--laughed until he was forced to hold his sides and
+the tears of his ungodly mirth rolled down his cheeks.
+
+But such laughter is a fearful thing to see. White and trembling with
+the shame and the horror of it, Helen crouched in her hiding place, not
+daring even to move. She felt, as never before, the presence of that
+spirit which possessed her father and haunted her home. It was as if
+the hidden thing of which she had forced herself to speak to the
+Interpreter were suddenly about to materialize before her eyes. She
+wanted to scream--to cry aloud her fear--to shriek her protest--but
+sheer terror held her motionless and dumb.
+
+The spell was broken by Mrs. Ward who, from somewhere in the grounds,
+was calling, "Adam! Oh-h, Adam!"
+
+The man heard, and Helen saw him controlling his laughter, and looking
+cautiously about.
+
+Again the call came, and there was an anxious note in the voice.
+"Adam--father--Oh-h, father, where are you?"
+
+With a cruel grin still twisting his gray face, Adam slunk behind a
+clump of bushes.
+
+Helen Ward crept from her hiding place and, keeping the little arbor
+between herself and her father, stole away through the grounds. When
+she was beyond his hearing, she almost ran, as if to escape from a spot
+accursed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ON THE OLD ROAD
+
+
+When Bobby and Maggie Whaley fled from the immediate vicinity of Adam
+Ward's estate, they were beside themselves with fear--blind,
+unreasoning, instinctive fear.
+
+There is a fear that is reasonable--that is born of an intelligent
+comprehension of the danger that menaces, and there is a fear that is
+born of ignorance--of inability to understand the nature of the danger.
+These children of the Flats had nothing in their little lives by which
+they might know the owner of the Mill, or visualize the world in which
+the man for whom their father worked lived. To Bobby and Maggie the
+home of Adam Ward was a place of mystery, as far removed from the world
+of their actualities as any fabled castle in fairyland could possibly
+be.
+
+Sam Whaley's distorted views of all employers in the industrial world,
+and his fanatical ideas of class loyalty, were impressed with weird
+exaggeration upon the fertile minds of his children. From their
+father's conversation with his workmen neighbors, and from the
+suggestive expressions and epithets which Sam had gleaned from the
+literature upon which he fed his mind and which he used with such
+gusto, Bobby and Maggie had gathered the material out of which they had
+created an imaginary monster, capable of destroying them with fiendish
+delight. They had seen angry men too often to be much disturbed by mere
+human wrath. But, to them, this Adam Ward who had appeared so suddenly
+from the shrubbery was more than a man; he was all that they had been
+taught to believe--a hideous thing of more dreadful power and sinister
+purpose than could be imagined.
+
+With all their strength they ran down the old hill road toward the
+world of the Flats where they belonged. They dared not even look over
+their shoulders. The very ground seemed to drag at their feet to hold
+them back. Then little Maggie stumbled and fell. Her frantic screams
+reached Bobby, who was a few feet in advance, and the boy stopped
+instantly and faced about, with terror in his eyes but with evident
+determination to defend his sister at any cost.
+
+When he had pulled Maggie to her feet, and it was certain that there
+was nothing pursuing them, Bobby, boylike, laughed. "Gee, but we made
+some git-away, that trip! Gee, I'll tell the world!"
+
+The little girl clung to her protector, shaking with weariness and
+fear. "I--can't run 'nother step," she gasped. "Will he come after us
+here?"
+
+"Naw," returned the boy, with reassuring boldness, "he won't come this
+far. Yer just lay down in the grass, under this here tree, 'til yer
+catch yer wind; then we'll make it on down to the Interpreter's--'tain't
+far to the stairs. You just take it easy. I'll watch."
+
+The soft grass and the cool shade were very pleasant after their wild
+run, and they were loath to go, even when little Maggie had recovered
+from her exhaustion. Very soon, when no danger appeared, the boy forgot
+to watch and began an animated discussion of their thrilling
+experience.
+
+But Maggie did not share her brother's boastful triumph. "Do you
+suppose," she said, wistfully, "that he is like that to the princess
+lady?"
+
+Bobby shook his head doubtfully. "I don't know. Yer can't tell what
+he'd do to her if he took a notion. Old Adam Ward would do anything
+that's mean, to anybody, no matter who. I'll bet--"
+
+The sound of some one approaching from the direction of the castle
+interrupted Bobby's conjectures.
+
+Maggie would have made another frantic effort to escape, but the boy
+caught her roughly and drew her down beside him. "No use to run--yer
+can't make it," he whispered. "Best lay low. An' don't yer dast even
+whimper."
+
+Lying prone, they wormed themselves into the tall grass, with the trunk
+of the tree between them and the road, until it would have been a keen
+observer, indeed, who would have noticed them in passing.
+
+They heard the approaching danger coming nearer and nearer. Little
+Maggie buried her face in the grass roots to stifle a scream. Now it
+was on the other side of the tree. It was passing on. Suddenly they
+almost buried themselves in the ground in their effort to lie closer to
+the earth. The sound of the footsteps had ceased.
+
+For what seemed to them hours, the frightened children lay motionless,
+scarcely daring to breathe. Then another sound came to their straining
+ears--a sound not unfamiliar to the children of the Flats. A woman was
+weeping.
+
+Cautiously, the more courageous Bobby raised his head until he could
+peer through the tangled stems and blades of the sheltering grass. A
+moment he looked, then gently shook his sister's arm. Imitating her
+brother's caution, little Maggie raised her frightened face. Only a few
+steps away, their princess lady was crouching in the grass, with her
+face buried in her hands, crying bitterly.
+
+"Well, what do yer know about that?" whispered Bobby.
+
+A moment longer they kept their places, whispering in consultation.
+Then they rose quietly to their feet and, hand in hand, stood waiting.
+
+Helen had not consciously followed the children. Indeed, her mind was
+so occupied with her own troubled thoughts that she had forgotten the
+little victims of her father's insane cruelty. To avoid meeting her
+mother, as she fled from the scene of her father's madness, she had
+taken a course that led her toward the entrance to the estate. With the
+one thought of escaping from the invisible presence of that hidden
+thing, she had left the grounds and followed the quiet old road.
+
+When the storm of her grief had calmed a little, the young woman raised
+her head and saw Sam Whaley's dirty, ill-kept children gazing at her
+with wondering sympathy. It is not too much to say that Helen Ward was
+more embarrassed than she would have been had she found herself thus
+suddenly in the presence of royalty. "I am sorry you were frightened,"
+she said, hesitatingly. "I can't believe that he really would have hurt
+you."
+
+"Huh," grunted Bobby. "I'm darned glad we was outside of that there
+fence."
+
+Maggie's big eyes were eloquent with compassion. "Did--did he scare
+yer, too?"
+
+Helen held back her tears with an effort. "Yes, dear, he frightened me,
+too--dreadfully."
+
+With shy friendliness, little Maggie drew closer. "Is he--is he sure
+'nuff, yer father?"
+
+"Yes," returned Helen, "he is my father."
+
+"Gee!" ejaculated Bobby. "An' is he always like that?"
+
+"Oh, no, indeed," returned Helen, quickly. "Father is really kind and
+good, but he--he is sick now and not wholly himself, you see."
+
+"Huh," said Bobby. "He didn't act very sick to me. What's ailin' him?"
+
+Helen answered slowly, "I--we don't just know what it is. The doctors
+say it is a nervous trouble."
+
+"An' does he--does he ever whip yer?" asked Maggie.
+
+In spite of the pain in her heart, Helen smiled. "No--never."
+
+"Our dad gits mad, too, sometimes," said Bobby. "But, gee! he ain't
+never like that. Dad, he wouldn't care if somebody just looked into our
+yard. We wasn't a-hurtin' nothin'--just a-lookin'--that's all. Yer
+can't hurt nothin' just a-lookin', can yer?"
+
+"I am sorry," said Helen.
+
+"Be yer happy?" asked Maggie, suddenly, with disconcerting directness.
+
+"Why!" replied Helen, "I--What makes you ask such a funny question?"
+
+Maggie was too much embarrassed at her own boldness to answer, and
+Bobby came to her rescue.
+
+"She wants to know because the Interpreter, he tole us about a princess
+what lived in a castle an' wasn't happy 'til the fairy told her how to
+find the jewel of happiness; an' Mag, here, she thinks it's you."
+
+"And where did the princess find the jewel of happiness?" asked Helen.
+
+Little Maggie's anxiety to help overcame her timidity and she answered
+precisely, "On the shores of the sea of life which was not far from the
+castle where the beautiful princess lived."
+
+Helen looked toward the Flats, the Mill, and the homes in the
+neighborhood of the old house. "The shores of the sea of life," she
+repeated, thoughtfully. "I see."
+
+"Yes," continued Maggie, with her tired little face alight, and her
+eyes big with excited eagerness, "but the beautiful princess, she
+didn't know that there jewel of happiness when she seen it."
+
+"No?" said Helen, smiling at her little teacher.
+
+"No--an' so she picked up all the bright, shiny stones what was no good
+at all, 'til the fairy showed her how the real jewel she was a-wantin'
+was an old, ugly, dirt-colored thing what didn't look like any jewel,
+no more 'n nothin'."
+
+"Oh, I see!" said Helen again. And Bobby thought that she looked at
+them as though she were thinking very hard.
+
+"Yer forgot something Mag," said the boy, suddenly.
+
+"I ain't neither," returned his sister, with unusual boldness. "Yer
+shut up an' see." Then, to Helen, "Is yer heart kind, lady?"
+
+"I--I hope so, dear," returned the disconcerted Helen. "Why?"
+
+"Because, if it is, then the fairies will help yer find the real jewel
+of happiness, 'cause that was the reason, yer see, it all
+happened--'cause the beautiful princess's heart was kind." She turned
+to Bobby triumphantly, "There, ain't that like the Interpreter said?"
+
+"Uh-huh," agreed the boy. "But yer needn't to worry--her heart's all
+right. Didn't she give us that there grand ride in her swell
+autermobile?"
+
+Little Maggie's embarrassment suddenly returned.
+
+"Did you really enjoy the ride?" asked Helen.
+
+Bobby answered, "I'll say we did. Gee! but yer ought to a seen us
+puttin' it all over everybody in the Flats."
+
+Something in the boy's answer brought another smile to Helen's lips,
+but it was not a smile of happiness.
+
+"I really must go now," she said, rising. "Thank you for telling me
+about the happiness jewel. Don't you think that it is time for you to
+be running along home? Your mother will be wondering where you are,
+won't she?"
+
+"Uh-huh," agreed Bobby.
+
+But Maggie's mind was fixed upon more important things than the time of
+day. With an effort, she forced herself to say, "If the fairy comes to
+yer will yer tell me about it, sometime? I ain't never seen one myself
+an'--an'--"
+
+"You poor little mite!" said Helen. "Yes, indeed, I will tell you about
+it if the fairy comes. And I will tell the fairy about you, too. But,
+who knows, perhaps the happiness fairy will visit you first, and you
+can tell her about me."
+
+And something that shone in the beautiful face of the young woman, or
+something that sang in her voice, made little Maggie sure--deep down
+inside--that her princess lady would find the jewel of happiness, just
+as the Interpreter had said. But neither the child of the Flats, nor
+the daughter of the big house on the hill knew that the jewel of
+happiness was, even at that moment, within reach of the princess lady's
+hand.
+
+
+When Helen had disappeared from their sight, the two children started
+on their way down the hill toward the dingy Flats.
+
+"Gee," said Bobby, "won't we have something to tell the kids now? Gee!
+We'll sure make 'em sore they wasn't along. Think of us a-talkin' to
+old Adam Ward's daughter, herself. Gee! Some stunt--I'll tell the
+world."
+
+They had reached the foot of the old stairway and were discussing
+whether or not they dared prolong their absence from home by paying a
+visit to the Interpreter, when a man appeared on the road from town.
+Bobby caught sight of the approaching stranger first, and the boy's
+freckled countenance lighted with excited interest and admiration.
+
+"Hully Gee!" he exclaimed, catching Maggie by the arm. "Would yer look
+who's a-comin'!"
+
+The man was not, in his general appearance, one to inspire a feeling of
+confidence. He was a little above medium height, with fat shoulders, a
+thick neck, and dark, heavy features with coarse lips showing through a
+black beard trimmed to a point, and small black eyes set close above a
+large nose with flaring nostrils. His clothing was good, and he carried
+himself with assurance. But altogether there was about him the
+unmistakable air of a foreigner.
+
+Bobby continued in an excited whisper, "That there's Jake Vodell we've
+heard Dad an' the men talkin' so much about. He's the guy what's
+a-goin' to put the fear of God into the Mill bosses and rich folks.
+He's a-goin' to take away old Adam Ward's money an' Mill, an'
+autermobiles, an' house an'--everything, an' divide 'em all up 'mong us
+poor workin' folks. Gee, but he's a big gun, I'm tellin' yer!"
+
+The man came on to the foot of the stairs and stopped before the
+children. For a long moment he looked them over with speculative
+interest. "Well," he said, abruptly, "and who are you? That you belong
+in this neighborhood it is easy to see."
+
+"We're Bobby and Maggie Whaley," answered the boy.
+
+The man's black eyebrows were lifted, and he nodded his head
+reflectively. "Oh-ho, you are Sam Whaley's kids, heh?"
+
+"Uh-huh," returned Bobby. "An' I know who yer are, too."
+
+"So?" said the man.
+
+"Uh-huh, yer Jake Vodell, the feller what's a-goin' to make all the big
+bugs hunt their holes, and give us poor folks a chance. Gee, but I'd
+like to be you!"
+
+The man showed his strong white teeth in a pleased smile. "You are all
+right, kid," he returned. "I think, maybe, you will play a big part in
+the cause sometime--when you grow up."
+
+Bobby swelled out his chest with pride at this good word from his hero.
+"I'm big enough right now to put a stick o' danermite under old Adam
+Ward's castle, up there on the hill."
+
+Little Maggie caught her brother's arm. "Bobby, yer ain't a-goin'--"
+
+The man laughed. "That's the stuff, kid," he said. "But you better let
+jobs like that alone--until you are a bit older, heh?"
+
+"Mag an' me has been up there to the castle all this afternoon,"
+bragged the boy. "An' we talked with old Adam's daughter, too, an'--an'
+everything."
+
+The man stared at him. "What is this you tell me?"
+
+"It's so," returned Bobby, stoutly, "ain't it, Mag? An' the other day
+Helen Ward, she give us a ride, in her autermobile--while she was
+a-visitin' with the Interpreter up there."
+
+Jake Vodell's black brows were drawn together in a frown of
+disapproval. "So this Adam Ward's daughter, too, calls on the
+Interpreter, heh! Many people, it seems, go to this Interpreter." To
+Bobby he said suddenly, "Look here, it will be better if you kids stay
+away from such people--it will get you nothing to work yourselves in
+with those who are not of your own class!"
+
+"Yes, sir," returned Bobby, dutifully.
+
+"I will tell you what you can do, though," continued the man. "You can
+tell your father that I want him at the meeting to-night. Think you can
+remember, heh?"
+
+"Yer bet I can," replied the boy. "But where'll I tell him the meetin'
+is?"
+
+"Never you mind that," returned the other. "You just tell him I want
+him--he will know where. And now be on your way."
+
+To Bobby's utter amazement, Jake Vodell went quickly up the steps that
+led to the Interpreter's hut.
+
+"Gee!" exclaimed the wondering urchin. "What do yer know about that,
+Mag? He's a-goin' to see our old Interpreter. Gee! I guess the
+Interpreter's one of us all right. Jake Vodell wouldn't be a-goin' to
+see him if he wasn't."
+
+As they trudged away through the black dust, the boy added, "Darn it
+all, Mag, if the Interpreter _is_ one of us what's the princess lady
+goin' to see him for?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE HIDDEN THING
+
+
+Hiding in the shrubbery, Adam Ward chuckled and grinned with strange
+glee as he listened to his wife calling for him. Here and there about
+the grounds she searched anxiously; but the man kept himself hidden and
+enjoyed her distress. At last, when she had come so near that discovery
+was certain, he suddenly stepped out from the bushes and, facing her,
+waited expectantly.
+
+And now, by some miracle, Adam Ward's countenance was transformed--his
+eyes were gentle, his gray face calm and kindly. His smile became the
+affectionate greeting of a man who, past the middle years of life, is
+steadfast in his love for the mother of his grown-up children.
+
+Mrs. Ward had been, in the years of her young womanhood, as beautiful
+as her daughter Helen. But her face was lined now with care and
+shadowed by sadness, as though with the success of her husband there
+had come, also, regrets and disappointments which she had suffered in
+silence and alone.
+
+She returned Adam's smile of greeting, when she saw him standing there,
+but that note of anxiety was still in her voice as she said gently,
+"Where in the world have you been? I have looked all over the place for
+you."
+
+He laughed as he went to her--a laugh of good comradeship. "I was just
+sitting over there under that tree," he answered. "I heard you when you
+called the first time, but thought I would let you hunt a while. The
+exercise will do you good--keep you from getting too fat in your old
+age."
+
+She laughed with him, and answered, "Well, you can just come and talk
+to me now, while I rest."
+
+Arm in arm, they went to the rustic seat in the shade of the tree
+where, a few minutes before, he had so aimlessly broken the twigs.
+
+But when they were seated the man frowned with displeasure. "Alice, I
+wish to goodness there was some way to make these men about the place
+keep a closer watch of things."
+
+She glanced at him quickly. "Has something gone wrong, Adam?"
+
+"Nothing more than usual," he answered, harshly. "There are always a
+lot of prowlers around. But they don't stay long when I get after
+them." He laughed, shortly--a mirthless, shamefaced laugh.
+
+"I am sorry you were annoyed," she said, gently.
+
+"Annoyed!" he returned, with the manner of a petulant child. "I'll
+annoy _them_. I tell you I am not going to stand for a lot of people's
+coming here, sneaking and prying around to see what they can see. If
+anybody wants to enjoy a place like this let him work for it as I
+have."
+
+She waited a while before she said, as if feeling her way toward a
+definite point, "It has been hard work, hasn't it, Adam? Almost too
+hard, I fear. Did you ever ask yourself if, after all, it is really
+worth the cost?"
+
+"Worth the cost! I am not in the habit of paying more than things are
+worth. This place cost me exactly--"
+
+She interrupted him, quietly, "I don't mean that, dear. I was not
+thinking of the money. I was thinking of what it has all cost in work
+and worry and--and other things."
+
+"It has all been for you and the children, Alice," he answered,
+wearily; and there was that in his voice and face which brought the
+tears to her eyes. "You know that, so far as I am personally concerned,
+it doesn't mean a thing in the world to me. I don't know anything
+outside of the Mill myself."
+
+She put her hand on his arm with a caressing touch. "I know--I
+know--and that is just what troubles me. Perhaps if you would share it
+more--I mean if you could enjoy it more--I might feel different about
+it. We were all so happy, Adam, in the old house."
+
+When he made no reply to this but sat with his eyes fixed on the ground
+she said, pleadingly, "Won't you put aside all the cares and worries of
+the Mill now, and just be happy with us, Adam?"
+
+The man moved uneasily.
+
+"You know what the doctors say," she continued, gently. "You really--"
+
+He interrupted impatiently, "The doctors are a set of fools. I'll show
+them!"
+
+She persisted with gentle patience. "But even if the doctors are wrong
+about your health, still there is no reason why you should not rest
+after all your years of hard work. I am sure we have everything in the
+world that any one could possibly want. There is not the shadow of a
+necessity to make you go on wearing your life out as you have been
+doing."
+
+"Much you know about what is necessary for me to do," he retorted. "A
+man isn't going to let the business that he has been all his life
+building up go to smash just because he has made money enough to keep
+him without work for the rest of his days."
+
+"There are other things that can go to smash besides business, Adam,"
+she returned, sadly. "And I am sure that the Mill will be safe enough
+now in John's hands."
+
+"John!" he exclaimed, bitterly. "It's John and his crazy ideas that I
+am afraid of."
+
+She returned, quickly, with a mother's pride, "Why, Adam! You have said
+so many times how wonderfully well John was doing, and what a splendid
+head he had for business details and management. It was only last week
+that you told me John was more capable now than some of the men that
+have been in the office with you for several years."
+
+Adam Ward rose and paced uneasily up and down before her. "You don't
+understand at all, Alice. It is not John's business ability or his
+willingness to get into the harness that worries me. It is the fool
+notions that he picked up somewhere over there in the war--there, and
+from that meddlesome old socialist basket maker."
+
+"Just what notions do you mean, Adam? Is it John's friendship with
+Charlie Martin that you fear?"
+
+"His friendship with young Martin is only part of it. I am afraid of
+his attitude toward the whole industrial situation. Haven't you heard
+his wild, impracticable and dangerous theories of applying, as he says,
+the ideals of patriotism, and love of country, and duty to humanity,
+and sacrifice, and heroism, and God knows what other nonsense, to the
+work of the world? You know as well as I do how he talks about the
+comradeship of the mills and factories and workshops being like the
+comradeship of the trenches and camps and battlefields. His notions of
+the relation between an employer and his employees would be funny if
+they were not so dangerous. Look at his sympathy with the unions! And
+yet I have shown him on my books where this union business has cost me
+hundreds of thousands of dollars! Comradeship! Loyalty! I tell you I
+know what I'm talking about from experience. The only way to handle the
+working class is to keep them where they belong. Give them the least
+chance to think you are easy and they are on your neck. If I had my way
+I'd hold them to their jobs at the muzzle of a machine gun. McIver has
+the right idea. He is getting himself in shape right now for the
+biggest fight with labor that he has ever had. Everybody knows that
+agitator Jake Vodell is here to make trouble. The laboring classes have
+had a long spell of good times now and they're ripe for anything. All
+they need is a start and this anarchist is here to start them. And
+John, instead of lining up with McIver and getting ready to fight them
+to a finish, is spending his time hobnobbing with Charlie Martin and
+listening to that old fool Interpreter."
+
+"Come, dear," she said, soothingly. "Come and sit down here with me.
+Don't let's worry about what may happen."
+
+He obeyed her with the manner of a fretful child. And presently, as she
+talked, the cloud lifted from his gray, haggard face, and he grew calm.
+Soon, when she made some smiling remark, he even smiled back at her
+with the affectionate companionship of their years.
+
+"You will try not to worry about things so much, won't you, Adam?" she
+said, at last. "For my sake, won't you?"
+
+"But I tell you, Alice, there is serious trouble ahead."
+
+"Perhaps that is all the more reason why you should retire now," she
+urged. He stirred uneasily, but she continued, "Just suppose the worst
+that could possibly happen should happen, suppose you even had to give
+up the Mill to Pete Martin and the men, suppose you lost the new
+process and everything, and we were obliged to give up our home here
+and go back to live in the old house--it would still be better than
+losing you, dear. Don't you know that to have you well and strong would
+be more to Helen and John and to me than anything else could possibly
+be?"
+
+Mrs. Ward knew, as the words left her lips, that she had said the wrong
+thing. She had heard him rave about his ownership of the new process
+too many times not to know--while any mention of his old workman friend
+Peter Martin always threw him into a rage. But in her anxiety the
+forbidden words had escaped her.
+
+She drew back with a little gasp of fear at the swift change that came
+over his face. As if she had touched a hidden spring in his being the
+man's countenance was darkened by furious hatred and desperate fear.
+His trembling lips were ashen; the muscles of his face twitched and
+worked; his eyes blazed with a vicious anger beyond all control.
+Springing to his feet, he faced her with a snarling exclamation, and in
+a voice shaking with passion, cried, "Pete Martin! What is he? Who is
+he? Everything he has in the world he owes to me. Haven't I kept him in
+work all these years? Haven't I paid him every cent of his wages? Look
+at his home. Not many working men have been able to own a place like
+that. What would he have done without the money I have given him every
+pay day? I could have turned him out long ago--kicked him out of a job
+without a cent. He's had all that's coming to him--every penny. _I_
+built up the Mill. That new process is mine--it's patented in my name.
+I have had the best lawyers I could hire to protect it on every
+possible point. If it hadn't been for my business brain there wouldn't
+be any new process. What could Pete Martin have done with it--the fool
+has no more business sense than a baby. I introduced it--I exploited
+it--I built it up and made it worth what it is, and there isn't a court
+in the world that wouldn't say I have a legal right to it."
+
+In vain Mrs. Ward tried to soothe him with reassuring words, pleading
+with him to be calm.
+
+"I know they're after me," he raved. "They have tried all sorts of
+tricks. There is always some sneaking spy watching for a chance to get
+me, but I'll fix them. I built the business up and I can tear it down.
+Let them try to take anything away from me if they dare. I'll burn the
+Mill and the whole town before I'll give up one cent of my legal rights
+to Pete Martin or any of his tribe."
+
+Forgetting his companion, the man suddenly started off across the
+grounds, waving his arms and shaking his fists in wild gestures as he
+continued his tirade against his old fellow workman. Mrs. Ward knew
+from experience the uselessness of trying to interfere until he had
+exhausted himself.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Helen was returning to the house after her talk with the children,
+she saw her mother coming slowly from that part of the grounds where
+the young woman had watched her father. It was evident, even at a
+distance, that Mrs. Ward was greatly distressed. When the young woman
+reached her mother's side, Mrs. Ward said, simply, "Your father,
+dear--he is terribly upset. Go to him, Helen, you can always do more
+for him than any one else--he needs you."
+
+It was not an easy task for Helen Ward to face her father just then. As
+she went in search of him she tried to put from her mind all that she
+had seen and to remember only that he was ill. She found him in the
+most distant and lonely part of the grounds, sitting with his face
+buried in his hands--a figure of hopeless despair.
+
+While still some distance away, she forced herself to call cheerily,
+"Hello, father."
+
+As he raised his head, she turned to pick a few flowers from a near-by
+bed. When he had had a moment to regain, in a measure, his
+self-control, she went toward him, arranging her blossoms with careful
+attention.
+
+Adam Ward watched his daughter as she drew near, much as a condemned
+man might have watched through the grating of a prison window.
+
+"What is it, father?" she asked, gently, when she had come close to his
+side. "Another one of your dreadful nervous headaches?"
+
+He put a shaking hand to his brow. "Yes," he said wearily.
+
+"I am so sorry," she returned, sitting down beside him. "You have been
+thinking too hard again, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, I guess I have been thinking too hard."
+
+"But you're going to stop all that now, aren't you?" she continued,
+cheerily. "You're just going to forget the old Mill, and do nothing but
+rest and play with me."
+
+"Could I learn to play, do you think, Helen?"
+
+"Why, of course you could, father, with me to teach you. That's the
+best thing I do, you know."
+
+He watched her closely. "And you don't think that I--that I am no
+longer capable of managing my affairs?"
+
+She laughed gayly. "What a silly question--_you_ capable--_you_,
+father, the best brain--the best business executive in Millsburgh. You
+know that is what everybody says of you. You are just tired, and need a
+good rest, that is all."
+
+The man's drooping shoulders lifted and his face brightened as he said,
+slowly, "I guess perhaps you are right, daughter."
+
+"I am sure of it," she returned, eagerly. Then she added brightly, as
+if prompted by a sudden inspiration, "I'll tell you what you do--ask
+the Interpreter."
+
+"Ask the Interpreter!"
+
+She nodded, smiling as if she had put a puzzling conundrum to him.
+
+"You mean for me to ask that paralyzed old basket maker's advice? You
+mean, ask him if I should retire from business?"
+
+Again she nodded with a little laugh; but under her laughter there was
+a note of earnestness.
+
+"And don't you know," he said, "that it is the Interpreter who is at
+the bottom of all my trouble?"
+
+"Father!"
+
+"The Interpreter, I tell you, is back of the whole thing. He is the
+brains of the labor organizations in Millsburgh and has been for years.
+Why, it was the Interpreter who organized the first union in this
+district. He has done more to build them up than all the others put
+together. Pete Martin and Charlie, the ringleaders of the Mill workers'
+union, are only his active lieutenants. I haven't a doubt but that he
+is responsible for this agitator Jake Vodell's coming to Millsburgh.
+That miserable shack on the cliff is the real headquarters of labor in
+this part of the country. Your Interpreter is a fine one for _me_ to go
+to for advice. His hut is a fine place for your brother to spend his
+spare time. It would be a fine thing, right now, with this man Vodell
+in town, for me to resign and leave the Mill in the hands of John, who
+is already in the hands of the Interpreter and the Martins and their
+Mill workers' union!"
+
+As Adam finished, the deep sonorous tones of the great Mill whistle
+sounded over the community. It was the signal for the closing of the
+day's work.
+
+Obedient to the habit of years, the Mill owner looked at his watch. In
+his mind he saw the day force trooping from the building and the night
+shift coming in. Throughout the entire city, in office and shop and
+store and home, the people ordered their days by the sound of that
+whistle, and Adam Ward had been very proud of this recognition accorded
+him.
+
+Wearily, as one exhausted by a day of hard labor, this man who so
+feared the power of the Interpreter looked up at his daughter. "I wish
+I could rest," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WHILE THE PEOPLE SLEEP
+
+
+The Interpreter's hands were busy with his basket weaving; his mind
+seemingly was occupied more with other things. Frequently he paused to
+look up from his work and, with his eyes fixed on the Mill, the Flats
+and the homes on the hillside, apparently considered the life that lay
+before him and of which he had been for so many years an interested
+observer and student. On the opposite side of the table, silent Billy
+was engaged with something that had to do with the manufacturing
+interests of their strange partnership.
+
+When Jake Vodell reached the landing at the top of the stairway, he
+stopped to look about the place with curious, alert interest, noting
+with quick glances every object in the immediate vicinity of the hut,
+as if fixing them in his mind. Satisfied at last by the thoroughness of
+his inspection, he went toward the house, but his step on the board
+walk made no sound. At the outer door of the little hut the man halted
+again, and again he looked quickly about the premises. Apparently there
+was no one at home. Silently he entered the room and the next instant
+discovered the two men on the porch.
+
+The Interpreter's attention at the moment was fixed upon his work and
+he remained unaware of the intruder's presence, while Jake Vodell,
+standing in the doorway, regarded the old basket maker curiously, with
+a contemptuous smile on his bearded lips.
+
+But Billy Rand saw him. A moment he looked at the man in the doorway
+inquiringly, as he would have regarded any one of the Interpreter's
+many visitors; then the deaf and dumb man's expression changed.
+Glancing quickly at his still unobserving companion, he caught up a
+hatchet that lay among the tools on the table and, with a movement that
+was not unlike the guarding action of a huge mastiff, rose to his feet.
+His face was a picture of animal rage; his teeth were bared, his eyes
+gleamed, his every muscle was tense.
+
+The man in the doorway was evidently no coward, but the smile vanished
+from his heavy face and his right hand went quickly inside his vest.
+"What's the matter with you?" he said, sharply, as Billy started toward
+him with deliberate menace in his movement.
+
+At the sound of the man's voice the Interpreter looked up. One glance
+and the old basket maker caught the wheels of his chair and with a
+quick, strong movement rolled himself between the two men--so close to
+Billy that he caught his defender by the arm. Facing his enraged
+companion, the Interpreter talked to him rapidly in their sign language
+and held out his hand for the hatchet. The silent Billy reluctantly
+surrendered the weapon and drew back to his place on the other side of
+the table, where he sat glaring at the stranger in angry watchfulness.
+
+The man in the doorway laughed harshly. "They told me I would find a
+helpless old cripple up here," he said. "I think you are pretty well
+protected at that."
+
+Regarding the stranger gravely, the Interpreter apologized for his
+companion. "You can see that Billy is not wholly responsible," he
+explained. "He is little more than a child mentally; his actions are
+often apparently governed wholly by that strange instinct which seems
+to guide the animals. He is very devoted to me."
+
+"He seems to be in earnest all right," said the stranger. "He is a
+husky brute, too."
+
+The Interpreter, regarding the man inquiringly, almost as if he were
+seeking in the personality of his visitor the reason for Billy's
+startling conduct, replied, simply, "He would have killed you."
+
+With a shrug of his thick shoulders, the stranger uninvited came
+forward and helped himself to a chair, and, with the air of one
+introducing a person of some importance, said, "I am Vodell--Jake
+Vodell. You have heard of me, I think, heh?"
+
+"Oh, yes. Indeed, I should say that every one has heard of you, Mr.
+Vodell. Your work has given you even more than national prominence, I
+believe."
+
+The man was at no pains to conceal his satisfaction. "I am known, yes."
+
+"It is odd," said the Interpreter, "but your face seems familiar to me,
+as if I had met you before."
+
+"You have heard me speak somewhere, maybe, heh?"
+
+"No, it cannot be that. You have never been in Millsburgh before, have
+you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"It is strange," mused the old basket maker.
+
+"It is the papers," returned Vodell with a shrug. "Many times the
+papers have my picture--you must have seen."
+
+"Of course, that is it," exclaimed the Interpreter. "I remember now,
+distinctly. It was in connection with that terrible bomb outrage in--"
+
+"Sir!" interrupted the other indignantly. "Outrage--what do you mean,
+outrage?"
+
+"I was thinking of the innocent people who were killed or injured,"
+returned the Interpreter, calmly. "I believe you were also prominent in
+those western strikes where so many women and children suffered, were
+you not?"
+
+The labor agitator replied with the exact manner of a scientific
+lecturer. "It is unfortunate that innocent persons must sometimes be
+hurt in these affairs. But that is one of the penalties that society
+must pay for tolerating the conditions that make these industrial wars
+necessary."
+
+"If I remember correctly, you were in the South, too, at the time that
+mill was destroyed."
+
+"Oh, yes, they had me in jail there. But that was nothing. I have many
+such experiences. They are to me very commonplace. Wherever there are
+the poor laboring men who must fight for their rights, I go. The mines,
+shops, mills, factories--it is all the same to me. I go wherever I can
+serve the Cause. I have been in America now ten years, nearly eleven."
+
+"You are not, then, a citizen of this country?"
+
+Jake Vodell laughed contemptuously. "Oh, sure I am a citizen of this
+country--this great America of fools and cowards that talk all the time
+so big about freedom and equality, while the capitalist money hogs hold
+them in slavery and rob them of the property they create. I had to
+become a citizen when the war came, you see, or they would have sent me
+away. But for that I would make myself a citizen of some cannibal
+country first." The old basket maker's dark eyes blazed with quick
+fire and he lifted himself with sudden strength to a more erect
+position in his wheel chair. But when he spoke his deep voice was calm
+and steady. "You have been in our little city nearly a month, I
+understand."
+
+"Just about. I have been looking around, getting acquainted, studying
+the situation. One must be very careful to know the right men, you
+understand. It pays, I find, to go a little slow at first. We will go
+fast enough later." His thick lips parted in a meaning grin.
+
+The Interpreter's hands gripped the wheels of his chair.
+
+"Everybody tells me I should see you," the agitator continued.
+"Everywhere it is the same. They all talk of the Interpreter. 'Go to
+the Interpreter,' they say. When they told me that this great
+Interpreter is an old white-headed fellow without any legs, I laughed
+and said, 'What can he do to help the laboring man? He is not good for
+anything but to sit in a wheel chair and make baskets all the day. I
+need _men_.' But they all answer the same thing, 'Go and see the
+Interpreter.' And so I am here."
+
+When the Interpreter was silent, his guest demanded, harshly, "They are
+all right, heh? You are a friend to the workingman? Tell me, is it so?"
+
+The old basket maker spoke with quiet dignity. "For twenty-five years
+Millsburgh has been my home, and the Millsburgh people have been my
+friends. You, sir, have been here less than a month; I have known you
+but a few minutes."
+
+Jake Vodell laughed understandingly. "Oh-ho, so that is it? Maybe you
+like to see my credentials before we talk?"
+
+The Interpreter held up a hand in protest. "Your reputation is
+sufficient, Mr. Vodell."
+
+The man acknowledged the compliment--as he construed it--with a shrug
+and a pleased laugh. "And all that is said of you by the laboring class
+in your little city is sufficient," he returned. "Even the men in
+McIver's factory tell me you are the best friend that labor has ever
+had in this place." He paused expectantly.
+
+The man in the wheel chair bowed his head.
+
+"And then," continued Jake Vodell, with a frown of displeasure, "when I
+come to see you, to ask some questions about things that I should know,
+what do I hear? The daughter of this old slave-driver and robber--this
+capitalist enemy of the laboring class--Adam Ward, she comes also to
+see this Interpreter who is such a friend of the people."
+
+The Interpreter laughed. "And Sam Whaley's children, they come too."
+
+"Oh, yes, that is better. I know Sam Whaley. He is a good man who will
+be a great help to me. But I do not understand this woman business."
+
+"I have known Miss Ward ever since she was born; I worked in the Mill
+at the same bench with her father and Peter Martin," said the man in
+the wheel chair, with quiet dignity.
+
+"I see. It is not so bad sometimes to have a friend or two among these
+millionaires when there is no danger of it being misunderstood. But
+this man, who was once a workman and who deserted his class--this
+traitor, her father--does he also call on you, Mr. Interpreter?"
+
+"Once in a great while," answered the Interpreter.
+
+Jake Vodell laughed knowingly. "When he wants something, heh?" Then,
+with an air of taking up the real business of his visit to the little
+hut on the cliff, he said, "Suppose now you tell me something about
+this son of Adam Ward. You have known him since he was a boy too--the
+same as the girl?"
+
+"Yes," said the Interpreter, "I have known John Ward all his life."
+
+Something in the old basket maker's voice made Jake Vodell look at him
+sharply and the agitator's black brows were scowling as he said,
+"So--you are friends with him, too, I guess, heh?"
+
+"I am, sir; and so is Captain Charlie Martin, who is the head of our
+Mill workers' union, as you may have heard."
+
+"Exactly. That is why I ask. So many of the poor fools who slave for
+this son of Adam Ward in the Mill say that he is such a fine man--so
+kind. Oh, wonderful! Bah! When was the wolf whelped that would be kind
+to a rabbit? You shall tell me now about the friendship between this
+wolf cub of the capitalist Mill owner and this poor rabbit, son of the
+workman Peter Martin who has all his life been a miserable slave in the
+Mill. They were in the army together, heh?"
+
+"They enlisted in the same company when the first call came and were
+comrades all through the worst of the fighting in France."
+
+"And before that, they were friends, heh?"
+
+"They had been chums as boys, when the family lived in the old house
+next door to the Martins. But during the years that John was away in
+school and college Adam moved his family to the place on the hill where
+they live now. When John was graduated and came home to stay, he
+naturally found his friends in another circle. His intimacy with Pete
+Martin's boy was not renewed--until the war."
+
+"Exactly," grunted Jake Vodell. "And how did Adam Ward like it that his
+boy should go to war? Not much, I think. It was all right for the
+workman's boy to go; but the Mill owner's son--that was different,
+heh?"
+
+There was a note of pride in the Interpreter's voice, as he answered,
+"Adam was determined that the boy should not go at all, even if he were
+drafted. But John said that it was bad enough to let other men work to
+feed and clothe him in ordinary times of peace without letting them do
+his fighting for him as well."
+
+"This Adam Ward's son said that!" exclaimed the agitator. "Huh--it was
+for the effect--a grand-stand play."
+
+"He enlisted," retorted the Interpreter. "And when his father would
+have used his influence to secure some sort of commission with an easy
+berth, John was more indignant than ever. He said if he ever wore
+shoulder straps they would be a recognition of his service to his
+country and not, as he put it, a pretty gift from a rich father. So he
+and Charlie Martin both enlisted as privates, and, as it happened, on
+the same day. Under such circumstances it was quite as natural that
+their old friendship should be reestablished as that they should have
+drifted apart under the influence of Adam Ward's prosperity."
+
+Jake Vodell laughed disagreeably. "And then this wonderful son of your
+millionaire Mill owner comes out of the war and the army exactly as he
+went in, nothing but a private--not even a medal--heh? But this workman
+from the Mill, he comes back a captain with a distinguished service
+medal? I think maybe Private Ward's father and mother and sister liked
+that--no?"
+
+Disregarding these comments, the Interpreter said, "Now that I have
+answered your questions about the friendship of John Ward and Charlie
+Martin, may I ask just why you are so much interested in the matter?"
+
+The agitator gazed at the man in the wheel chair with an expression of
+incredulous amazement. "Is it possible you do not understand?" he
+demanded. "And you such a friend to the workingman! But wait--one more
+thing, then I will answer you. This daughter of Adam Ward--she is also
+good friends with her old playmate who is now Captain Martin, is she?
+The workman goes sometimes to the big house on the hill to see his
+millionaire friends, does he?"
+
+The Interpreter answered, coldly, "I can't discuss Miss Ward with you,
+sir."
+
+"Oh-ho! And now I will answer your question as to my interest. This
+John Ward is already a boss in the Mill. His father, everybody tells
+me, is not well. Any time now the old man may retire from the business
+and the son will have his place as general manager. He will be the
+owner. The friendship between these two men is not good--because
+Charlie Martin is the leader of the union and there can be no such
+friendship between a leader of the laboring class and one of the
+employer class without great loss to our Cause. You will see. These
+rich owners of the Mill, they will flatter and make much of this poor
+workman captain because of his influence among the people who slave for
+them, and so any movement to secure for the workmen their rights will
+be defeated. Do you understand now, Mister basket maker, heh?"
+
+The Interpreter bowed his head.
+
+The agitator continued. "Already I find it very hard to accomplish much
+with this Mill workers' union. Except for our friend, Sam Whaley, and a
+few others, the fools are losing their class loyalty. Their fighting
+spirit is breaking down. It will not do, I tell you. At the McIver
+factory it is all very different. It will be easy there. The workingmen
+show the proper spirit--they will be ready when I give the word. But I
+am not pleased with the situation in this Mill of Adam Ward's. This
+fine friendship between the son of the owner and the son of the workman
+must stop. Friendship--bah!--it is a pretense, a sham, a trick."
+
+The man's manner, when he thus passed judgment upon the comradeship of
+John and Charlie, was that of an absolute monarch who was righteously
+annoyed at some manifestation of disloyalty among his subjects. His
+voice was harsh with the authority of one whose mandates are not to be
+questioned. His countenance was dark with scowling displeasure.
+
+"And you, too, my friend," he went on, glaring from under his black
+brows at the old man in the wheel chair, "you will be wise if you
+accept my suggestion and be a little careful yourself. It is not so
+bad, perhaps, this young woman coming to see you, but I am told that
+her brother also comes to visit with the Interpreter. And this leader
+of the Mill workers' union, Charlie Martin, he comes, too. Everybody
+says you are the best friend of the working people. But I tell you
+there cannot be friendship between the employer class and the laboring
+class--it must be between them always war. So, Mr. Interpreter, you
+must look out. The time is not far when the people of Millsburgh will
+know for sure who is a friend to the labor class and who is a friend to
+the employer class."
+
+The Interpreter received this warning from Jake Vodell exactly as he
+had listened to Bobby Whaley's boyish talk about blowing up the castle
+of Adam Ward on the hill.
+
+Rising abruptly, the agitator, without so much as a by-your-leave, went
+into the house where he proceeded to examine the books and periodicals
+on the table. Billy started from his place to follow, but the
+Interpreter shook his head forbiddingly, and while Jake Vodell passed
+on to the farther corner of the room and stood looking over the well
+filled shelves of the Interpreter's library, the old basket maker
+talked to his companion in their silent language.
+
+When this foreign defender of the rights of the American laboring class
+returned to the porch he was smiling approval. "Good!" he said. "You
+are all right, I think. No man could read the papers and books that you
+have there, and not be the friend of freedom and a champion of the
+people against their capitalist masters. We will have a great victory
+for the Cause in Millsburgh, comrade. You shall see. It is too bad that
+you do not have your legs so that you could take an active part with me
+in the work that I will do."
+
+The Interpreter smiled. "If you do not mind, I would like to know
+something of your plans. That is," he added, courteously, "so far as
+you are at liberty to tell me."
+
+"Certainly I will tell you, comrade," returned the other, heartily.
+"Who can say--it may be that you will be of some small use to me after
+all." His eyes narrowed slyly. "It may be that for these Mill owners to
+come to you here in your little hut is perhaps not so bad when we think
+about it a little more, heh? The daughter of Adam Ward might be led to
+say many foolish little things that to a clever man like you would be
+understood. Even the brother, the manager of the Mill--well, I have
+known men like him to talk of themselves and their plans rather freely
+at times when they thought there was no harm. And what possible harm
+could there be in a poor crippled old basket maker like you, heh?" The
+man laughed as though his jest were perfectly understood and
+appreciated by his host--as, indeed, it was.
+
+"But about my plans for this campaign in Millsburgh," he went on. "You
+know the great brotherhood that I represent and you are familiar with
+their teachings of course." He gestured comprehensively toward the
+Interpreter's library.
+
+The man in the wheel chair silently nodded assent.
+
+Jake Vodell continued. "I am come to Millsburgh, as I go everywhere, in
+the interests of our Cause. It is my experience that I can always work
+best through the unions."
+
+The Interpreter interrupted. "Oh, one of our Millsburgh unions sent for
+you then? I did not know."
+
+The agitator shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "No--no--I was not
+sent for. I was sent. I am here because it was reported that there was
+a good opportunity to advance the Cause. No union brings me. I come to
+the unions, to work with them for the freedom of the laboring class."
+
+"And of what union are you a member, sir?" asked the Interpreter.
+
+"Me! Ha! I am not a member of any of your silly American unions! I
+belong to that greater union, if you please, which embraces them all.
+But your unions know and receive me as a leader because of the work
+that I do for all. Our Cause is the cause of the working people of
+America, as it is the cause of the laboring classes in England, and
+France, and Russia, and Germany, and everywhere in the world."
+
+Again the old basket maker bowed his silent assent.
+
+"You have, in this place," continued the agitator, "one strong union of
+the Mill workers. In the other shops and factories and in the trades it
+is like McIver's factory, the men are not so well organized."
+
+Again the Interpreter interrupted. "The working people of Millsburgh,
+generally, receive the highest wage paid anywhere in the country, do
+they not?"
+
+"Ah, but surely that is not the question, comrade. Surely you
+understand that all the laboring people of America must be united in
+one brotherhood with all the other countries of the world, so that
+they, the producers of wealth, shall be able to take possession of, and
+operate, the industries of this country, and finally take this
+government away from the capitalist class who are now the real owners
+of what you call your 'land of the free and the home of the brave.'
+Bah! You fool Americans do not know the first meaning of the word
+freedom. You are a nation of slaves. If you were as brave as you sing,
+you very soon would be your own masters."
+
+"And your plan for Millsburgh?" asked the Interpreter, calmly.
+
+"It is simple. But for this John Ward and his friendship with Charlie
+Martin that so deceives everybody, it will be easy. The first step in
+my campaign here will be to call out the employees of McIver's factory
+on a strike. I start with McIver's workmen because his well-known
+position against the laboring class will make it easy for me to win the
+sympathy of the public for the strikers."
+
+"But," said the Interpreter, "the factory union is working under an
+agreement with McIver."
+
+The self-appointed savior of the American working people shrugged his
+heavy shoulders disdainfully. "That is no matter--it is always easy to
+find a grievance. When the factory men have walked out, then will come
+the sympathetic strike of your strong Mill workers' union. All the
+other labor organizations will be forced to join us, whether they wish
+to or not. I shall have all Millsburgh so that not a wheel can turn
+anywhere. The mills--the factories--the builders--the
+bakeries--everything will be in our hands and then, my comrade, then!"
+
+The man rose to his feet and stood looking out over the life that lay
+within view from the Interpreter's balcony-porch, as if possessed with
+the magnitude of the power that would be his when this American
+community should be given into his hand.
+
+Silent, watchful Billy stirred uneasily.
+
+The Interpreter, touching his companion's arm, shook his head.
+
+Jake Vodell, deep in his ambitious dream, did not notice. "The time is
+coming, comrade," he said, "and it is nearer than the fool Americans
+think, when the labor class will rise in their might and take what is
+theirs. My campaign here in Millsburgh, you must know, is only one of
+the hundreds of little fires that we are lighting all over this
+country. The American people, they are asleep. They have drugged
+themselves with their own talk of how safe and strong and prosperous
+they are. Bah! There is no people so easy to fool. They think we strike
+for recognition of some union, or that it is for higher wages, or some
+other local grievance. Bah! We use for an excuse anything that will
+give us a hold on the labor class. These silly unions, they are nothing
+in themselves. But we--_we_ can use them in the Cause. And so
+everywhere--North, South, East, West--we light our little fires. And
+when we are ready--Boom! One big blaze will come so quick from all
+points at once that it will sweep the country before the sleeping fools
+wake up. And then--then, comrade, you shall see what will happen to
+your capitalist vultures and your employer swine, who have so long
+grown fat on the strength of the working class."
+
+A moment longer he stood as if lost in the contemplation of the glory
+of that day, when, in the triumph of his leadership, the people of the
+nation he so despised and hated would rise in bloody revolution against
+their own government and accept in its stead the dictatorship of
+lawless aliens who profess allegiance to no one but their own godless
+selves.
+
+Then he turned back to the Interpreter with a command, "You, comrade,
+shall keep me informed, heh? From these people of our enemy class who
+come here to your hut, you will learn the things I will want to know. I
+shall come to you from time to time, but not too often. But, you must
+see that your watchdog there has better manners for me, heh?" He
+laughed and was gone.
+
+
+At the club that evening, Jim McIver sat with a group of men discussing
+the industrial situation.
+
+"They're fixing for a fight all right," said one. "What do you think,
+Jim?"
+
+The factory owner answered, "They can have a fight any time they want
+it. Nothing but a period of starvation will ever put the laboring class
+back where it belongs and the sooner we get it over the better it will
+be for business conditions all around."
+
+
+In the twilight dust and grime of the Flats, a woman sat on the
+doorstep of a wretched house. Her rounded shoulders slouched
+wearily--her tired hands were folded in her lap. She stared with dull,
+listless eyes at the squalid homes of her neighbors across the street.
+The Interpreter had described the woman to Helen--"a girl with fine
+instincts for the best things of life and a capacity for great
+happiness."
+
+
+In a room back of a pool hall of ill-repute, the man Jake Vodell sat in
+conference with three others of his brotherhood. A peculiar knock
+sounded at the door. Vodell drew the bolt. Sam Whaley entered. "My kids
+told me you wanted me," said the workman. Long into the night, on the
+balcony porch of the hut on the cliff, John Ward and Captain Charlie
+Martin talked with the Interpreter. As they talked, they watched the
+lights of the Mill, the Flats, the business streets, and the homes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE MILL
+
+
+It was pay day at the Mill.
+
+No one, unless he, at some period in his life, has been absolutely
+dependent upon the wages of his daily toil, can appreciate a pay day.
+To experience properly the thrill of a pay day one must have no other
+source of income. The pay check must be the only barrier between one
+and actual hunger. Bobby and Maggie Whaley knew the full meaning of pay
+day. Their mother measured life itself by that event.
+
+Throughout the great industrial hive that morning there was an
+electrical thrill of anticipation. Smiles were more frequent; jests
+were passed with greater zest; men moved with a freer step, a more
+joyous swing. The very machinery seemed in some incomprehensible way to
+be animated with the spirit of the workmen, while the droning, humming,
+roaring voice of the Mill was unquestionably keyed to a happier note.
+In the offices among the bookkeepers, clerks, stenographers and the
+department heads, the same brightening of the atmosphere was
+noticeable. Nor was the spirit of the event confined to the Mill
+itself; throughout the entire city--in the stores and banks, the post
+office, the places of amusement, in the homes on the hillside and in
+the Flats--pay day at the Mill was the day of days.
+
+It was an hour, perhaps, after the whistle had started the big plant
+for the afternoon.
+
+John Ward was deep in the consideration of some business of moment with
+the superintendent, George Parsons--a sturdy, square-jawed,
+steady-eyed, middle-aged man, who had come up from the ranks by the
+sheer force of his natural ability.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is nothing at all unusual about John Ward. He is simply a good
+specimen of the more intelligent class of our young American manhood,
+with, it might be, a more than average mind for business, which he had
+inherited from his father. He is, in short, a fair type of the healthy,
+clean-living, straight-thinking, broad-gauged, big-hearted young
+citizen such as one may find by the hundreds of thousands in the many
+fields of our national activities. In our arts and industries, in our
+banks and commercial houses, in our factories and newspapers, on our
+farms and in our professions, in our educational institutions, among
+our writers and scientists, in our great transportation organizations,
+and in the business of our government, our John Wards are to be found,
+ready to take the places left to them by the passing of their fathers.
+
+Since his return from the war, the young man had devoted himself with
+the enthusiasm of a great purpose to a practical study of his father's
+big industrial plant. Adam still held the general management, but his
+son knew that the time must come when the responsibility of that
+position would fall to him.
+
+With John's inherited executive ability and his comradeship, plus the
+driving force of his fixed and determined purpose, it was not strange
+that he so quickly gained the loyal support and cooperation of his
+father's long-trained assistants. His even-tempered friendliness and
+ready recognition of his dependence upon his fellow workers won their
+love. His industry, his clear-headed, open-minded consideration of the
+daily problems presented, with his quick grasp of essential details,
+commanded their admiring respect. Under the circumstance of his
+father's nervous trouble and the consequent enforced absence of Adam
+from his office for more and more frequent periods, it was inevitable
+that John, by common, if silent, consent of the executive heads, should
+be advanced more and more toward the general manager's desk.
+
+The superintendent, gathering up his blue prints and memoranda, arose.
+"And will that be all, sir?" he asked, with a smile.
+
+Nearly every one smiled when he finished an interview with Adam Ward's
+son; probably because John himself nearly always smiled when he ended a
+consultation or gave an order.
+
+"That's all from my side, George," he said, leaning back in his chair
+and looking up at the superintendent in his open, straightforward way
+that so surely invited confidence and trust. "Have you anything else on
+your mind?"
+
+"Nary a thing, John," returned the older man, and with a parting "so
+long" he started toward the door that opened into the Mill.
+
+With that smile of genuine affection still lingering on his face, John
+watched the sturdy back of the old superintendent as if, for the
+moment, his thoughts had swung from George Parsons' work to George
+Parsons himself.
+
+The superintendent opened the door and was about to step out when he
+stopped suddenly and with a quick, decided movement drew back into the
+room and closed the door again. To the young man in the other end of
+the big office it looked as though the superintendent had seen
+something that startled him. Another moment and George was again
+bending over John's desk.
+
+"The old man is out there, John."
+
+"What! Father! Why I had no idea that he was coming down to-day." A
+look of anxiety came into the frank gray eyes. "He has not been so well
+lately, George. I wonder why he didn't come to the office first as
+usual."
+
+"He sometimes slips in back that way, you know," returned the
+superintendent.
+
+"He really ought not to be here," said the young man. "I wish--" He
+hesitated.
+
+"He's generally in a state of mind when he comes in like that," said
+George. "You're not needing a goat, are you, boy?"
+
+John smiled. "There's not a thing wrong in the plant so far as I know,
+George."
+
+"I don't know of anything either," returned the other, "but we may not
+know all the way. There's one thing sure, the old man ought not to be
+wandering through the works alone. There's some of those rough-necks
+would--well it's too darned easy, sometimes, for accidents to happen,
+do you see? I'll rustle out there and stick around convenient like.
+You'd better stay where you are as if you didn't know he was on the
+job. And remember, son, if you _should_ need a goat, I'm qualified. If
+anything has happened--whether it has or he only thinks it has--just
+you blame it on to old George. I'll understand."
+
+
+The work was at the height of its swing when burly Max Gardner paused a
+second to straighten his back and wipe the sweat from his sooty face.
+As he stooped again to his heavy task, he said to his mates in a voice
+that rumbled up from the depths of his naked, hairy chest, "Get a gate
+on y'--get a gate on y'--y' rough-necks. 'Tis th' boss that's a-lookin'
+'round to see who he'll be tyin' th' can to next."
+
+The men laughed.
+
+"There's one thing sure," said Bill Connley, who looked as though his
+body were built of rawhide stretched over a framework of steel, "when
+John Ward ties the can to a man, that man knows what 'tis for. When he
+give Jim Billings his time last week, he says to him, says he, 'Jim,
+I'm sorry for y'. Not because I'm fir'in' y',' says he, 'but because
+y're such a loafer that y're no good to yerself nor to anybody
+else--y're a disgrace to the Mill,' says he, 'and to every honest
+working man in it.' An' Jim, he never give a word back--just hung his
+head an' got out of sight like a dog with his tail between his legs
+after a good swift kick."
+
+"An' th' young boss was right at that," commented sturdy Soot Walters.
+"Jim was a good man when he was new on the job, but since he got the
+wrinkles out of his belly, he's been killin' more time than any three
+men in the works."
+
+"Pass me that pinch bar, Bill," called Dick Grant from the other side.
+As he reached for the tool, his glance took in the figure that had
+caught the eye of big Max. "Holy Mike!" he exclaimed, "'tis the old man
+himself."
+
+Every man in the group except Max turned his face toward Adam Ward, who
+stood some distance away, and a very different tone marked the voice of
+Bill Connley as he said, "Now what d'ye think brings that danged old
+pirate here to look us over this day?"
+
+"Who the devil cares?" growled Scot, as, with an air of sullen
+indifference, they turned again to their work.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+No one seeing the Mill owner as he viewed his possessions that day
+could have believed that this was the wretched creature that Helen had
+watched from the arbor. Away from the scenes of his business life Adam
+Ward was like some poor, nervous, half-insane victim of the drug habit.
+At the Mill, he was that same drug fiend under the influence of his
+"dope."
+
+His manner was calm and steady, with no sign of nervousness or lack of
+control. His gray face--which, in a way, was the face of a
+student--gave no hint of the thoughts and emotions that stirred within
+him. As he looked about the great industrial institution to which he
+had given himself, body, mind and soul, all the best years of his life,
+his countenance was as expressionless as the very machines of iron and
+steel and wood among which he moved--a silent, lonely, brooding spirit.
+No glow of worthy pride in the work of his manhood, no gleam of
+friendly comradeship for his fellow workmen, no joy of his kinship with
+the great humanity that was here personified shone in his eyes or
+animated his presence. Cold and calculating, he looked upon the human
+element in the Mill exactly as he looked upon the machinery. Men cost
+him a certain definite sum of dollars; they must be made to return to
+him a certain increase in definite dollars on that cost. The living
+bodies, minds, and souls that, moving here and there in the haze of
+smoke and steam and dust, vitalized the inanimate machinery and gave
+life and intelligent purpose to the whole, were no more to him than one
+of his adding machines in the office that, mechanically obedient to his
+touch, footed up long columns of dollars and cents. It is not strange
+that the humanity of the Mill should respond to the spirit of its owner
+with the spirit of his adding machines and give to him his totals of
+dollars and cents--with nothing more.
+
+Quickly the feeling of Adam Ward's presence spread throughout the busy
+plant. Smiling faces grew grim and sullen. In the place of good-natured
+jest and cheerful laugh there were muttered curses and contemptuous
+epithets. The very atmosphere seemed charged with antagonism and
+rebellious hatred.
+
+"Wad ye look at it?" said one. "And they tell me that white-faced old
+devil used to work along side of Pete and the Interpreter at that same
+bench where Pete's a-workin' yet."
+
+"He did that," said another. "I was a kid in the Mill at the time;
+'twas before he got hold of his new process."
+
+"Pete Martin is a better man than Adam Ward ever was or will be at
+that--process or no process," said a third, while every man within
+hearing endorsed the sentiment with a hearty word, an oath or a pointed
+comment.
+
+"But the young boss is a different sort, though," came from the first
+speaker.
+
+"He is that!"
+
+"The boy's all right."
+
+"John's a good man."
+
+A workman with a weak face and shifty eyes paused in passing to say,
+"You'll find out how different the boy is onct he's put to the test.
+He's the same breed, an' it's just like Jake Vodell said last night,
+there ain't one of the greedy capitalist class that wouldn't nail a
+laboring man to the cross of their damnable system of slavery if they
+dast."
+
+A silence fell over the group.
+
+Then a dry voice drawled, "Jake Vodell ain't never overworked himself
+as anybody knows of, has he? As for you, Sam Whaley, I'm thinkin' it
+would take somethin' more than a crucifyin' to get much profit out of
+you, the way you mooch around."
+
+There was a general laugh at this and Sam Whaley went on his weak way
+to do whatever it was that he was supposed to be doing.
+
+"Sam's all right, Bob," said one who had laughed. "His heart is in the
+right place."
+
+"Sure he is," agreed Bob. "But I sometimes can't help thinkin', just
+the same, that if I was a-ownin' and a-workin' slaves, I'd consider him
+a mighty poor piece of property."
+
+
+When Adam Ward entered the office, some time later, he walked straight
+to his son's desk, without so much as a glance or a nod of recognition
+toward any other soul in the big room.
+
+"I want to talk with you, John," he said, grimly, and passed on into
+his private office.
+
+The closing of the door of that sacred inner room behind John was the
+signal for a buzz of excited comments.
+
+"Lordy," gasped a stenographer to her nearest neighbor, "but I'm sorry
+for poor young Mr. Ward--did you see the old man's face?"
+
+The half-whispered remark expressed, with fair accuracy, the general
+sentiment of the entire force.
+
+Adam Ward did not sit down at his desk, but going to a window he stood
+looking out as though deep in thought.
+
+"Father," said John, at last, "what is it? Has anything happened?"
+
+Adam turned slowly, and it was evident that he was holding his
+self-control by a supreme effort of will. "I have made up my mind to
+quit," he said. "From to-day on you will take my place and assume my
+responsibilities in the Mill."
+
+"I am glad, father," said John, simply, "You really should be free from
+all business cares. As for my taking your place in the Mill," he
+smiled, "no one could ever do that, father."
+
+"You have full control and absolute authority from to-day on," returned
+Adam. "I shall never put my foot inside the doors of the plant or the
+office again."
+
+"But, father!" cried John. "There is no need for you to--"
+
+Adam interrupted him with an imperious gesture. "There is no use
+arguing about it," he said, coldly. "But there are two or three things
+that I want to tell you--that I think you ought to know. You can take
+them from me or not, as you please. My ideas and policies that made
+this institution what it is to-day will probably be thrown aside as so
+much worthless junk, but I am going to give you a word or two of
+warning just the same."
+
+John knew that when his father was in this mood there was nothing to do
+but to keep silent. But the expression of the old Mill owner's face
+filled his son's heart with pity, and the boy could not refrain from
+saying, "I am sorry you feel that way about it, father, because really
+you are all wrong. Can't we sit down and talk it over comfortably?"
+
+"I prefer to stand," returned Adam. "I can say all I have to say in a
+few words. I am retiring because I know, now, after"--he
+hesitated--"after the last two nights, that I must. I am turning the
+Mill over to you because I would rather burn it to the ground than see
+it in the hands of any one outside the family. I believe, too, that the
+only way to get the wild, idiotic ideas of that old fool basket maker
+out of your head is to make you personally responsible for the success
+or failure of this business. I have watched you long enough to know
+that you have the ability to handle it, and I am convinced that once
+you realize how much money you can make, you will drop all your
+sentimental nonsense and get your feet on solid ground."
+
+John Ward's cheeks flushed, but he made no reply to his father's
+pointed observations.
+
+"I had those same romantic notions about work and business myself when
+I was your age," continued Adam, "but experience taught me better.
+Experience will teach you." He paused and went to stand at the window
+again.
+
+John waited.
+
+Presently Adam faced about once more. "I suppose you have noticed that
+McIver is greatly interested in your sister Helen?"
+
+"I imagined so," returned John, soberly. "Well, he is. He wants to
+marry her. If she will only be sensible and see it right, it is a
+wonderful opportunity for us. McIver made over a million out of the
+war. His factory is next to this in size and importance and it is so
+closely related to the Mill that a combination of the two industries,
+with the control of the new process, would give you a tremendous
+advantage. You could practically put all competitors out of business.
+McIver has approached me several times on the proposition but I have
+been holding off, hoping that Helen would accept him, so that their
+marriage would tie the thing up that much tighter. You and McIver, with
+the family relation established by Helen, would make a great team." He
+hesitated and his face worked with nervous emotion as he added, "There
+is something about the new process that--perhaps--you should know--I--"
+He stopped abruptly to pace up and down the room in nervous excitement,
+as if fighting for the mastery of the emotions aroused by this mention
+of his patented property.
+
+As John Ward watched his father and felt the struggle within the man's
+secret self, the room seemed suddenly filled with the invisible
+presence of that hidden thing. The younger man's eyes filled with tears
+and he cried in protest, "Father--father--please don't--"
+
+For a moment Adam Ward faced his son in silence. Then, with a sigh of
+relief, he muttered, "It's all right, John; just one of my nervous
+attacks. It's gone now."
+
+Changing the subject abruptly, he said, "I must warn you, my boy--keep
+away from the Interpreter. Have nothing to do with him; he is
+dangerous. And watch out for Pete Martin and Charlie, too. They are all
+three together. This agitator, Jake Vodell, is going to make trouble.
+He is already getting a start with McIver's men. You have some radicals
+right here on your pay roll, but if you stick with McIver and follow
+his lead you will come through easily and put these unions where they
+belong. That's all, I guess," he finished, wearily. "Call in your
+superintendent."
+
+"Just a moment, father," said John Ward, steadily. "It is not fair to
+either of us for me to accept the management of the Mill without
+telling you that I can't do all that you have suggested."
+
+Adam looked at his son sharply. "And what can't you do?" he demanded.
+
+"I shall never work with McIver in any way," answered John slowly. "You
+know what I think of him and his business principles. Helen's interest
+in him is her own affair, but I have too great a sense of loyalty to my
+country and too much self-respect ever to think of McIver as anything
+but a traitor and an enemy."
+
+"And what else?" asked Adam.
+
+"I will not promise to keep away from the Interpreter. I reserve the
+right to choose my own friends and business associates, and I will deal
+with the employees of the Mill and with the unions without regard to
+McIver's policies or any consideration of his interest in any way
+whatever."
+
+For a long moment Adam Ward looked at his son who stood so straight and
+uncompromisingly soldier-like before him. Suddenly, to John's
+amazement, his father laughed. And there was not a little admiration
+and pride in the old Mill owner's voice as he said, "I see! In other
+words, if you are going to be the boss, you don't propose to have any
+strings tied to you."
+
+"Would you, sir?" asked John.
+
+"No, I wouldn't," returned Adam and laughed again. "Well, go ahead.
+Have it your own way. I am not afraid for you in the long run. You are
+too much like me not to find out where your own interests lie, once you
+come squarely up against the situation. I only wanted to help you, but
+it looks as though you would have to go through the experience for
+yourself. It's all right, son, go to it! Now call George."
+
+When the superintendent entered the private office, Adam Ward said,
+briefly, "George, I am turning the Mill over to John here. From to-day
+on he is the manager without any strings on him in any way. He has the
+entire responsibility and is the only authority. He accounts to no one
+but himself. That is all."
+
+Abruptly Adam Ward left the private office. Without even a look toward
+the men in the big outer room who had served with him for years, he
+passed on out to the street.
+
+
+When the whistle sounded, John went out into the Mill to stand near the
+window where the workmen passing in line received their envelopes.
+
+From every part of the great main building, from the yards and the
+several outer sheds and structures they came. From furnace and engine
+and bench and machine they made their way toward that given point as
+scattered particles of steel filings are drawn toward a magnet. The
+converging paths of individuals touched, and two walked side by side.
+Other individuals joined the two and as quickly trios and quartets came
+together to form groups that united with other similar groups; while
+from the mass thus assembled, the thin line was formed that extended
+past the pay clerk's window and linked the Mill to the outer world.
+
+In that eager throng of toilers Adam Ward's son saw men of almost every
+race: Scotchmen greeted Norwegians; men from Ireland exchanged friendly
+jests with men from Italy; sons of England laughed with the sons of
+France; Danes touched elbows with Dutchmen; and men from Poland stood
+shoulder to shoulder with men whose fathers fought with Washington. And
+every man was marked alike with the emblems of a common
+brotherhood--the brotherhood of work. Their faces were colored with the
+good color of their toil--with the smoke of their furnaces, and the
+grime of their engines, and the oil from their machines mixed with the
+sweat of their own bodies. Their clothing was uniform with the insignia
+of their united endeavor. And to the newly appointed manager of the
+Mill, these men of every nation were comrades in a common cause,
+spending the strength of their manhood for common human needs. He saw
+that only in the work of the world could the brotherhood of man be
+realized; only in the Mill of life's essential industries could the
+nations of the earth become as one.
+
+In that gathering of workmen the son of Adam Ward saw men of many
+religions, sects and creeds: Christians and pagans; Catholics and
+Protestants; men who worshiped the God of Abraham and men who worshiped
+no God; followers of strange fanatical spiritualism and followers of a
+stranger materialism. And he saw those many shades of human beliefs
+blended and harmonized--brought into one comprehensive whole by the
+power of the common necessities of human life.
+
+He saw that the unity of the warring religions of the world would not
+be accomplished in seminaries of speculative theological thought, but
+that in the Mill of life the spiritual brotherhood of all mankind would
+be realized. In work, he saw the true worship of a common God whose
+vice-regent on earth is humanity itself.
+
+In that pay-day assembly John saw men of middle age to whom the work
+into which they daily put the strength of their lives meant nothing
+less than the lives of their families. In the families dependent upon
+the Mill he saw the life of the nation dependent upon the nation's
+industries. As he saw in the line men old and gray and bent with the
+toil of many years, he realized how the generation of this day is
+indebted for every blessing of life--for life itself, indeed--to these
+veterans of the Mill who have given, their years in work that the
+nation might, through its industries, live and, in the building up of
+its industries, grow strong.
+
+As he watched the men of his own age, he thought how they, too, must
+receive the torch from the failing hands of their passing fathers, and
+in the Mill prove their manhood's right to carry the fire of their
+country's industrial need.
+
+And there were boys on the edge of manhood, who must be, by the Mill,
+trained in work for the coming needs of their country; who must indeed
+find their very manhood itself in work, or through all their years
+remain wards of the people--a burden upon humanity--the weakness of the
+nation. For as surely as work is health and strength and honor and
+happiness and life, so surely is idleness disease and weakness and
+shame and misery and death.
+
+The home builder, the waster, the gambler, the loyal citizen, the
+slacker, the honest and dishonest--they were all there at the pay
+window of the Mill. And to each the pay envelope meant a different
+thing. To big Max the envelope meant an education for his son. To Bill
+Connley it meant food and clothing for his brood of children. To young
+Scot it meant books for his study. To others it meant medicine or
+doctors for sick ones at home. To others it meant dissipation and
+dishonor. To all alike those pay envelopes meant Life.
+
+As these men of the Mill passed the son of Adam Ward, there were many
+smiling nods and hearty words of greeting. Now and then one would speak
+a few words about his work. Others passed a laughing jest. Many who
+were his comrades in France gave him the salute of their military
+days--half in fun, but with a hint of underlying seriousness that made
+the act a recognition of his rank in the industrial army.
+
+And John returned these greetings in the same good spirit of
+fellowship. To one it was, "Hello, Tony, how is that new baby at your
+house?" To another, whose hand was swathed in a dirty bandage, "Take
+care of that hand, Mack; don't get funny with it just because it's well
+enough to use again." To another, "How is the wife, Frank, better?
+Good, that's fine." Again it was, "You fellows on number six machine
+made a record this week." Again, "Who's the hoodoo on number seven
+furnace?--four accidents in six days is going some--better look around
+for your Jonah." And again, "I heard about that stunt of yours, Bill;
+the kid would have been killed sure if you hadn't kept your head and
+nerve. It was great work, old man." And to a lad farther down the line,
+"You'll know better next time, won't you, son?" But there were some who
+passed John Ward with averted faces or downcast eyes. Here and there
+there were sneering, vicious glances and low muttered oaths and curses
+and threats. Not infrequently the name of Jake Vodell was mentioned
+with approved quotations from the agitator's speeches of hatred against
+the employer class.
+
+The last of the long line of workmen was approaching the window when
+Pete Martin greeted the son of his old bench mate with a smile of
+fatherly affection and pride.
+
+"Hello, Uncle Pete," returned John. "Where is Charlie?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know, John," the old man answered, looking about. "I
+supposed he had gone on, I was a little slow myself."
+
+"There he is," said John, as the soldier workman came running from a
+distant part of the building.
+
+When Captain Charlie came up to them, his father moved on to the window
+so that for a moment the two friends were alone.
+
+"It's come, Charlie," said John, in a low tone. "Father told me and
+gave it out to the superintendent to-day."
+
+"Hurrah!" said Charlie Martin, and he would have said more but his
+comrade interrupted him.
+
+"Shut up, will you? We must go out to the hill to-morrow for a talk.
+I'll come for you early."
+
+"Right!" said Charlie with a grin, "but may I be permitted to say
+congratulations?"
+
+"Congratulations your foot!" returned the new general manager. "It's
+going to be one whale of a job, old man."
+
+The last of the stragglers came near and Charlie Martin moved on, in
+his turn, to the pay window.
+
+When John arrived home in the late afternoon, his sister met him with
+many joyful exclamations. "Is father in earnest? Are you really to take
+his place, John?"
+
+John laughed. "You would have thought he was in earnest if you had
+heard him." Then he asked, soberly, "Where is father, Helen; is he all
+right?"
+
+"He has been shut up in his room all alone ever since he told us," she
+returned, sadly. "I do hope he will be better now that he is to have
+complete rest."
+
+As if determined to permit no cloud to mar the joy of the occasion, she
+continued, with eager interest, "Do tell me about it, brother. Were the
+men in the office glad? Aren't you happy and proud? And how did the
+workmen take it?"
+
+"The people in the office were very nice," he answered, smiling back at
+her. "Good old George looked a little like he wanted to laugh and cry
+at the same time. The men in the plant don't know yet, except
+Charlie--I told him."
+
+A little shadow fell over Helen's happy face and she looked away. "I
+suppose of course you would tell Charlie Martin the first thing," she
+said, slowly. Then, throwing her arm suddenly about his neck, she
+kissed him. "You are a dear, silly, sentimental old thing, but I am as
+proud as I can be of you."
+
+"As for that," returned John, "I guess it must run in the family
+somehow. I notice little things now and then that make me think my
+sister may not always be exactly a staid, matter-of-fact old lady owl."
+
+When he had laughed at her blushes, and had teased her as a brother is
+in duty bound, he said, seriously, "Will you tell me something, Helen?
+Something that I want very much to know--straight from you."
+
+"What is it, John?"
+
+"Are you going to marry Jim McIver?"
+
+"How do you know that he wants me?"
+
+"Father told me to-day. Don't fence please, dear. Either tell me
+straight out or tell me to mind my own business."
+
+She replied with straightforward honesty, "Mr. McIver has asked me,
+John, but I can't tell you what my answer will be. I don't know
+myself."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CONCERNING THE NEW MANAGER
+
+
+When the Mill whistle sounded at the close of that pay day, Mary was
+sitting under the tree in the yard with her sewing basket--a gift from
+the Interpreter--on the grass beside her chair. The sunlight lay warm
+and bright on the garden where the ever industrious bees were filling
+their golden bags with the sweet wealth of the old-fashioned flowers.
+Bright-winged butterflies zigzagged here and there above the shrubbery
+along the fence and over her head; in the leafy shadows of the trees
+her bird friends were cheerfully busy with their small duties. Now and
+then a passing neighbor paused to exchange a word or two of their
+common interests. Presently workmen from the Mill went by--men of her
+father's class who lived in that vicinity of well-kept cottage homes;
+and each one called a greeting to the daughter of his friend.
+
+And so, at last, Peter Martin himself and Captain Charlie turned in at
+the little white gate and came to sit down on the grass at her feet.
+
+"You are late to-day," said Mary, smiling. "I suppose you both have
+forgotten that the vegetable garden is to be hoed this afternoon and
+that you, Charlie, promised to beat the rugs for me."
+
+Captain Charlie stretched himself lazily on the cool grass. "We should
+worry about gardens and rugs and things," he returned. "This is the day
+we celebrate."
+
+The father laughed quietly at his daughter's look of puzzled inquiry.
+
+"The day you celebrate?" said Mary. "Celebrate what?"
+
+Charlie answered with a fair imitation of a soapbox orator, "This, my
+beloved sister, is the day of our emancipation from the iron rule of
+that cruel capitalist, who has for so many years crushed the lives of
+his toiling slaves in his Mill of hell, and coined our heart's blood
+into dollars to fill his selfish coffers of princely luxury. Down
+through the ringing ages of the future this day will be forever
+celebrated as the day that signals the dawning of a new era in the
+industrial world of--uh-wow! Stop it!"
+
+Captain Charlie was ticklish and the toe of Mary's slippered foot had
+found a vital spot among his ribs.
+
+"You sound like that Jake Vodell," she said. "Stop your nonsense this
+minute and tell me what you mean or--" Her foot advanced again
+threateningly.
+
+Captain Charlie rolled over to a safe distance and sat up to grin at
+her with teasing impudence.
+
+"What's the matter with him, father?" she demanded.
+
+But Pete only laughed and answered, "I guess maybe he thinks he's going
+to get promoted to some higher-up position in the Mill."
+
+"No such luck for me!" said Charlie quickly. "John will need me too
+much right where I am."
+
+A bright color swept into Mary's cheeks and her eyes shone with glad
+excitement. "Do you mean that John--that his father has--" She looked
+from her father's face to her brother and back to her father again.
+
+Pete nodded silently.
+
+"You've guessed it, sister," said Charlie. "Old Adam walked out for
+good to-day, turned the whole works over to John--troubles, triumphs,
+opportunities, disasters and all. And it's a man's sized job the boy
+has drawn, believe me--especially right now, with Jake Vodell as busy
+as he is."
+
+"The men in the Mill were all pleased with the change, weren't they?"
+asked Mary.
+
+"They will be, when they hear of it," answered Captain Charlie, getting
+to his feet. "That is," he added, as he met his father's look, "most of
+them will be."
+
+"There's some in the Mill that it won't make any difference to, I'm
+afraid," said Peter Martin, soberly.
+
+Then the two men went into the house to, as they said, "clean up"--an
+operation that required a goodly supply of water with plenty of soap
+and a no little physical effort in the way of vigorous rubbing.
+
+When her father and brother were gone, Mary Martin sat very still. So
+still was she that a butterfly paused in its zigzag flight about the
+yard to rest on the edge of the work basket at her side. At last the
+young woman rose slowly to her feet, dropping the sewing she had held
+on the other things in the basket. The startled butterfly spread its
+gorgeous wings and zigzagged away unnoticed. Crossing the little lawn,
+Mary made her way among the flowers in the garden until she stood half
+hidden in the tall bushes which grew along the fence that separated the
+Martin home from the neglected grounds about the old house. When her
+father and brother went to their pleasant task in the vegetable garden
+she was still standing there, but the men did not notice.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later, when Mary called the men to supper, the change in the management
+of the Mill was again mentioned. And all during the evening meal it was
+the topic of their conversation. It was natural that the older man
+should recall the days when he and Adam and the Interpreter had worked
+together.
+
+"The men generally showed a different spirit toward their work in those
+days," said the veteran. "They seemed to have a feeling of pride and a
+love for it that I don't see much of now. Of late years, it looks as
+though everybody hates his job and is ashamed of what he is doing. They
+all seem to think of nothing but their pay, and busy their minds with
+scheming how they can get the most and give the least. It's the regular
+thing to work with one eye on the foreman and the other on the clock,
+and to count it a great joke when a job is spoiled or a breakdown
+causes trouble." All of which was a speech of unusual length for Pete
+Martin. Captain Charlie asked, thoughtfully, "And don't you think,
+father, that Adam looks on the work of the Mill in exactly that spirit
+of 'get the most for the least' without regard to the meaning and
+purpose of the work itself?"
+
+"There's no reason to doubt it, son, that I can see," returned the old
+workman.
+
+"I have often wondered," said Charlie, "how much the attitude of the
+employees toward their work is due to the attitude of their employers
+toward that same work."
+
+The old workman returned, heartily, "We'll be seeing a different
+feeling in the Mill under John, I am thinkin'--he's different."
+
+"I should say he is different," agreed Charlie, quickly. "John would
+rather work at his job for nothing than do anything else for ten times
+the salary he draws. But was Adam always as he is now?"
+
+"About his work do you mean?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Adam Ward's old comrade answered, slowly, "I've often wondered that
+myself. I can't say for sure. As I look back now, I think sometimes
+that he used to have an interest in the work itself at first. Takin'
+his development of the new process and all--it almost seems that he
+must have had. And yet, there's some things that make me think that all
+the time it meant nothing to him but just what he could get out of it
+for himself."
+
+"Helen will be happy over the change, won't she?" remarked Mary.
+
+"Helen!" ejaculated Captain Charlie, with more emphasis perhaps than
+the occasion demanded.
+
+"She won't give it so much as a thought. Why should she? She can go on
+with her dinners and card parties and balls and country club affairs
+with the silk-hatted slackers of her set, just the same as if nothing
+had happened."
+
+Mary laughed. "Seems to me I have heard something like that
+before--'silk-hatted slackers'--it sounds familiar."
+
+Captain Charlie watched her suspiciously.
+
+The father laughed quietly.
+
+"Oh, yes," she exclaimed, with an air of triumph. "It was Bobby Whaley
+who said it. I remember thinking at the time that it probably came to
+him from his father, who of course got it from Jake Vodell. Silk-hatted
+slackers--sounds like Jake, doesn't it, father?"
+
+Captain Charlie grinned sheepishly. "I know it was a rotten thing to
+say," he admitted. "Some of the best and bravest men in our army were
+silk-hatters at home. They were in the ranks, too, a lot of them--just
+like John Ward. And some of the worst cowards and shirkers and slackers
+that ever lived belonged to our ancient and noble order of the
+horny-handed sons of toil, that Jake Vodell orates about. But what gets
+me, is the way some of those fellows who were everything but slackers
+in France act, now that they are back home. Over there they were on the
+job with everything they had, to the last drop of their blood. But now
+that they are back in their own home country again, they have simply
+thrown up their hands and quit--that is, a lot of them have. They seem
+to think that the signing of the Armistice ended it all and that they
+can do nothing now for the rest of their lives. Who was it said, 'Peace
+hath her victories,' or something like that? Well, peace hath her
+defeats, too. I'll be hanged if I can understand how a man who has it
+in him to be a one hundred per cent American hero in war can be a
+Simon-pure slacker in times of peace."
+
+As he finished, Captain Charlie pushed his chair back from the table
+and, finding his pipe, proceeded to fill it with the grim determination
+of an old-time minuteman ramming home a charge in his Bunker Hill
+musket.
+
+Later the two men went out to enjoy their pipes on the lawn in the cool
+of the evening. They were discussing the industrial situation when
+Mary, having finished her household work for the night, joined them.
+
+"I forgot to tell you," she said, "that Jake Vodell called to-day."
+
+"Again!" exclaimed Charlie.
+
+"If Vodell wants to talk with us he'll have to come when we are at
+home," said Pete Martin, slowly, looking at his daughter.
+
+With a laugh, the young woman returned, "But I don't think that it was
+you or Charlie that he wanted to see this time, father."
+
+"What did he want?" demanded her brother quickly.
+
+"He wanted me to go with him to a dance next Tuesday," she answered
+demurely.
+
+"Huh," came in a tone of disgust from Charlie.
+
+The father asked, quietly, "And what did you say to him, Mary?"
+
+"I told him that I went to dances only with my friends."
+
+"Good!" said Captain Charlie.
+
+"And what then?" asked Pete.
+
+"Then," she hesitated, "then he said something about my being careful
+that I had the right sort of friends and referred to Charlie and John."
+
+"Yes?" said Mary's father.
+
+"He said that the only use John Ward had for Charlie was to get a line
+on the union and the plans of the men--that his friendship was only a
+pretext in order that he might use Charlie as a sort of spy and that
+the union men wouldn't stand for it."
+
+Captain Charlie muttered something under his breath that he could not
+speak aloud in the presence of his sister.
+
+Pete Martin deliberately knocked the ashes from his pipe.
+
+"Then," continued Mary, "he talked about how everybody knew that John
+was nothing but a"--she laughed mockingly at her brother--"a
+silk-hatted swell who couldn't hold his job an hour if it wasn't that
+his father owned the Mill, and that Charlie was a hundred times more
+competent to manage the business. He said that anybody could see how
+Charlie's promotion in the army proved him superior to John, who was
+never anything but a common private."
+
+Captain Charlie laughed aloud. "John and I understand all about that
+superiority business. I was lucky, that's all--our captain just
+happened to be looking in my direction. Believe me, good old John was
+just as busy as I ever dared to be, only it was his luck to be busy at
+some other point that the captain didn't see."
+
+"Is that all Jake had to say, daughter?"
+
+"No," answered the young woman, slowly. "I--I am afraid I was angry at
+what he called John--I mean at what he said about Charlie and John's
+friendship--and so I told him what I thought about him and Sam Whaley
+and their crowd, and asked him to go and not come back again except to
+see you or Charlie."
+
+"Good for you, Mary!" exclaimed her brother.
+
+But the old workman said nothing.
+
+"And how did Jake take his dismissal?" asked Charlie, presently.
+
+"He went, of course," she answered. "But he said that he would show me
+what the friendship of a man of John Ward's class meant to a working
+man; that the union men would find out who the loyal members were and
+when the time came they would know whom to reward and whom to treat as
+traitors to the Cause."
+
+For a little while after this the three sat in silence. At last Peter
+Martin rose heavily to his feet. "Come, Charlie, it is time we were on
+our way to the meeting; we mustn't be late, you know."
+
+When her father and brother were gone to the meeting of the Mill
+workers' union, Mary Martin locked the door of the cottage and walked
+swiftly away.
+
+It was not far to the Interpreter's hut, and presently the young woman
+was climbing the old zigzag stairway to the little house on the edge of
+the cliff above. There was no light but the light of the stars--the
+faint breath of the night breeze scarcely stirred the leaves of the
+bushes or moved the tall weeds that grew on the hillside. At the top of
+the stairs Mary paused to look at the many lights of the Flats, the
+Mill, the business houses, the streets and the homes, that shone in the
+shadowy world below.
+
+She was about to move toward the door of the hut when the sound of
+voices coming from the balcony-porch halted her. The Interpreter was
+speaking. She could not distinguish his words, but the deep tones of
+the old basket maker's voice were not to be mistaken. Then the young
+woman heard some one reply, and the laughing voice that answered the
+Interpreter was as familiar to Mary Martin as the laugh of her own
+brother. The evening visitor to the little hut on the cliff was the son
+of Adam Ward.
+
+Very softly Mary Martin stole back down the zigzag steps to the road
+below. Slowly she went back through the deep shadows of the night to
+her little home, with its garden of old-fashioned flowers, next door to
+the deserted house where John Ward was born.
+
+Late that night, while John was still at the Interpreter's hut, Adam
+Ward crept alone like some hunted thing about the beautiful grounds of
+his great estate. Like a haunted soul of wretchedness, the Mill owner
+had left his bed to escape the horror of his dreams and to find, if
+possible, a little rest from his torturing fears in the calm solitude
+of the night.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Pete Martin, with Captain Charlie and their many industrial
+comrades, had returned to their homes after the meeting of their union,
+five men gathered in that dirty, poorly lighted room in the rear of
+Dago Bill's pool hall.
+
+The five men had entered the place one at a time. They spoke together
+in low, guarded tones of John Ward and his management of the Mill, of
+Pete Martin and Captain Charlie, of the Interpreter and McIver.
+
+And three of those five men had come to that secret place at Jake
+Vodell's call, directly from the meeting of the Mill workers' union.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+COMRADES
+
+
+Mary was in the flower garden that Sunday forenoon when John Ward
+stopped his big roadster in front of the Martin cottage.
+
+It was not at all unusual for the one-time private, John, to call that
+way for his former superior officer. Nearly every Sunday when the
+weather was fine the comrades would go for a long ride in John's car
+somewhere into the country. And always they carried a lunch prepared by
+Captain Charlie's sister.
+
+Sometimes there might have been a touch of envy in Mary's generous
+heart, as she watched the automobile with her brother and his friend
+glide away up the green arched street. After all, Mary was young and
+loved the country, and John Ward's roadster was a wonderful machine,
+and the boy who had lived in the old house next door had been, in her
+girlhood days, a most delightful comrade and playfellow.
+
+The young woman could no more remember her first meeting with John or
+his sister Helen than she could recall the exact beginning of her
+acquaintance with Charlie. From her cradle days she had known the
+neighbor children as well as she had known her own brother. Then the
+inevitable separation of the playmates had come with Adam Ward's
+increasing material prosperity. The school and college days of John and
+Helen and the removal of the family from the old house to the new home
+on the hill had brought to them new friends and new interests--friends
+and interests that knew nothing of Pete Martin's son and daughter. But
+in Mary's heart, because it was a woman's heart, the memories of the
+old house lived. The old house itself, indeed, served to keep those
+memories alive.
+
+John did not see her at first, but called a cheery greeting to her
+father, who with his pipe and paper was sitting under the tree on the
+lawn side of the walk.
+
+Mary drew a little back among the flowers and quietly went on with her
+work.
+
+"Is Charlie here, Uncle Pete?" asked John, as he came through the gate.
+
+"He's in the house, I think, John, or out in the back yard, maybe,"
+answered the old workman. And, then, in his quiet kindly way, Peter
+Martin spoke a few words to Adam Ward's son about the change in the
+management of the Mill--wishing John success, expressing his own
+gratification and confidence, and assuring him of the hearty good will
+that prevailed, generally, among the employees.
+
+Presently, as the two men talked together, Mary went to express her
+pleasure in the promotion of her old playmate to a position of such
+responsibility and honor in the industrial world. And John Ward, when
+he saw her coming toward him with an armful of flowers, must at least
+have noticed the charming picture she made against that background of
+the garden, with its bright-colored blossoms in the flood of morning
+sunlight.
+
+Certainly the days of their childhood companionship must have stirred
+in his memory, for he said, presently, "Do you know, Mary, you make me
+think of mother and the way she used to go among her flowers every
+Sunday morning when we lived in the old house there." He looked
+thoughtfully toward the neighboring place.
+
+"How is your mother these days, John?" asked Mary's father.
+
+"She is well, thank you, Uncle Pete," returned John. "Except of
+course," he added, soberly, "she worries a good deal about father's ill
+health."
+
+"Your father will surely be much better, now that he is relieved from
+all his business care," said Mary.
+
+"We are all hoping so," returned John.
+
+There was an awkward moment of silence.
+
+As if the mention of his father's condition had in some way suggested
+the thought, or, perhaps, because he wished to change the subject, John
+said, "The old house looks pretty bad, doesn't it? It is a shame that
+we have permitted it to go to ruin that way."
+
+Neither Peter Martin nor his daughter made reply to this. There was
+really nothing they could say.
+
+John was about to speak again when Captain Charlie, coming from the
+house with their lunch basket in his hand, announced that he was ready,
+and the two men started on their way.
+
+Standing at the gate, Mary waved good-by as her brother turned to look
+back. Even when the automobile had finally passed from sight she stood
+there, still looking in the direction it had gone.
+
+Peter Martin watched his daughter thoughtfully.
+
+Without speaking, Mary went slowly into the house.
+
+Her father sat for some minutes looking toward the door through which
+she had passed. At last with deliberate care he refilled his pipe. But
+the old workman did not, for an hour or more, resume the reading of his
+Sunday morning paper.
+
+
+Beyond a few casual words, the two friends in the automobile seemed
+occupied, each with his own thoughts. Neither asked, "Where shall we
+go?" or offered any suggestion for the day's outing. As if it were
+understood between them, John turned toward the hill country and sent
+the powerful machine up the long, winding grade, as if on a very
+definite mission. An hour's driving along the ridges and the hillsides,
+and they turned from the main thoroughfare into a narrow lane between
+two thinly wooded pastures. A mile of this seldom traveled road and
+John stopped his car beside the way. Here they left the automobile,
+and, taking the lunch basket, climbed the fence and made their way up
+the steep side of the hill to a clump of trees that overlooked the many
+miles of winding river and broad valley and shaded hills. The place was
+a favorite spot to which they often came for those hours of comradeship
+that are so necessary to all well-grounded and enduring friendships.
+
+"Well, _Mister_ Ward," said Captain Charlie, when they were comfortably
+seated and their pipes were going well, "how does it feel to be one of
+the cruel capitalist class a-grindin' the faces off us poor?"
+
+The workman spoke lightly, but there was something in his voice that
+made John look at him sharply. It was a little as though Captain
+Charlie were nerving himself to say good-by to his old comrade.
+
+The new general manager smiled, but it was a rather serious smile. "Do
+you remember how you felt when you received your captain's commission?"
+he asked.
+
+"I do that," returned Charlie. "I felt that I had been handed a mighty
+big job and was scared stiff for fear I wouldn't be able to make good
+at it."
+
+"Exactly," returned John. "And I'll never forget how _I_ felt when they
+stepped you up the first time and left me out. And when you had climbed
+on up and Captain Wheeler was killed and you received your commission,
+with me still stuck in the ranks--well--I never told you before but
+I'll say now that I was the lonesomest, grouchiest, sorest man in the
+whole A.E.F. It seemed to me about then that being a private was the
+meanest, lowest, most no-account job on earth, and I was darned near
+deserting and letting the Germans win the war and be hanged. I thought
+it would serve the Allies right if I was to let 'em get licked good and
+plenty just for failing to appreciate me."
+
+Captain Charlie laughed.
+
+"Oh, yes, you can laugh," said the new general manager of the Mill.
+"It's darned funny _now_, but I can tell you that there wasn't much
+humor in it for me _then_. We had lived too close together from that
+first moment when we found ourselves in the same company for me to feel
+comfortable as a common buck private, watchin' you strut around in the
+gentleman officer class, and not daring even to tell you to go to--"
+
+"You poor old fool," said Charlie, affectionately. "You knew my
+promotion was all an accident."
+
+"Exactly," returned John dryly. "We've settled all that a hundred
+times."
+
+"And you ought to have known," continued Captain Charlie, warmly, "that
+my feeling toward you would have been no different if they had made me
+a general."
+
+"Sure, I ought to have known," retorted John, with an air of triumph.
+
+And then it appeared that John Ward had a very definite purpose in thus
+turning his comrade's mind to their army life in France. "And you
+should have sense enough to understand that my promotion in the Mill is
+not going to make any difference in our friendship. Your promotion was
+the result of an accident, Charlie, exactly as my position in the Mill
+to-day is the result of an accident. Your superior officer happened to
+see you. I happen to be the son of Adam Ward. If I should have known
+_then_ that your rank would make no difference in your feeling toward
+me, you have got to understand _now_ that my position can make no
+difference in my feeling toward you."
+
+Charlie Martin's silence revealed how accurately John had guessed his
+Mill comrade's hidden thoughts.
+
+The new manager continued, "The thing that straightened me out on the
+question of our different ranks was that scrap where Captain Charlie
+and Private John found themselves caught in the same shell hole with no
+one else anywhere near except friend enemy, and somebody had to do
+something darned quick. Do you remember our argument?"
+
+"Do I remember!" exclaimed Charlie. "I remember how you said it was
+your job to take the chance because I, being an officer, was worth more
+to the cause and because the loss of a private didn't matter so much
+anyhow."
+
+John retorted quickly, "And you said that it was up to you to take the
+chance because it was an officer's duty to take care of his men."
+
+"And then," said Charlie, "you told me to go to hell, commission and
+all. And I swore that I'd break you for insolence and insubordination
+if we ever got out of the scrape alive."
+
+"And so," grinned John, "we compromised by pulling it off together. And
+from that time on I felt different and was as proud of you and your
+officer's swank as if I had been the lucky guy myself."
+
+"Yes," said Captain Charlie, smiling affectionately, "and I could see
+the grin in your eyes every time you saluted."
+
+"No one else ever saw it, though," returned Private Ward, proudly.
+
+"Don't think for a minute that I overlooked that either," said Captain
+Martin. "If any one else had seen it, I would have disciplined you for
+sure."
+
+"And don't you think for a minute that I didn't know that, too,"
+retorted John. "I could feel you laying for me, and every man in the
+company knew it just as he knew our friendship. That's what made us all
+love you so. We used to say that if Captain Charlie would just take a
+notion to start for Berlin and invite us to go along the war would be
+over right there."
+
+Charlie Martin laughed appreciatively. Then he said, earnestly, "After
+all, old man, it wasn't an officers' war and it wasn't a privates' war,
+was it? Any more than it was the war of America, or England, or France,
+or Australia, or Canada--it was _our_ war. And that, I guess, is the
+main reason why it all came out as it did."
+
+"Now," said John, with hearty enthusiasm, "you are talking sense."
+
+"But it is all very different now, John," said Charlie, slowly.
+"Millsburgh is not France and the Mill is not the United States Army."
+
+"No," returned John, "and yet there is not such a lot of difference,
+when you come to think it out."
+
+"We can't disguise the facts," said Captain Martin stubbornly.
+
+"We are not going to disguise anything," retorted John. "I had an idea
+how you would feel over my promotion, and that is why I wanted you out
+here to-day. You've got to get this 'it's all very different now' stuff
+out of your system. So go ahead and shoot your facts."
+
+"All right," said Charlie. "Let's look at things as they are. It was
+all very well for us to moon over what we would do if we ever got back
+home when we knew darned well our chances were a hundred to one against
+our ever seeing the old U.S. again. We spilled a lot of sentiment about
+comradeship and loyalty and citizenship and equality and all that,
+but--"
+
+"Can your chatter!" snapped John. "Drag out these facts that you are so
+anxious to have recognized. Let's have a good look at whatever it is
+that makes you rough-neck sons of toil so superior to us lily-fingered
+employers. Go to the bat."
+
+"Well," offered Charlie, reluctantly, "to begin with, you are a
+millionaire, a university man, member of select clubs; I am nothing but
+a common workman."
+
+John returned, quickly, "We are both citizens of the United States. In
+the duties and privileges of our citizenship we stand on exactly the
+same footing, just as in the army we stood on the common ground of
+loyalty. And we are both equally dependent upon the industries of our
+country--upon the Mill, and upon each other. Exactly as we were both
+dependent upon the army and upon each other in France."
+
+"You are the general manager of the Mill, practically the owner," said
+Charlie. "I am only one of your employees."
+
+The son of Adam Ward answered scornfully, "Yes, over there it was
+Captain Charlie Martin and Private John Ward of the United States Army.
+I suppose it is a lot different now that it is Captain John Ward and
+Private Charlie Martin of the United States Industries."
+
+Charlie continued, "You live in a mansion in a select district on the
+hill, I live in a little cottage on the edge of the Flats!"
+
+"Over there it was officers' quarters and barracks," said John,
+shortly.
+
+Charlie tried again, "You wear white collars and tailored clothes at
+your work--I wear dirty overalls."
+
+"We used to call 'em uniforms," barked John.
+
+Captain Charlie hesitated a little before he offered his next fact, and
+when he spoke it was with a little more feeling. "There are our
+families to take into account too, John. Your sister--well--isn't it a
+fact that your sister would no more think of calling on Mary than she
+would think of putting on overalls and going to work in the Mill?"
+
+It was John's turn now to hesitate.
+
+"Don't you see?" continued Charlie, "we belong to different worlds, I
+tell you, John."
+
+Deliberately Helen's brother knocked the ashes from his pipe and
+refilled it with thoughtful care.
+
+Then he said, gravely, "Helen doesn't realize, as we do, old man. How
+could she? The girl has not had a chance to learn what the war taught
+us. She is exactly like thousands of other good women, and men, too,
+for that matter. They simply don't understand. Good Lord!" he exploded,
+suddenly "when I think what a worthless snob I was before I enlisted I
+want to kick my fool self to death. But we are drifting away from the
+main thought," he finished.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," returned the other.
+
+"I thought we were discussing the question of rank," said John.
+
+"Well," retorted Charlie, dryly, "isn't that exactly the whole question
+as your sister sees it?"
+
+"You give me a pain!" growled John. "I'll admit that Helen, right now,
+attaches a great deal of importance to some things that--well, that are
+not so very important after all. But she is no worse than I was before
+I learned better. And you take my word she'll learn, too. Sister visits
+the old Interpreter too often not to absorb a few ideas that she failed
+to acquire at school. He will help her to see the light, just as he
+helped me. But for him, I would have been nothing but a gentleman
+slacker myself--if there is any such animal. But what under heaven has
+all this to do with our relation as employer and employee in the Mill?
+What effect would Mary have had on you over there if she had gone to
+you with 'Oh, Charlie dear, you mustn't go out in that dreadful No
+Man's Land to-night. It is so dirty and wet and cold. Remember that you
+are an officer, Charlie dear, and let Private John go.'"
+
+Captain Charlie laughed--this new general manager of the Mill was so
+like the buddie he had loved in France. "Do you remember that night--"
+he began, but his comrade interrupted him rudely.
+
+"Shut up! I've got to get this thing off my chest and you've got to
+hear me out. This country of ours started out all right with the
+proposition that all men are created free and equal. But ninety per
+cent of our troubles are caused by our crazy notions as to what that
+equality really means. The rest of our grief comes from our fool claims
+to superiority of one sort or another. It looks to me as though you and
+Helen agreed exactly on this question of rank and I am here to tell you
+that you are both wrong."
+
+Captain Charlie Martin sat up at this, but before he could speak John
+shot a question at him. "Tell me, when Private Ward saluted Captain
+Martin as the regulations provide, was the action held by either the
+officer or the private to be a recognition of the superiority of
+Captain Martin or the inferiority of Private Ward--was it?"
+
+"Not that any one could notice," answered Charlie with a grin.
+
+"You bet your life it wasn't," said John. "Well, then," he continued,
+"what was it that the salute recognized?"
+
+"Why, it was the captain's _rank_."
+
+"Exactly; and what determined that rank?"
+
+"The number of men he commanded."
+
+"That's it!" cried John. "The rank of the captain represented
+the--the"--he searched for a word--"the _oneness_ of all the men in his
+command. And so you see the thing that the individual private really
+saluted as superior to himself was the _oneness_ of all his comrades,
+both privates and officers in the company."
+
+"Sure," said Charlie, looking a little puzzled, as if he did not quite
+see what the manager of the Mill was driving at. "The salute was merely
+a sign of the individual's surrender of his own personal will to the
+authority of the rank that represented all his fellow individuals."
+
+"Yes," said John, "and when Jack Pershing stood up there with the rest
+of the kings and we paraded past, were we humiliated because we were
+not dressed exactly like the reviewing generals? We were not. We stuck
+out our chests and pulled in our chins as if the whole show was framed
+to honor us. And that is exactly what it was, Charlie, because we were
+all included in Pershing's rank. The army was not honoring Pershing the
+man, it was honoring _itself_."
+
+"Yes," said Charlie, as if he still did not quite grasp his comrade's
+purpose.
+
+"Here," said John, "this is the idea. You remember how when we were
+kids we used to get hold of an old magnifying glass and use it as a
+burning glass?"
+
+"I remember we darned near set fire to Hank Webster's barn once,"
+smiled Charlie.
+
+"Well," returned John, "think of the army as a sun, and of every loyal
+individual soldier, officer and private alike, as a ray of that sun and
+_there_ is your true equality. Pershing's rank was simply the burning
+glass that focused our two million individual rays to a point of such
+equality that they could move as one. And I noticed another thing in
+that review, too," continued John, earnestly, "even if I was supposed
+to have my eyes front, I noticed that General Pershing saluted the
+colors. And that meant simply this, that as each individual soldier
+honored the whole army in his recognition of the general's rank, the
+army itself, through its commander, honored the greater _oneness_ of
+the nation. And so Foch's rank was a burning glass that focused the
+different allied nations into a still greater _oneness_, and drew their
+strength to such a point of equality that it lighted a fire under old
+Kaiser Bill."
+
+"But what has all this to do with you and me now?" demanded Charlie.
+"It looks to me as though you are the one that is getting away from the
+main thought."
+
+"I am not," returned John. "It has this to do with you and me: Our
+little part as a nation in that world job in France is finished all
+right, and the national job that we have to tackle now, here at home,
+is a little different, but the principle of unity involved is exactly
+the same. Our everyday work can no more be done by those who work with
+their hands alone than the Germans could have been whipped by privates
+alone. Nor can our industries be carried on by those who do the
+planning and managing alone any more than the army could have carried
+out a campaign with nothing but officers."
+
+"Oh, I see now what you are getting at," said Charlie.
+
+"It's about time that you woke up," retorted John.
+
+"You mean," continued Charlie, carefully, "that just as the unity of
+the army was in the different ranks that focused the individual soldier
+rays upon one common purpose, so the true equality of our industries is
+possible only through the difference in rank, such as--well, such as
+yours and mine--manager and workman or employer and employee."
+
+"Now you're getting wise," cried John. "Really at times you show signs
+of almost human intelligence."
+
+Charlie returned, doubtfully, "How do you suppose Sam Whaley and a few
+others I could name in our union would take to this equality stuff of
+yours?"
+
+"And how do you suppose McIver and others like him would take to it?"
+retorted John. "All the men in your union are not Sam Whaleys by a long
+shot, neither are all employers like McIver. As I remember, you had to
+discipline a man now and then in Company K. And you have heard of
+officers being cashiered, haven't you?"
+
+"That's all right," returned the captain, "but how will the rank and
+file of our industrial army as a whole ever get it?"
+
+For some time John Ward did not reply to this, but sat brooding over
+the question, while his former superior officer waited expectantly.
+
+Then the manager said, earnestly, "Charlie, what was it that drew over
+four million American citizens of almost every known parentage from
+every walk of life, and made them an army with one purpose? And what
+was it that inspired one hundred million more to back them?
+
+"I'll tell you what it was," he continued, when his companion did not
+answer, "it was the Big Idea.
+
+"Oh, yes, I know there were all kinds of graft and incompetency and
+jealousy and mutiny and outrages. And there were traitors and
+profiteers and slackers of every sort. But the Big Idea that focused
+the strength of the nation as a whole, Charlie, was so much bigger than
+any individual or group that it absorbed all. It took possession of us
+all--inspired us all--dominated and drove us all, into every
+conceivable effort and sacrifice, until it made heroism a common thing.
+And this Big Idea was so big that it not only absorbed disloyalty and
+selfishness as a great living river takes in a few drops of poison, but
+it assimilated, as well, every brand of class and caste. It made no
+distinction between officer and private, it ruled General Pershing and
+Private Jones alike. It recognized no difference between educated and
+uneducated and sent university professors and bootblacks over the top
+side by side. And this Big Idea that so focused the individual rays of
+our nation against German imperialism was nothing more or less than
+_the idea of the oneness of all humanity._ It may be lost in a scramble
+for the spoils of victory, it is true, but it was the Big Idea that won
+the victory just the same."
+
+John Ward was on his feet now, pacing back and forth. His face was
+flushed and eager, his eyes were glowing, as he himself was possessed
+of the Big Idea which he strove to put into words.
+
+And Captain Charlie's pipe was forgotten as he watched his friend and
+listened. This John Ward was a John Ward that few people in Millsburgh
+knew. But Captain Charlie knew him. Captain Charlie had seen him tested
+in all the ways that war tests men. In cold and hunger and the
+unspeakable discomforts of mud and filth and vermin--in the waiting
+darkness when an impatient whisper or a careless move to ease
+overstrained nerves meant a deluge of fire and death--in the wild
+frenzy of actual conflict--in the madness of victory--in the delirium
+of defeat--in the dreary marking time--in the tense readiness for the
+charge--in those many moments when death was near enough to strip the
+outward husks from these two men and leave their naked souls face to
+face--Captain Charlie had learned to know John Ward.
+
+"Do you remember what the Interpreter said to us the first time we went
+to see him after we got home?" demanded John.
+
+Charlie nodded. "He said for us not to make the mistake of thinking
+that the war was over just because the Armistice was signed and we were
+at home in Millsburgh again. I'm afraid a good many people, though, are
+making just that mistake."
+
+"I didn't understand what our old friend meant then, Charlie,"
+continued John, "but I know now. He meant that the same old fight
+between the spirit of imperialism that seeks the selfish dominion of an
+individual or class and the spirit of democracy that upholds the
+oneness of all for all, is still on, right here at home. The President
+said that the war was to make the world safe for democracy, and there
+are some wild enthusiasts who say that we Americans won it."
+
+"That 'we won the war' stuff is all bunk," interrupted Charlie, in a
+tone of disgust.
+
+"'Bunk' is right," agreed John. "The old A.E.F. did have a hand,
+though, in putting a crimp in the Kaiser's little plan for acquiring
+title to the whole human race for himself and family. But if the
+American people don't wake up to the fact that the same identical
+principles of human right and human liberty that sent us to France are
+involved in our industrial controversies here at home, we might as well
+have saved ourselves the trouble of going over there at all."
+
+"That is all true enough," agreed Captain Charlie, "but what is going
+to wake us up? What is going to send us as a nation against the Kaiser
+Bills of capital and the Kaiser Bills of labor, or, if you like it
+better, the imperialistic employers and the equally imperialistic
+employees?"
+
+John Ward fairly shouted his answer, "The Big Idea, my boy--the same
+Big Idea that sent us to war against imperialism over there will wake
+us up to drive the spirit of imperialism out of our American industries
+here at home."
+
+Charlie shook his head doubtfully. "It was different during the World
+War, John. Then the Big Idea was held up before the people to the
+exclusion of everything else. When we think of the speeches and parades
+and rallies and sermons and books and newspapers and pictures and songs
+that were used in the appeal to our patriotism and our common humanity,
+it was no wonder that we all felt the pull of it all. But no one now is
+saying anything about the Big Idea, except for an occasional paragraph
+here and there. And certainly no one is making much noise about
+applying it in our industries."
+
+"Yes, I know we can't expect any such hurrah as we had when men were
+needed to die for the cause in a foreign land. You go to France and get
+shot for humanity and you are a hero. Stay at home and sweat for the
+same cause and you are a nobody. From the publicity point of view
+there seems to be a lot of difference between a starving baby in
+Belgium and a starving kid in our Millsburgh Flats. But just the same
+it is the Big Idea that will save us from the dangers that are
+threatening our industries and, through our industries, menacing the
+very life of our nation."
+
+"But how will the people get it, John?"
+
+"I don't know how it will come; but, somehow, the appeal must be made
+to the loyal citizens of this nation in behalf of the humanity that is
+dependent for life itself upon our industries, exactly as the appeal
+was made in behalf of the humanity that looked to us for help in time
+of war. We must, as a nation, learn, somehow, to feel our work as we
+felt our war. The same ideals of patriotism and sacrifice and heroism
+that were so exalted in the war must be held up in our everyday work.
+We must learn to see our individual jobs in the industrial
+organizations of our country as we saw our places in the nation's army.
+As a people we must grasp the mighty fact that humanity is the issue of
+our mills and shops and factories and mines, exactly as it was the
+issue of our campaigns in France. America, Charlie, has not only to
+face in her industries the same spirit of imperialism that we fought in
+France, but she has to contend with the same breed of disloyal
+grafters, profiteers and slackers that would have betrayed us during
+the war. And these traitors to our industries must be branded wherever
+they are found--among the business forces or in the ranks of labor, in
+our schools and churches or on our farms.
+
+"The individual's attitude toward the industries of this nation must be
+a test of his loyal citizenship just as a man's attitude toward our
+army was a test. And Americans dare not continue to ignore the danger
+that lies in the work of those emissaries who are seeking to weaken the
+loyalty of our workmen and who by breeding class hatred and strife in
+our industries are trying to bring about the downfall of our government
+and replace the stars and stripes with the flag that is as foreign to
+our American independence as the flag of the German Kaiser himself."
+
+Captain Charlie said, slowly, "That is all true, John, but at the same
+time you and I know that there is no finer body of loyal citizens
+anywhere in the world than the great army of our American workmen. And
+we know, too, that the great army of our American business men are just
+as fine and true and loyal."
+
+"Exactly," cried John, "but if these loyal American citizens who work
+with their hands in the Mill and these loyal citizens who work in the
+office of the Mill don't hold together, in the same spirit of
+comradeship that united them in the war, to defend our industries
+against both the imperialism of capital and the equally dangerous
+imperialism of labor, we may as well run up a new flag at Washington
+and be done with it."
+
+"You are right, of course, John," said Captain Charlie, "but how?"
+
+"You and I may not know how," retorted the other, "any more than we
+knew how the war was going to be won when we enlisted. But we do know
+our little parts right here in Millsburgh clear enough. As I see it, it
+is up to us to carry the torch of Flanders fields into the field of our
+industries right here in our own home town."
+
+He paced to and fro without speaking for a little while, the other
+watching him, waited.
+
+"Of course," said John at last, "a lot of people will call us fanatics
+and cranks and idealists for saying that the Big Idea, of the war must
+dominate us in our industrial life. And, of course, it is going to be a
+darned sight harder in some ways to stand for the principles of our
+comradeship here at home than it was over there. 'Don't go out into No
+Man's Land to-night, Captain Charlie, it is so dirty and dark and wet
+and cold and dangerous; let Private John go.' But the darned fool,
+Captain Charlie, went into the cold and the wet and the danger because
+he and Private John were comrades in the oneness of the Big Idea."
+
+His voice grew a little bitter as he finished. "Don't go into that
+awful Mill, Captain John, it is so dirty and dangerous and you will get
+so tired; let Private Charlie do the work while you stay at home and
+play tennis or bridge or attend to the social duties of your superior
+class."
+
+With ringing earnestness Charlie Martin added, "But the darned fool
+fanatic and idealist Captain John will go just the same because he and
+Private Charlie are comrades in the oneness of the Big Idea of the Mill
+here at home."
+
+For a few moments John stood looking into the distance as one who sees
+a vision, then he said, slowly, "And the Big Idea will win again, old
+man, as it has always won; and the traitors and slackers and yellow
+dogs will be saved with the rest, I suppose, just as they always have
+been saved from themselves."
+
+He turned to see his comrade standing at attention. Gravely Captain
+Charlie saluted.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+Perhaps Jake Vodell was right in believing that the friendship of John
+Ward and Charlie Martin was dangerous to his cause in Millsburgh.
+
+The Vodells, who with their insidious propaganda, menace America
+through her industrial troubles, will be powerless, indeed, when
+American employers and employees can think in terms of industrial
+comradeship.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+TWO SIDES OF A QUESTION
+
+
+That evening the new manager of the Mill stayed for supper at the
+Martin cottage. It was the first time since he had left the old house
+next door for his school in a distant city that he had eaten a meal
+with these friends of his boyhood.
+
+Perhaps because their minds were so filled with things they could not
+speak, their talk was a little restrained. Captain Charlie attempted a
+jest or two; John did his best, and Mary helped them all she could. The
+old workman, save for a kindly word now and then to make the son of
+Adam Ward feel at home, was silent.
+
+But when the supper was over and the twilight was come and they had
+carried their chairs out on the lawn where, in their boy and girl days
+they had romped away so many twilight hours, the weight of the present
+was lifted. While Peter Martin smoked his pipe and listened, the three
+made merry over the adventures of their childhood, until the old house
+next door, so deserted and forlorn, must have felt that the days so
+long past were come again.
+
+It was rather late when John finally said goodnight. As he drove
+homeward he told himself many times that it had been one of the
+happiest evenings he had ever spent. He wondered why.
+
+The big house on the hill, as he approached the iron gates, seemed
+strangely grim and forbidding. The soft darkness of the starlit night
+invited him to stay out of doors. Reluctantly, half in mind to turn
+back, he drove slowly up the long driveway. The sight of McIver's big
+car waiting decided him. He did not wish to meet the factory owner that
+evening. He would wait a while before going indoors. Finding a
+comfortable lawn chair not far from the front of the house, he filled
+his pipe.
+
+As he sat there, many things unbidden and apparently without purpose
+passed in leisurely succession through his mind. Bits of boyhood
+experiences, long forgotten and called up now, no doubt, by his evening
+at the cottage that had once been as much his home as the old house
+itself. How inseparable the four children had been! Fragments of his
+army life--what an awakening it had all been for him! The coming
+struggle with the followers of Jake Vodell--his new responsibilities.
+He had feared that his comradeship with Charlie might be
+weakened--well, that was settled now. He was glad they had had their
+talk.
+
+The door of the house opened and McIver came down the steps to his
+automobile. For a moment Helen stood framed against the bright light of
+the interior, then the car rolled away. The door was closed.
+
+John recalled what his father had said. Would his sister finally accept
+McIver? For a long time the factory owner had been pressing his suit.
+Would she marry him at last? A combination of the Ward Mill and the
+McIver factory would be a mighty power in the manufacturing world. He
+dismissed the thought. He wished that Helen were more like Mary. His
+sister was a wonderful woman in his eyes--he was proud of her; but
+again his mind went back to the workman's home and to his happy evening
+there. His own home was so different. His mother! What a splendid old
+man Uncle Peter was!
+
+John Ward's musings were suddenly disturbed by a faint sound. Turning
+his head, he saw the form of a man, dark and shadowy in the faint light
+of the stars, moving toward the house. John held his place silently,
+alert and ready. Cautiously the dark form crept forward with frequent
+pauses as if to look about. Then, as the figure stood for a moment
+silhouetted against a lighted window of the house, John recognized his
+father.
+
+At the involuntary exclamation which escaped the younger man Adam
+whirled as if to run.
+
+John spoke, quietly, "That you, father?"
+
+The man came quickly to his son. With an odd nervous laugh, he said,
+"Lord, boy, but you startled me! What are you doing out here at this
+time of the night?"
+
+"Just enjoying a quiet smoke and looking at the stars," John answered,
+easily.
+
+It was evident that Adam Ward was intensely excited. His voice shook
+with nervous agitation and he looked over his shoulder and peered into
+the surrounding darkness as if dreading some lurking danger.
+
+"I couldn't sleep," he muttered, in a low cautious tone.
+"Dreams--nothing in them of course--all foolishness--nerves are all
+shot to pieces."
+
+He dropped down on the seat beside his son, then sprang to his feet
+again. "Did you hear that?" he whispered, and stooping low, he tried to
+see into the shadows of the shrubbery behind John.
+
+The younger man spoke soothingly. "There is nothing here, father, sit
+down and take it easy."
+
+"You don't know what you're talking about," retorted Adam Ward. "I tell
+you they are after me--there's no telling what they will do--poison--a
+gun--infernal machines through the mail--bomb. No one has any sympathy
+with me, not even my family. All these years I have worked for what I
+have and now nobody cares. All they want is what they can get out of
+me. And you--you'll find out! I saw your car in front of Martin's again
+this evening. You'd better keep away from there. Peter Martin is
+dangerous. He would take everything I have away from me if he could."
+
+John tried in vain to calm his father, but in a voice harsh with
+passion he continued, and as he spoke, he moved his hands and arms
+constantly with excited and vehement gestures.
+
+"That process is mine, I tell you. The best lawyers I could get have
+fixed up the patents. Pete Martin is an old fool. I'll see him in his
+grave before--" he checked himself as if fearing his own anger would
+betray him. As he paced up and he muttered to himself, "I built up the
+business and I can tear it down. I'll blow up the Mill. I--" his voice
+trailed off into hoarse unintelligible sounds.
+
+John Ward could not speak. He believed that his father's strange fears
+for the loss of his property were due to nothing more than his nervous
+trouble. Peter Martin's name, which Adam in his most excited moments
+nearly always mentioned in this manner, meant nothing more to John than
+the old workman's well-known leadership in the Mill workers' union.
+
+Suddenly Adam turned again to his son, and coming close asked in a
+whisper, "John--I--is there really a hell, John? I mean such as the
+preachers used to tell about. Does a man go from this life to the
+horrors of eternal punishment? Does he, son?"
+
+"Why, father, I--" John started to reply, but Adam interrupted him
+with, "Never mind; you wouldn't know any more than any one else about
+it. The preachers ought to know, though. Seems like there must be some
+way of finding out. I dreamed--"
+
+As if he had forgotten the presence of his son, he suddenly started
+away toward the house.
+
+Not until John Ward had assured himself that his father was safely in
+his room and apparently sleeping at last, did he go to his own
+apartment.
+
+But the new manager of the Mill did not at once retire. He did not even
+turn on the lights. For a long time he stood at the darkened window,
+looking out into the night. "What was it?" he asked himself again and
+again. "What was it his father feared?"
+
+In the distance he could see a tiny spot of light shining high against
+the shadowy hillside above the darkness of the Flats. It was a lighted
+window in the Interpreter's hut.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+As they sat in the night on the balcony porch, Jake Vodell said harshly
+to the old basket maker, "You shall tell me about this Adam Ward,
+comrade. I hear many things. From what you say of your friendship with
+him in the years when he was a workman in the Mill and from your
+friendship with his son and daughter you must know better than any one
+else. Is it true that it was his new patented process that made him so
+rich?"
+
+"The new process was undoubtedly the foundation of his success,"
+answered the Interpreter, "but it was the man's peculiar genius that
+enabled him to recognize the real value of the process and to foresee
+how it would revolutionize the industry. And it was his ability as an
+organizer and manager, together with his capacity for hard work, that
+enabled him to realize his vision. It is easily probable that not one
+of his fellow workmen could have developed and made use of the
+discovery as he has."
+
+Jake Vodell's black brows were raised with quickened interest. "This
+new process was a discovery then? It was not the result of research and
+experiment?"
+
+The Interpreter seemed to answer reluctantly. "It was an accidental
+discovery, as many such things are."
+
+The agitator must have noticed that the old basket maker did not wish
+to talk of Adam Ward's patented process, but he continued his
+questions.
+
+"Peter Martin was working in the Mill at the time of this wonderful
+discovery, was he?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh! and Peter and Adam were friends, too?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The Interpreter's guest shrugged his shoulders and scowled his
+righteous indignation. "And all these years that Adam Ward has been
+building up this Mill that grinds the bodies and souls of his fellow
+men into riches for himself and makes from the life blood of his
+employees the dollars that his son and daughter spend in wicked
+luxury--all these years his old friend Peter Martin has toiled for him
+exactly as the rest of his slaves have toiled. Bah! And still the
+priests and preachers make the people believe there is a God of
+Justice."
+
+The Interpreter replied, slowly, "It may be after all, sir, that Peter
+Martin is richer than Adam Ward."
+
+"How richer?" demanded the other. "When he lives in a poor little
+house, with no servants, no automobiles, no luxuries of any kind, and
+must work every day in the Mill with his son, while his daughter Mary
+slaves at the housekeeping for her father and brother! Look at Adam
+Ward and his great castle of a home--look at his possessions--at the
+fortune he will leave his children. Bah! Mr. Interpreter, do not talk
+to me such foolishness."
+
+"Is it foolishness to count happiness as wealth?" asked the
+Interpreter.
+
+"Happiness?" growled the other. "Is there such a thing? What does the
+laboring man know of happiness?"
+
+And the Interpreter answered, "Peter Martin, in the honorable peace and
+contentment of his useful years, and in the love of his family and
+friends, is the happiest man I have ever known. While Adam Ward--"
+
+Jake Vodell sprang to his feet as if the Interpreter's words exhausted
+his patience, while he spoke as one moved by a spirit of contemptuous
+intolerance. "You talk like a sentimental old woman. How is it possible
+that there should be happiness and contentment anywhere when all is
+injustice and slavery under this abominable capitalist system? First we
+shall have liberty--freedom--equality--then perhaps we may begin to
+talk of happiness. Is Sam Whaley and his friends who live down there in
+their miserable hovels--is Sam Whaley happy?"
+
+"Sam Whaley has had exactly the same opportunity for happiness that
+Peter Martin has had," answered the Interpreter. "Opportunity, yes,"
+snarled the other. "Opportunity to cringe and whine and beg his master
+for a chance to live like a dog in a kennel, while he slaves to make
+his owners rich. Do you know what this man McIver says? I will tell
+you, Mr. Interpreter--you who prattle about a working man's happiness.
+McIver says that the laboring classes should be driven to their work
+with bayonets--that if his factory employees strike they will be forced
+to submission by the starvation of their women and children. Happiness!
+You shall see what we will do to this man McIver before we talk of
+happiness. And you shall see what will happen to this castle of Adam
+Ward's and to this Mill that he says is his."
+
+"I think I should tell you, sir," said the Interpreter, calmly, "that
+in your Millsburgh campaign, at least, you are already defeated."
+
+"Defeated! Hah! That is good! And who do you say has defeated me,
+before I have commenced even to fight, heh?"
+
+"You are defeated by Adam Ward's retirement from business," came the
+strange reply.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+THE TWO HELENS
+
+
+  "_O Guns, fall silent till the dead men hear
+   Above their heads the legions pressing on_:
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+  _Bid them be patient, and some day, anon,
+   They shall feel earth enwrapt in silence deep;
+   Shall greet, in wonderment, the quiet dawn,
+   And in content may turn them to their sleep_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE AWAKENING
+
+
+Immediately following that day when she had watched her father from the
+arbor and had talked with Bobby and Maggie Whaley on the old road,
+Helen Ward had thrown herself into the social activities of her circle
+as if determined to find, in those interests, a cure for her discontent
+and unhappiness.
+
+Several times she called for a few minutes at the little hut on the
+cliff. But she did not again talk of herself or of her father to the
+old basket maker as she had talked that day when she first met the
+children from the Flats. Two or three times she saw the children. But
+she passed them quickly by with scarcely a nod of greeting. And yet,
+the daughter of Adam Ward felt with increasing certainty that she could
+never be content with the busy nothingness which absorbed the lives of
+so many of her friends. Her father, since his retirement, seemed a
+little better. But she could not put out of her mind the memory of what
+she had seen. For her, the dreadful presence of the hidden thing always
+attended him. Because she could not banish the feeling and because
+there was nothing she could do, she sought relief by escaping from the
+house as often as possible on the plea of social duties.
+
+There were times when the young woman thought that her mother knew. At
+times she fancied that her brother half guessed the secret that so
+overshadowed their home. But Mrs. Ward and her children alike shrank
+from anything approaching frankness in mentioning the Mill owner's
+condition. And so they went on, feeling the hidden thing, dreading they
+knew not what--deceiving themselves and each other with hopes that in
+their hearts they knew were false.
+
+The mother, brave, loyal soul, seeing her daughter's unhappiness and
+wishing to protect her from the thing that had so saddened her own
+life, encouraged Helen to find what relief she could in the pleasures
+that kept her so many hours from home. John, occupied by the exacting
+duties of his new position, needed apparently nothing more. Indeed, to
+Helen, her brother's attitude toward his work, his views of life and
+his increasing neglect of what she called the obligations of their
+position in Millsburgh, were more and more puzzling. She had thought
+that with John's advancement to the general managership of the Mill his
+peculiar ideas would be modified. But his promotion seemed to have made
+no sign of a change in his conception of the relationship between
+employer and employee, or in his attitude toward the unions or toward
+the industrial situation as a whole.
+
+Of one thing Helen was certain--her brother had found that which she,
+in her own life, was somehow missing. And so the young woman observed
+her brother with increasing interest and a growing feeling that
+approached envy. At every opportunity she led him to talk of his work
+or rather of his attitude toward his work, and encouraged him to
+express the convictions that had so changed his own life and that were
+so foreign to the tenets of Helen and her class. And always their talks
+ended with John's advice: "Go ask the Interpreter; he knows; he will
+make it so much clearer than I can."
+
+But with all John's absorbing interest in his work and in the general
+industrial situation of Millsburgh, which under the growing influence
+of Jake Vodell was becoming every day more difficult and dangerous, the
+general manager could not escape the memories of that happy evening at
+the Martin cottage. The atmosphere of this workman's home was so
+different from the atmosphere of his own home in the big house on the
+hill. There was a peace, a contentment, a feeling of security in the
+little cottage that was sadly wanting in the more pretentious
+residence. Following, as it did, his father's retirement from the Mill
+with his own promotion to the rank of virtual ownership and his
+immediate talk with Captain Charlie, that evening had reestablished for
+him, as it were, the relationship and charm of his boyhood days. It was
+as though, having been submitted to a final test, he was now admitted
+once more, without reserve, to the innermost circle of their
+friendship.
+
+On his way to and from his office he nearly always, now, drove past the
+Martin cottage. The distance was greater, it is true, but John thought
+that the road was enough better to more than make up for that. Besides,
+he really did enjoy the drive down the tree-arched street and past the
+old house. It was all so rich in memories of his happy boyhood, and
+sometimes--nearly always, in fact--he would catch a glimpse of Mary
+among her flowers or on the porch or perhaps at the gate.
+
+Occasionally this young manager of the Mill, with his strange ideas of
+industrial comradeship, found it necessary to spend an evening with
+these workmen who were leaders in the union that was held by his father
+and by McIver to be a menace to the employer class. It in no way
+detracted from the value of these consultations with Captain Charlie
+and his father that Mary was always present. In fact, Mary herself was
+in a position materially to help John Ward in his study of the
+industrial problems that were of such vital interest to him. No one
+knew better than did Pete Martin's daughter the actual living
+conditions of the class of laboring people who dwelt in the Flats.
+Certainly, as he watched the progress of Jake Vodell's missionary work
+among them, John could not ignore these Sam Whaleys of the industries
+as an important factor in his problem.
+
+So it happened, curiously enough, that Helen herself was led to call at
+the little home next door to the old house where she had lived in those
+years of her happy girlhood.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+Helen was downtown that afternoon on an unimportant shopping errand.
+She had left the store after making her purchases and was about to
+enter her automobile, when McIver, who chanced to be passing, stopped
+to greet her.
+
+There was no doubting the genuineness of the man's pleasure in the
+incident, nor was Helen herself at all displeased at this break in what
+had been, so far, a rather dull day.
+
+"And what brings you down here at this unreasonable hour?" he asked;
+"on Saturday, too? Don't you know that there is a tennis match on at
+the club?"
+
+"I didn't seem to care for the tennis to-day somehow," she returned.
+"Mother wanted some things from Harrison's, so I came downtown to get
+them for her."
+
+He caught a note in her voice that made him ask with grave concern,
+"How is your father, Helen?"
+
+She answered, quickly, "Oh, father is doing nicely, thank you." Then,
+with a cheerfulness that was a little forced, she asked in turn, "And
+why have you deserted the club yourself this afternoon?"
+
+"Business," he returned. "There will be no more Saturday afternoons off
+for me for some time to come, I fear." Then he added, quickly, "But
+look here, Helen, there is no need of our losing the day altogether.
+Send your man on, and come with me for a little spin. The roadster is
+in the next block. I'll take you home in an hour and get on back to my
+office."
+
+Helen hesitated.
+
+"The ride will do you good."
+
+"Sure you can spare the time?"
+
+"Sure. It will do me good, too."
+
+"And you're not asking me just to be nice--you really want me?"
+
+"Don't you know by this time whether I want you or not?" he returned,
+in a tone that brought the color to her cheeks. "Please come!"
+
+"All right," she agreed.
+
+When they were seated in McIver's roadster, she added, "I really can't
+deny myself the thrilling triumph of taking a business man away from
+his work during office hours."
+
+"You take my thoughts away from my work a great many times during
+office hours, Helen," he retorted, as the car moved away. "Must I wait
+much longer for my answer, dear?"
+
+She replied, hurriedly, "Please, Jim, not that to-day. Let's not think
+about it even."
+
+"All right," he returned, grimly. "I just want you to know, though,
+that I am waiting."
+
+"I know, Jim--and--and you are perfectly wonderful but--Oh, can't we
+forget it just for an hour?"
+
+As if giving himself to her mood, McIver's voice and manner changed.
+"Do you mind if we stop at the factory just a second? I want to leave
+some papers. Then we can go on up the river drive."
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+An hour later they were returning, and because it was the prettiest
+street in that part of Millsburgh, McIver chose the way that would take
+them past the old house.
+
+John Ward's machine was standing in front of the Martin cottage.
+
+McIver saw it and looked quickly at his companion. There was no need to
+ask if Helen had recognized her brother's car.
+
+The factory owner considered the new manager of the Mill a troublesome
+obstacle in his own plans for making war on the unions. He felt, too,
+that with John now in control of the business, his chances of bringing
+about the combination of the two industries were materially lessened.
+He had wondered, at times, if it was not her brother's influence that
+caused Helen to put off giving him her final answer to his suit.
+
+When he saw that Helen had recognized John's car, he remarked, with an
+insinuating laugh, "Evidently I am not the only business man who can be
+lured from his office during working hours."
+
+"Jim, how can you?" she protested. "You know John is there on business
+to see Charlie or his father."
+
+"It is a full hour yet before quitting time at the Mill," he returned.
+
+She had no reply to this, and the man continued with a touch of
+malicious satisfaction, "After all, Helen, John is human, you know, and
+old Pete Martin's daughter is a mighty attractive girl."
+
+Helen Ward's cheeks were red, but she managed to control her voice, as
+she said, "Just what do you mean by that, Jim?"
+
+"Is it possible that you really do not know?" he countered.
+
+"I know that my brother, foolish as he may be about some things, would
+never think of paying serious attention to the daughter of one of his
+employees," she retorted, warmly.
+
+"That is exactly the situation," he returned. "No one believes for a
+moment that the affair is serious on John's part."
+
+The color was gone from Helen's face now. "I think you have said too
+much not to go on now, Jim. Do you mean that people are saying that
+John is amusing himself with Mary Martin?"
+
+"Well," he returned, coolly, "what else can the people think when they
+see him going there so often; when they see the two together, wandering
+about the Flats; when they hear his car tearing down the street late in
+the evening; when they see her every morning at the gate watching for
+him to pass on his way to work? Your brother is not a saint, Helen. He
+is no different, in some ways, from other men. I always did feel that
+there was something back of all this comrade stuff between him and
+Charlie Martin. As for the girl, I don't think you need to worry about
+her. She probably understands it all right enough."
+
+"Jim, you must not say such things to me about Mary! She is not at all
+that kind of girl. The whole thing is impossible."
+
+"What do you know about Mary Martin?" he retorted. "I'll bet you have
+never even spoken to her since you moved from the old house."
+
+Helen did not speak after this until they were passing the great stone
+columns at the entrance to the Ward estate, then she said, quietly,
+"Jim, do you always believe the worst possible things about every one?"
+
+"That's an odd thing for you to ask," he returned, doubtfully, as they
+drove slowly up the long curving driveway. "Why?"
+
+"Because," she answered, "it sometimes seems to me as if no one
+believed the best things about people these days. I know there is a
+world of wickedness among us, Jim, but are we all going wholly to the
+bad together?"
+
+McIver laughed. "We are all alike in one thing, Helen. No matter what
+he professes, you will find that at the last every man holds to the
+good old law of 'look out for number one.' Business or pleasure, it's
+all the same. A man looks after his own interests first and takes what
+he wants, or can get, when and where and how he can."
+
+"But, Jim, the war--"
+
+He laughed cynically. "The war was pure selfishness from start to
+finish. We fed the fool public a lot of patriotic bunk, of course--we
+had to--we needed them. And the dear people fell for the sentimental
+hero business as they always do." With the last word he stopped the car
+in front of the house.
+
+When Helen was on the ground she turned and faced him squarely. "Jim
+McIver, your words are an insult to my brother and to ninety-nine out
+of every hundred men who served under our flag, and you insult my
+intelligence if you expect me to accept them in earnest. If I thought
+for a minute that you were capable of really believing such abominable
+stuff I would never speak to you again. Good-by, Jim. Thank you so much
+for the ride."
+
+Before the man could answer, she ran up the steps and disappeared
+through the front door.
+
+But McIver's car was no more than past the entrance when Helen appeared
+again on the porch. For a moment she stood, as if debating some
+question in her mind. Then apparently, she reached a decision. Ten
+minutes later she was walking hurriedly down the hill road--the way
+Bobby and Maggie had fled that day when Adam Ward drove them from the
+iron fence that guarded his estate. It was scarcely a mile by this road
+to the old house and the Martin cottage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE WAY BACK
+
+
+That walk from her home to the little white cottage next door to the
+old house was the most eventful journey that Helen Ward ever made. She
+felt this in a way at the time, but she could not know to what end her
+sudden impulse to visit again the place of her girlhood would
+eventually lead.
+
+As she made her way down the hill toward that tree-arched street, she
+realized a little how far the years had carried her from the old house.
+She had many vivid and delightful memories of that world of her
+childhood, it is true, but the world to which her father's material
+success had removed her in the years of her ripening womanhood had come
+to claim her so wholly that she had never once gone back. She had
+looked back at first with troubled longing. But Adam Ward's determined
+efforts to make the separation of the two families final and complete,
+together with the ever-increasing bitterness of his strange hatred for
+his old workman friend, had effectually prevented her from any attempt
+at a continuation of the old relationship. In time, even the thought of
+taking so much as a single step toward the intimacies from which she
+had come so far, had ceased to occur to her. And now, suddenly, without
+plan or premeditation, she was on her way actually to touch again, if
+only for a few moments, the lives that had been so large a part of the
+simple, joyous life which she had known once, but which was so foreign
+to her now.
+
+Nor was it at all clear to her why she was going or what she would do.
+As she had observed with increasing interest the change in her
+brother's attitude toward the pleasures that had claimed him so wholly
+before the war, she had wondered often at his happy contentment in
+contrast to her own restless and dissatisfied spirit. McIver's words
+had suddenly forced one fact upon her with startling clearness: John,
+through his work in the Mill, his association with Captain Charlie and
+his visits to the Martin home, was actually living again in the
+atmosphere of that world which she felt they had left so far behind. It
+was as though her brother had already gone back.
+
+And McIver's challenging question, "What do you know about Mary
+Martin?" had raised in her mind a doubt, not of her brother and his
+relationship to these old friends of their childhood, but of herself
+and all the relationships that made her present life such a contrast to
+her life in the old house.
+
+With her mind and heart so full of doubts and questionings, she turned
+into the familiar street and saw her brother's car still before the
+Martin home.
+
+As she went on, a feeling of strange eagerness possessed her. Her face
+glowed with warm color, her eyes shone with glad anticipation, her
+heart beat more quickly. As one returning to well loved home scenes
+after many years in a foreign land, the daughter of Adam Ward went down
+the street toward the place where she was born. In front of the old
+house she stopped. The color went from her cheeks--the brightness from
+her eyes.
+
+In her swiftly moving automobile, nearly always with gay companions,
+Helen had sometimes passed the old house and had noticed with momentary
+concern its neglected appearance. But these fleeting glimpses had been
+so quickly forgotten that the place was most real to her as she saw it
+in her memories. But now, as she stood there alone, in the mood that
+had brought her to the spot, the real significance of the ruin struck
+her with appalling force.
+
+Those rooms with their shattered windowpanes, their bare, rotting
+casements and sagging, broken shutters appealed to her in the mute
+eloquence of their empty loneliness for the joyous life that once had
+filled them. The weed-grown yard, the tumbledown fence, the dilapidated
+porch, and even the chimneys that were crumbling and ragged against the
+sky, cried out to her in sorrowful reproach. A rushing flood of home
+memories filled her eyes with hot tears. With the empty loneliness of
+the old house in her heart, she went blindly on to the little cottage
+next door. There was no thought as to how she would explain her unusual
+presence there. She did not, herself, really know clearly why she had
+come.
+
+Timidly she paused at the white gate. There was no one in the yard to
+bid her welcome. As one in a dream, she passed softly into the yard.
+She was trembling now as one on the threshold of a great adventure.
+What was it? What did it mean--her coming there?
+
+Wonderingly she looked about the little yard with its bit of lawn--at
+the big shade tree--the flowers--it was all just as she had always
+known it. Where were they?--John and Mary and Charlie? Why was there no
+sound of their voices? Her cheeks were suddenly hot with color. What if
+Charlie Martin should suddenly appear! As one awakened from strange
+dreams to a familiar home scene, Helen Ward was all at once back in
+those days of her girlhood. She had come as she had come so many, many
+times from the old house next door, to find her brother and their
+friends. Her heart was eager with the shy eagerness of a maid for the
+expected presence of her first boyish lover.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then Peter Martin, coming around the house from the garden, saw her
+standing there.
+
+The old workman stopped, as if at the sight of an apparition.
+Mechanically he placed the garden tool he was carrying against the
+corner of the house; deliberately he knocked the ashes from his pipe
+and placed it methodically in his pocket.
+
+With a little cry, Helen ran to him, her hands outstretched, "Uncle
+Pete!"
+
+The old workman caught her and for a few moments she clung to him, half
+laughing, half crying, while they both, in the genuineness of their
+affection, forgot the years.
+
+"Is it really you, Helen?" he said, at last, and she saw a suspicious
+moisture in the kindly eyes. "Have you really come back to see the old
+man after all these years?"
+
+Then, with quick anxiety, he asked, "But what is the matter, child?
+Your father--your mother--are they all right? Is there anything wrong
+at your home up on the hill yonder?"
+
+His very natural inquiry broke the spell and placed her instantly back
+in the world to which she now belonged. Drawing away from him, she
+returned, with characteristic calmness, "Oh, no, Uncle Pete, father and
+mother are both very well indeed. But why should you think there must
+be something wrong, simply because I chanced to call?"
+
+The old workman was clearly confused at this sudden change in her
+manner. He had welcomed the girl--the Helen of the old house--this
+self-possessed young woman was quite a different person. She was the
+princess lady of little Maggie and Bobby Whaley's acquaintance, who
+sometimes condescended to recognize him with a cool little nod as her
+big automobile passed him swiftly by.
+
+Pete Martin could not know, as the Interpreter would have known, how at
+that very moment the Helen of the old house and the princess lady were
+struggling for supremacy.
+
+Removing his hat and handling it awkwardly, he said, with a touch of
+dignity in his tone and manner in spite of his embarrassment, "I'm glad
+the folks are well, Helen. Won't you take a seat and rest yourself?"
+
+As they went toward the chairs in the shade of the tree, he added, "It
+is a long time since we have seen you in this part of town--walking, I
+mean."
+
+The Helen of the old house wanted to answer--she longed to cry out in
+the fullness of her heart some of the things that were demanding
+expression, but it was the princess lady who answered, "I saw my
+brother's car here and thought perhaps he would let me ride home with
+him."
+
+The old workman was studying her now with kind but frankly
+understanding eyes. "John and Mary have gone to see some of the folks
+that she is looking after in the Flats," he said, slowly. "They'll be
+back any minute now, I should think."
+
+She did not know what to reply to this. There were so many things she
+wanted to know--so many things that she felt she must know. But she
+felt herself forced to answer with the mere commonplace, "You are all
+well, I suppose, Uncle Pete?"
+
+"Fine, thank you," he answered. "Mary is always busy with her housework
+and her flowers and the poor sick folks she's always a-looking
+after--just like her mother, if you remember. Charlie, he's working
+late to-day--some breakdown or something that's keeping him overtime.
+That brother of yours is a fine manager, Miss Helen, and," he added,
+with a faint note of something in his voice that brought a touch of
+color to her cheeks, "a finer man."
+
+Again she felt the crowding rush of those questions she wanted to ask,
+but she only said, with an air of calm indifference, "John has changed
+so since his return from France--in many ways he seems like a different
+man."
+
+"As for that," he replied, "the war has changed most people in one way
+or another. It was bound to. Everybody talks about getting back to
+normal again, but as I see it there'll be no getting back ever to what
+used to be normal before the war started."
+
+She looked at him with sudden, intense interest. "How has it so changed
+every one, Uncle Pete? Why can't people be just as they were before it
+happened? The change in business conditions and all that, I can
+understand, but why should it make any difference to--well, to me, for
+example?"
+
+The old workman answered, slowly, "The people are thinking deeper and
+feeling deeper. They're more human, as you might say. And I've noticed
+generally that the way the people think and feel is at the bottom of
+everything. It's just like the Interpreter says, 'You can't change the
+minds and hearts of folks without changing what they do.' Everybody
+ain't changed, of course, but so many of them have that the rest will
+be bound to take some notice or feel mighty lonesome from now on."
+
+Helen was about to reply when the old workman interrupted her with,
+"There come John and Mary now."
+
+The two coming along the street walk to the gate did not at first
+notice those who were watching them with such interest. John was
+carrying a market basket and talking earnestly to his companion, whose
+face was upturned to his with eager interest. At the gate they paused a
+moment while the man, with his hand on the latch, finished whatever it
+was that he was saying. And Helen, with a little throb of something
+very much like envy in her heart, saw the light of happiness in the
+eyes of the young woman who through all the years of their girlhood had
+been her inseparable playmate and loyal friend.
+
+When John finally opened the gate for her to pass, Mary was laughing,
+and the clear ringing gladness in her voice brought a faint smile of
+sympathy even to the face of the now coolly conventional daughter of
+Adam Ward.
+
+Mary's laughter was suddenly checked; the happiness fled from her face.
+With a little gesture of almost appealing fear she put her hand on her
+companion's arm.
+
+In the same instant John saw and stood motionless, his face blank with
+amazement. Then, "Helen! What in the world are you doing here?"
+
+John Ward never realized all that those simple words carried to the
+three who heard him. Peter Martin's face was grave and thoughtful. Mary
+blushed in painful embarrassment. His sister, calm and self-possessed,
+came toward them, smiling graciously.
+
+"I saw your roadster and thought I might ride home with you. Uncle Pete
+and I have been having a lovely little visit. It is perfectly charming
+to see you again like this, Mary. Your flowers are beautiful as ever,
+aren't they?"
+
+"But, Helen, how do you happen to be wandering about in this
+neighborhood alone and without your car?" demanded the still bewildered
+John.
+
+"Don't be silly," she laughed. "I was out for a walk--that is all. I do
+walk sometimes, you know." She turned to Mary. "Really, to hear this
+brother of mine, one would think me a helpless invalid and this part of
+Millsburgh a very dangerous community."
+
+Mary forced a smile, but the light in her eyes was not the light of
+happiness and her cheeks were still a burning red.
+
+"Don't you think we should go now, John?" suggested Helen.
+
+The helpless John looked from Mary to her father appealingly.
+
+"Better sit down awhile," Pete offered, awkwardly.
+
+John looked at his watch. "I suppose we really ought to go." To Mary he
+added, "Will you please tell Charlie that I will see him to-morrow?"
+
+She bowed gravely.
+
+Then the formal parting words were spoken, and Helen and John were
+seated in the car. Mary had moved aside from the gate and stood now
+very still among her flowers.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before John had shifted the gears of his machine to high, he heard a
+sound that caused him to look quickly at his sister. Little Maggie's
+princess lady was sobbing like a child.
+
+"Why, Helen, what in the world--"
+
+She interrupted him. "Please, John--please, don't--don't take me home
+now. I--I--Let us stop here at the old house for a few minutes. I--I
+can't go just yet."
+
+Without a word John Ward turned into the curb. Tenderly he helped her
+to the ground. Reverently he lifted aside the broken-down gate and led
+her through the tangle of tall grass and weeds that had almost
+obliterated the walk to the front porch. Over the rotting steps and
+across the trembling porch he helped her with gentle care. Very softly
+he pushed open the sagging door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+AT THE OLD HOUSE
+
+
+From room to room in the empty old house the brother and sister went
+silently or with low, half-whispered words. They moved softly, as if
+fearing to disturb some unseen tenant of those bare and dingy rooms.
+Often they paused, and, drawing close to each other, stood as if in the
+very presence of some spirit that was not of their material world. At
+last they came to the back porch, which was hidden from the curious
+eyes of any chance observer in the neighborhood by a rank growth of
+weeds and bushes and untrimmed trees.
+
+As John Ward looked at his sister now, that expression of wondering
+amazement with which he had greeted her was gone. In its place there
+was gentle understanding.
+
+With a little smile, Helen sat down on the top step of the porch and
+motioned him to a seat beside her. "Won't you tell me about it, John?"
+she said, softly.
+
+"Tell you about what, Helen?"
+
+"About everything--your life, your work, your friends." She made a
+little gesture toward the cottage next door.
+
+They could see the white gable through the screen of tangled boughs.
+
+"What is it that has changed you so?" she went on. "Your interests are
+so different now. You are so happy and contented--so--so alive--and
+I"--her voice broke--"I feel as if you were going away off somewhere
+and leaving me behind. I am so miserable. John, won't you tell me about
+things?"
+
+"You poor old girl!" exclaimed John with true brotherly affection.
+"I've been a blind fool. I ought to have seen. That's nearly always the
+way, though, I guess," he went on, reflectively. "A fellow gets so
+darned interested trying to make things go right outside his own home
+that he forgets to notice how the people that he really loves most of
+all are getting along. It looks as though I have not been doing so much
+better than poor old Sam Whaley, after all."
+
+He paused and seemed to be following his thoughts into fields where
+only he could go. Helen moved a little closer, and he came back to her.
+
+"I never dreamed that you were feeling anything like this, sister. I
+knew that you were worried about father, of course, as we all are, but
+aside from that you seemed to be so occupied with your various
+interests and with McIver--" He paused, then finished, abruptly, "Look
+here, Helen, what about you and McIver anyway; have you given him his
+answer yet?"
+
+"Has that anything to do with it?" she answered, doubtfully. "There is
+nothing that I can tell you about McIver. I don't seem to be able to
+make up my mind, that is all. But McIver is only a part of the whole
+trouble, John. Oh, can't you understand! How am I to know whether or
+not I want to marry him or any one else until--until I have found
+myself--until I know where I really belong."
+
+He looked at her blankly for a second, then a smile broke over his
+face. "By George!" he exclaimed "that is exactly what I had to do--find
+myself and find where I belonged. I never dreamed that my sister might
+be compelled to go through the same experience."
+
+"Was it your army life that helped you to know?"
+
+His face was serious now. "It was the things I saw and experienced
+while in France."
+
+"Tell me," she demanded. "I mean, tell me some of the things that you
+men never talk about--the things you were forced to think and feel and
+believe--that showed you your own real self--that changed you into what
+you are to-day."
+
+And because John Ward was able that afternoon to understand his
+sister's need, he did as she asked. It may have been the influence of
+the old house that enabled him to lay bare for her those experiences of
+his innermost self--those soul adventures about which, as she had so
+truly said, men never talk. Certainly he could never have spoken in
+their home on the hill as he spoke in that atmosphere from which their
+father and his material prosperity had so far removed them. And Helen,
+as she listened, knew that she had found at last the key to all in her
+brother's life that had so puzzled her.
+
+But after all, she reflected, when he had finished, John's experience
+could not solve her problem. She could not find herself in the things
+that he had thought and felt.
+
+"If only I could have been with you over there." she murmured.
+
+"But, Helen," he cried, eagerly, "it is all right here at home. The
+same things are happening all about us every day--don't you understand?
+The one biggest thing that came to me out of the war is the realization
+that, great and terrible though it was, it was in reality only a part
+of the greater war that is being fought all the time."
+
+She shook her head with a doubtful smile at his earnestness.
+
+And then he tried to tell her of the Mill as he saw it in its relation
+to human life--of the danger that threatened the nation through the
+industrial situation--of the menace to humanity that lay in the efforts
+of those who were setting class against class in a deadly hatred that
+would result in revolution with all its horrors. He tried to make her
+feel the call of humanity's need in the world's work, as it was felt in
+the need of the world's war. He sought to apply for her the principles
+of heroism and comradeship and patriotism and service to this war that
+was still being waged against the imperialistic enemies of the nation
+and the race.
+
+But when he paused at last, she only smiled again, doubtfully. "You are
+wonderful in your enthusiasm, John dear," she said, "and I love you for
+it. I think I understand you now, and for yourself it is right, of
+course, but for me--it is all so visionary--so unreal."
+
+"And yet," he returned, "you were very active during the war--you made
+bandages and lint and sweaters, and raised funds for the Red Cross. Was
+it all real to you?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, honestly, "it was very real John; it was so real
+that in contrast nothing that I do now seems of any importance."
+
+"But you never saw a wounded soldier--you never witnessed the
+horrors--you never came in actual touch with the suffering, did you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And yet you say the war was real to you."
+
+"Very real," she replied.
+
+"Do you think, Helen," he said, slowly, "that the Interpreter's
+suffering would have been more real if he had lost his legs by a German
+machine gun instead of by a machine in father's mill?"
+
+"John!" she exclaimed, in a shocked tone.
+
+"You say the suffering away over there in France was real to you," he
+continued. "Well, less than a mile from this spot, I called this
+afternoon on a man who is dying by inches of consumption, contracted
+while working in our office. For eight years he was absent from his
+desk scarcely a day. The force nicknamed him 'Old Faithful.' When he
+dropped in his tracks at last they carried him out and stopped his pay.
+He has no care--nothing to eat, even, except the help that the Martins
+give him. Another case: A widow and four helpless children--the man was
+killed in McIver's factory last week. He died in agony too horrible to
+describe. The mother is prostrated, the children are hungry. God knows
+what will become of them this next winter. Another: A workman who was
+terribly burned in the Mill two years ago. He is blind and crippled in
+the bargain--"
+
+She interrupted him with a protesting cry, "John, John, for pity's
+sake, stop!"
+
+"Well, why are not these things right here at home as real to you as
+you say the same things were when they happened in France?" he
+demanded.
+
+She did not attempt to answer his question but instead asked, gently,
+"Is that why you have been going to the Flats with Mary?"
+
+If he noticed any special significance in her words he ignored it.
+"Mary visits the people in the Flats as her mother did--as our mother
+used to do. She told me about some of the cases, and I have been going
+with her now and then to see for myself--that is all."
+
+Then they left the old house and drove back to their pretentious home
+on the hill, where Adam Ward suffered his days of mental torture and
+was racked by his nightly dreams of hell. And the dread shadow of that
+hidden thing was over them all.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+That night when John told the Interpreter of his afternoon with his
+sister the old basket maker listened silently. His face was turned
+toward the scene that, save for the twinkling lights, lay wrapped in
+darkness before them. And he seemed to be listening to the voice of the
+Mill. When John had finished, the man in the wheel chair said very
+little.
+
+But when John was leaving, the Interpreter asked, as an afterthought,
+"And where was Captain Charlie this afternoon, John?"
+
+"At the Mill," John answered. "I'm glad he wasn't at home, too; it was
+bad enough as it was."
+
+"Perhaps it was just as well," said the old basket maker. And John
+Ward, in the darkness, could not see that the Interpreter was smiling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+HER OWN PEOPLE
+
+
+"A lady to see you, sir."
+
+John did not take his eyes from the work on his desk. "All right,
+Jimmy, show her in."
+
+The general manager read on to the bottom of the typewritten page,
+signed his name to the sheet, placed it in the proper basket and turned
+in his chair.
+
+"Helen!"
+
+Little Maggie's princess lady was so lovely that afternoon, as she
+stood there framed in the doorway of the manager's office that even her
+brother noticed.
+
+She was laughing at his surprise, and there was a half teasing, half
+serious look in her eyes that was irresistible.
+
+"By George, you are a picture, Helen!" John exclaimed, with not a
+little brotherly pride in his face and voice. "But what is the idea?
+What are you down here for--all dolled up like this?"
+
+She blushed with pleasure at his compliment. "That is very nice of you,
+John; you are a dear to notice it. Are you going to ask me to sit down,
+or must you put me out for interrupting?"
+
+He was on his feet instantly. "Forgive me; I am so stunned by the
+unexpected honor of your visit that I forget my manners."
+
+When she was seated, he continued, "And now what is it? what can I do
+for you, sister?"
+
+She looked about the office--at his desk and through the open door into
+the busy outer room. "Are you quite sure that you have time for me?"
+
+"Surest thing in the world," he returned, with a reassuring smile. Then
+to a man who at that moment appeared in the doorway, "All right, Tom."
+And to Helen, "Excuse me just a second, dear."
+
+She watched him curiously as he turned sheet after sheet of the papers
+the man handed him, seeming to absorb the pages at a glance, while a
+running fire of quick questions, short answers, terse comments and
+clear-cut instructions accompanied the examination.
+
+Helen had never before been inside the doors of the industrial plant to
+which her father had literally given his life. In those old-house days,
+when Adam worked with Pete and the Interpreter, she had gone sometimes
+to the outer gate to meet her father when his day's work was done. On
+rare occasions her automobile had stopped in front of the office. That
+was all.
+
+In a vague, indefinite way the young woman realized that her education,
+her pleasures, the dresses she wore, her home on the hill, everything
+that she had, in fact, came to her somehow from those great dingy,
+unsightly buildings. She knew that people who were not of her world
+worked there for her father. Sometimes there were accidents--men were
+killed. There had been strikes that annoyed her father. But no part of
+it all had ever actually touched her. She accepted it as a matter of
+course--without a thought--as she accepted all of the established facts
+in nature. The Mill existed for her as the sun existed. It never
+occurred to her to ask why. There was for her no personal note in the
+droning, moaning voice of its industry. There was nothing of personal
+significance in the forest of tall stacks with their overhanging cloud
+of smoke. Indeed, there had been, rather, something sinister and
+forbidding about the place. The threatening aspect of the present
+industrial situation was in no way personal to her except, perhaps, as
+it excited her father and disturbed John.
+
+"You've got it all there, Tom," said the manager, finishing his
+examination of the papers. "Good work, too. Baird will have those
+specifications on that Miller and Wilson job in to-morrow, will he?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Good, that's the stuff!"
+
+The man was smiling as he moved toward the door.
+
+"Oh, Tom, just a moment."
+
+Still smiling, the man turned back.
+
+"I want you to meet my sister. Helen, may I present Mr. Conway? Tom is
+one of our Mill family, you know, mighty important member, too--regular
+shark at figuring all sorts of complicated calculations that I couldn't
+work out in a month of Sundays." He laughed with boyish happiness and
+pride in Tom's superior accomplishments.
+
+It was a simple little incident, but there was something in it
+somewhere that moved Helen Ward strangely. A spirit that was new to her
+seemed to fill the room. She felt it as one may feel the bigness of the
+mountains or sense the vast reaches of the ocean. These two men,
+employer and employee, were in no way conscious of their relationship
+as she understood it. Tom did not appear to realize that he was working
+_for_ John--he seemed rather to feel that he was working _with_ John.
+
+When the man was gone, she asked again, timidly, "Are you sure,
+brother, that I am not in the way?"
+
+"Forget it!" he cried. "Tell me what I can do for you."
+
+"I want to see the Mill," she answered.
+
+John did not apparently quite understand her request. "You want to see
+the Mill?" he repeated.
+
+She nodded eagerly. "I want to see it all--not just the office but
+where the men work--everything."
+
+She laughed at his bewildered expression as the sincerity of her wish
+dawned upon him.
+
+"But what in the world"--he began--"why this sudden interest in the
+Mill, Helen?"
+
+Half teasing, half laughing, she answered, "You didn't really think,
+did you, John, that I would forget everything you said to me at the old
+house?"
+
+"No," he said, doubtfully. "At least, I suppose I didn't. But,
+honestly, I didn't think that I had made much of an impression."
+
+She made a little gesture of helpless resignation. "Here I am just the
+same and so much interested already that I can't tear myself away. Come
+on, let's start--that is, if you really have the time to take me."
+
+Time to take her! John Ward would have lost the largest contract he had
+ever dreamed of securing rather than miss taking Helen through the
+Mill.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+With an old linen duster, which had hung in the office closet since
+Adam Ward's day, to cover her from chin to shoes, and a cap that John
+himself often wore about the plant, to replace her hat, they set out.
+
+Helen's first impression, as she stood just inside the door to the big
+main room of the plant, was fear. To her gentle eyes the scene was one
+of terrifying confusion and unspeakable dangers.
+
+Those great machines were grim and threatening monsters with ponderous
+jaws and arms and chains that seemed all too light to control their
+sullen strength. The noise--roaring, crashing, clanking, moaning,
+shrieking, hissing--was overpowering in its suggestion of the
+ungoverned tumult that belonged to some strange, unearthly realm.
+Everywhere, amid this fearful din and these maddening terrors, flitting
+through the murky haze of steam and smoke and dust, were men with sooty
+faces and grimy arms. Never had the daughter of Adam Ward seen men at
+work like this. She drew closer to John's side and held to his arm as
+though half expecting him to vanish suddenly and leave her alone in
+this monstrous nightmare.
+
+Looking down at her, John laughed aloud and put his arm about her
+reassuringly. "Great game, old girl!" he said, with a wholesome pride
+in his voice. "This is the life!"
+
+And all at once she remembered that this _was_, indeed, life--life as
+she had never seen it, never felt it before. And this life game--this
+greatest of all games--was the game that John played with such
+absorbing interest day after day.
+
+"I can understand now why you are not so devoted to tennis and teas as
+you used to be," she returned, laughing back at him with a new
+admiration in her face.
+
+Then John led her into the very midst of the noisy scene. Carefully he
+guided her steps through the seeming hurry and confusion of machinery
+and men. Now they paused before one of those grim monsters to watch its
+mighty work. Now they stopped to witness the terrific power displayed
+by another giant that lifted, with its great arms of steel, a weight of
+many tons as easily as a child would handle a toy. Again, they stepped
+aside from the path of an engine on its way to some distant part of the
+plant, or stood before a roaring furnace, or paused to watch a group of
+men, or halted while John exchanged a few brief words with a
+superintendent or foreman. And always with boyish enthusiasm John
+talked to her of what they saw, explaining, illustrating, making the
+purpose and meaning of every detail clear.
+
+Gradually, as she thus went closer to this life that was at first so
+terrifying to her, the young woman was conscious of a change within
+herself. The grim monsters became kind and friendly as she saw how
+their mighty strength was obedient always to the directing eye and hand
+of the workmen who controlled them. The many noises, as she learned to
+distinguish them, came to blend into one harmonious whole, like the
+instruments in a great orchestra. The confusion, as she came to view it
+understandingly, resolved itself into orderly movement. As she recalled
+some of the things that her brother had said to her as they sat on the
+back porch of the old house, her mind reached out for the larger truth,
+and she thrilled to the feeling that she was standing, as it were, in
+the living, beating heart of the nation. The things that she had been
+schooled to hold as of the highest value she saw now for the first time
+in their just relation to the mighty underlying life of the Mill. The
+petty refinements that had so largely ruled her every thought and deed
+were no more than frothy bubbles on the surface of the industrial
+ocean's awful tidal power. The male idlers of her set were suddenly
+contemptible in her eyes, as she saw them in comparison with her
+brother or with his grimy, sweating comrades.
+
+Presently John was saying, "This is where father used to work--before
+the days of the new process, I mean. That bench there is the very one
+he used, side by side with Uncle Pete and the Interpreter."
+
+Helen stared at the old workbench that stood against the wall and at
+the backs of the men, as though under a spell. Her father working
+there!
+
+Her brain all at once was crowded with questions to which there were no
+answers. What if Adam Ward were still a workman at that bench? What if
+it had been the Interpreter who had discovered the new process? What if
+her father had lost his legs? What if John, instead of being the
+manager, were one of those men who worked with their hands? What if
+they had never left the old house next door to Mary and Charlie? What
+if--
+
+"Uncle Pete," said John, "look here and see who's with us this
+afternoon."
+
+Mary's father turned from his work and they laughed at the expression
+on his face when he saw her standing there.
+
+And it was the Helen of the old house who greeted him, and who was so
+interested in what he was doing and asked so many really intelligent
+questions that he was proud of her.
+
+They had left Uncle Pete at his bench, and Helen's mind was again busy
+with those unanswerable questions--so busy, in fact, that she scarcely
+heard John saying, "I want to show you a lathe over here, Helen, that
+is really worth seeing. It is, on the whole, the finest and most
+intricate piece of machinery in the whole plant." And, he added, as
+they drew near the subject of his remarks, "You may believe me, it
+takes an exceptional workman to handle it. There are only three men in
+our entire force who are ever permitted to touch it. They are experts
+in their line and naturally are the best paid men we have."
+
+As he finished speaking they paused beside a huge affair of black iron
+and gray steel, that to Helen seemed an incomprehensible tangle of
+wheels and levers.
+
+A workman was bending over the machine, so absorbed apparently in the
+complications of his valuable charge that he was unaware of their
+presence.
+
+Helen spoke close to her brother's ear, "Is he one of your three
+experts?"
+
+John nodded. "He is the chief. The other two are really
+assistants--sort of understudies, you know."
+
+At that moment the man straightened up, stood for an instant with his
+eyes still on his work, then, as he was turning to another part of the
+intricate mechanism, he saw them.
+
+"Hello, Charlie!" said the grinning manager, and to his sister, "Surely
+you haven't forgotten Captain Martin, Helen?"
+
+In the brief moments that followed Helen Ward knew that she had reached
+the point toward which she had felt herself moving for several
+months--impelled by strange forces beyond her comprehension.
+
+Her brother's renewed and firmly established friendship with this
+playmate of their childhood years, together with the many stirring
+tales that John had told of his comrade captain's life in France, could
+not but awaken her interest in the boy lover whom she had, as she
+believed, so successfully forgotten. The puzzling change in her
+brother's life interests, has neglect of so many of his pre-war
+associates and his persistent comradeship with his fellow workman, had
+kept alive that interest; while Captain Martin's repeated refusals to
+accept John's invitations to the big home on the hill had curiously
+touched her woman's pride and at the same time had compelled her
+respect.
+
+The clash between John's new industrial and social convictions and the
+class consciousness to which she had been so carefully schooled, with
+its background of her father's wretched mental condition, the
+unhappiness of her home and her own repeated failures to find
+contentment in the privileges of material wealth, raised in her mind
+questions which she had never before faced.
+
+Her talks with the Interpreter, the slow forming of the lines of the
+approaching industrial struggle, with the sharpening of the contrast
+between McIver and John, her acquaintance with Bobby and Maggie,
+even--all tended to drive her on in her search for the answer to her
+problem.
+
+And so she had been carried to the Martin cottage--to her talk with
+John at the old house--to the Mill--to this.
+
+As one may intuitively sense the crisis in a great struggle between
+life and death, this woman knew that in this man all her disturbing
+life questions were centered. Deep beneath the many changes that her
+father's material success in life had brought to her, one unalterable
+life fact asserted itself with startling power: It was this man who had
+first awakened in her the consciousness of her womanhood. Face to face
+with this workman in her father's Mill, she fought to control the
+situation.
+
+To all outward appearances she did control it. Her brother saw only a
+reserved interest in his workman comrade. Captain Martin saw only the
+daughter of his employer who had so coldly preferred her newer friends
+to the less pretentious companions of her girlhood.
+
+But beneath the commonplace remarks demanded by the occasion, the Helen
+of the old house was struggling for supremacy. The spirit that she had
+felt in the office when John talked with his fellow workmen, she felt
+now in the presence of this workman. The power, the strength, the
+bigness, the meaning of the Mill, as it had come to her, were all
+personified in him. A strange exultation of possession lifted her up.
+She was hungry for her own; she wanted to cry out: "This work is my
+work--these people are my people--this man is my man!"
+
+It was Captain Charlie who ended the interview with the excuse that the
+big machine needed his immediate attention. He had stood as they talked
+with a hand on one of the controls and several times he had turned a
+watchful eye on his charge. It was almost, Helen thought with a little
+thrill of triumph, as though the man sought in the familiar touch of
+his iron and steel a calmness and self-control that he needed. But now,
+when he turned to give his attention wholly to his work, with the
+effect of politely dismissing her, she felt as though he had suddenly,
+if ever so politely, closed a door in her face.
+
+John must have felt it a little, too, for he became rather quiet as
+they went on and soon concluded their inspection of the plant.
+
+At the office door, Helen paused and turned to look back, as if
+reluctant to leave the scene that had now such meaning for her, while
+her brother stood silently watching her. Not until they were back in
+the manager's office and Helen was ready to return to the outside world
+did John Ward speak.
+
+Facing her with his straightforward soldierly manner, he said,
+inquiringly, "Well?"
+
+She returned his look with steady frankness. "I can't tell you what I
+think about it all now, John dear. Sometime, perhaps, I may try. It is
+too big--too vital--too close. I am glad I came. I am sorry, too."
+
+So he took her to her waiting car.
+
+For a moment he stood looking thoughtfully after the departing machine
+and then, with an odd little smile, went back to his work.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+IN THE NIGHT
+
+
+Helen knew, even as she told the chauffeur to drive her home, that she
+did not wish to return just then to the big house on the hill. Her mind
+was too crowded with thoughts she could not entertain in the atmosphere
+of her home; her heart was too deeply moved by emotions that she
+scarcely dared acknowledge even to herself.
+
+She thought of the country club, but that, in her present mood, was
+impossible. The Interpreter--she was about to tell Tom that she wished
+to call at the hut on the cliff, but decided against it. She feared
+that she might reveal to the old basket maker things that she wished to
+hide. She might go for a drive in the country, but she shrank from
+being alone. She wanted some one who could take her out of
+herself--some one to whom she could talk without betraying herself.
+
+Not far from the Mill a number of children were playing in the dusty
+road.
+
+Helen did not notice the youngsters, but Tom, being a careful driver,
+slowed down, even though they were already scurrying aside for the
+automobile to pass. Suddenly she was startled by a shrill yell.
+"Hello, there! Hello, Miss!"
+
+Bobby Whaley, in his frantic efforts to attract her attention, was
+jumping up and down, waving his cap and screeching like a wild boy,
+while his companions looked on in wide-eyed wonder, half in awe at his
+daring, half in fear of the possible consequence.
+
+To the everlasting honor and glory of Sam Whaley's son, the automobile
+stopped. The lady, looking back, called, "Hello, Bobby!" and waited
+expectantly for him to approach.
+
+With a look of haughty triumph at Skinny and Chuck, the lad swaggered
+forward, a grin of overpowering delight at his achievement on his
+dirty, freckled countenance.
+
+"I am so glad you called to me," Helen said, when he was close. "I was
+just wishing for some one to go with me for a ride in the country.
+Would you like to come?"
+
+"Gee," returned the urchin, "I'll say I would."
+
+"Do you think your mother would be willing for you to go?"
+
+"Lord, yes--ma, she ain't a-carin' where we kids are jest so's we ain't
+under her feet when she's a-workin'."
+
+"And could you find Maggie, do you think? Perhaps she would enjoy the
+ride, too."
+
+Bobby lifted up his voice in a shrill yell, "Mag! Oh--oh--Mag!"
+
+The excited cry was caught up by the watching children, and the
+neighborhood echoed their calls. "Mag! Oh, Mag! Somebody wants yer,
+Mag! Come a-runnin'. Hurry up!"
+
+Their united efforts were not in vain. From the rear of a near-by house
+little Maggie appeared. A dirty, faded old shawl was wrapped about her
+tiny waist, hiding her bare feet and trailing behind. A sorry wreck of
+a hat trimmed with three chicken feathers crowned her uncombed hair,
+and the ragged remnants of a pair of black cotton gloves completed her
+elegant costume. In her thin little arms she held, with tender mother
+care, a doll so battered and worn by its long service that one wondered
+at the imaginative power of the child who could make of it anything but
+a shapeless bundle of dirty rags.
+
+"Get a move on yer, Mag!" yelled the masterful Bobby, with frantic
+gestures. "The princess lady is a-goin' t' take us fer a ride in her
+swell limerseen with her driver 'n' everything."
+
+For one unbelieving moment, little Maggie turned to the two miniature
+ladies who, in costumes that rivaled her own, had come to ask the cause
+of this unseemly disturbance of their social affair. Then, at another
+shout from her brother, she discarded her finery and, holding fast to
+her doll with true mother instinct, hurried timidly to the waiting
+automobile.
+
+On that day when Helen had sent her servant to take them for a ride,
+these children of the Flats had thought that no greater happiness was
+possible to mere human beings. But now, as they sat with their
+beautiful princess lady between them on the deep-cushioned seat, and
+watched the familiar houses glide swiftly past, even Bobby was silent.
+It was all so unreal--so like a dream. Their former experience was so
+far surpassed that they would not have been surprised had the
+automobile been suddenly transformed into a magic ship of the air, with
+Tom a fairy pilot to carry them away up among the clouds to some
+wonderful sunshine castle in the sky.
+
+It is true that Bobby's conscience stirred uneasily when he felt an arm
+steal gently about him and he was drawn a little closer to the princess
+lady's side. A feller with a proper pride does not readily permit such
+familiarities. It had been a long time since any one had put an arm
+around Bobby--he did not quite understand.
+
+But as for that, the princess lady herself did not quite understand
+either. Perhaps the sight of little Maggie and her play lady friends so
+elegantly costumed for their social function had suddenly convinced her
+that these children of the Flats were of her world after all. Perhaps
+the shouting children had awakened memories that banished for the
+moment the sadness of her grown-up years. Or it may have been simply
+the way that wee Maggie held her battered doll. It may have been that
+the mother instinct of this wistful mite of humanity quickened in the
+heart of the young woman something that was deeper, more vital, more
+real to her womanhood than the things to which she had so far given
+herself. As the Helen of the old house had longed to cry aloud in the
+Mill her recognition of her man, she hungered now with a strange woman
+hunger for the feel of a child in her arms.
+
+And so, with no care for her gown, which was sure to be ruined by this
+contact with the grime of the Flats, with no question as to what people
+might think, with no thought for class standards or industrial
+problems, the daughter of Adam Ward took the children of Sam Whaley in
+her arms and carried them away from the shadow of that dark cloud that
+hung always above the Mill. From the smoke and dust and filth of their
+heritage, she took them into the clean, sunny air of the hillside
+fields and woods. From the hovels and shanties of their familiar haunts
+she took them where birds made their nests and the golden bees and
+bright-winged butterflies were busy among their flowers. From the
+squalid want and cruel neglect of their poverty she took them into a
+fairyland that was overflowing with the riches that belong to
+childhood.
+
+And then, when the sun was red above the bluff where the curving line
+of cliffs end at the river's edge, she brought them back.
+
+For some reason that has never been made satisfactorily clear by the
+wise ones who lead the world's thinking, Bobby and Maggie must always
+be brought back to their home in the Flats, the princess lady must
+always return to her castle on the hill.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+Charlie Martin was unusually quiet when he returned home from his work
+that day. The father mentioned Helen's visit to the Mill, and Mary had
+many questions to ask, but the soldier workman, usually so ready to
+talk and laugh with his sister, answered only in monosyllables or
+silently permitted the older man to carry the burden of the
+conversation.
+
+When supper was over and it was dark, Charlie, saying that he thought
+he ought to attend Jake Vodell's street meeting that evening, left the
+house.
+
+But Captain Charlie did not go to hear the agitator's soap-box oration
+that night. For an hour or more, under cover of the darkness, the
+workman sat on the porch of the old house next door to his home.
+
+He had pushed aside the broken gate and made his way up the
+weed-tangled walk so quietly that neither his sister nor his father,
+who were on the porch of the cottage, heard a sound. So still was he
+that two neighborhood lovers, who paused in their slow walk, as if
+tempted by the friendly shadow of the lonely old place, did not know
+that he was there. Then at something her father said, Mary's laugh rang
+out, and the lovers moved on.
+
+A little later Captain Charlie stole softly out of the yard and up the
+street in the direction from which Helen had come the day of her visit
+to the old house. When the sound of his feet on the walk could not be
+heard at the cottage, the workman walked briskly, taking the way that
+led toward the Interpreter's hut.
+
+One who knew him would have thought that he was going for an evening
+call on the old basket maker. He saw the light of the little house on
+the cliff presently, and for a moment walked slowly, as if debating
+whether or not he should go on as he had intended. Then he turned off
+from the way to the Interpreter's and took that seldom used road that
+led up the hill toward the home of Adam Ward. With a strong, easy
+stride he swung up the grade until he came to the corner of the iron
+fence. Slowly and quietly he moved on now in the deeper shadows of the
+trees. When he could see the gloomy mass of the house unobstructed
+against the sky, he stopped.
+
+The lower floor was brightly lighted. The windows above were dark. With
+his back against the trunk of a tree Captain Charlie waited.
+
+An automobile came out between the stone columns of the big gate and
+thundered away down the street with reckless speed. Adam Ward, thought
+the man under the tree--even John never drove like that. And he
+wondered where the old Mill owner could be going at such an hour of the
+night.
+
+Still he waited.
+
+Suddenly a light flashed out from the windows of an upper room. A
+moment, and the watcher saw the form of a woman framed in the casement
+against the bright background. For some time she stood there, her face,
+shaded by her hands, pressed close to the glass, as if she were trying
+to see into the darkness of the night. Then she drew back. The shade
+was drawn.
+
+Very slowly Captain Charlie went back down the hill.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+THE STRIKE
+
+
+  "_O flashing muzzles, pause, and let them see
+   The coming dawn that streaks the sky afar;
+   Then let your mighty chorus witness be
+   To them, and Caesar, that we still make war_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE GATHERING STORM
+
+
+In the weeks immediately following her visit to the Mill, Helen Ward
+met the demands of her world apparently as usual. If any one noticed
+that she failed to enter into the affairs of her associates with the
+same lively interest which had made her a leader among those who do
+nothing strenuously, they attributed it to her father's ill health. And
+in this they were partially right. Ever since the day when she half
+revealed her fears to the Interpreter, the young woman's feeling that
+her father's ill health and the unhappiness of her home were the result
+of some hidden thing, had gamed in strength. Since her meeting with
+Captain Charlie there had been in her heart a deepening conviction
+that, but for this same hidden thing, she would have known in all its
+fullness a happiness of which she could now only dream.
+
+More frequently than ever before, she went now to sit with the
+Interpreter on the balcony porch of that little hut on the cliff. But
+Bobby and Maggie wished in vain for their princess lady to come and
+take them again into the land of trees and birds and flowers and
+sunshiny hills and clean blue sky. Often, now, she went to meet her
+brother when his day's work was done, and, sending Tom home with her
+big car, she would go with John in his roadster. And always while he
+told her of the Mill and led her deeper into the meaning of the
+industry and its relation to the life of the people, she listened with
+eager interest. But she did not go again to the Martin cottage or visit
+the old house.
+
+Once at the foot of the Interpreter's zigzag stairway she met Captain
+Martin and greeted him in passing. Two or three times she caught a
+glimpse of him among the men coming from the Mill as she waited for
+John in front of the office. That was all. But always she was conscious
+of him. When from the Interpreter's hut she watched the twisting
+columns of smoke rising from the tall stacks, her thoughts were with
+the workman who somewhere under that cloud was doing his full share in
+the industrial army of his people. When John talked to her of the Mill
+and its meaning, her heart was glad for her brother's loyal comradeship
+with this man who had been his captain over there. The very sound of
+the deep-toned whistle that carried to Adam Ward the proud realization
+of his material possessions carried to his daughter thoughts of what,
+but for those same material possessions, might have been.
+
+For relief she turned to McIver. There was a rocklike quality in the
+factory owner that had always appealed to her. His convictions were so
+unwavering--his judgments so final. McIver never doubted McIver. He
+never, in his own mind, questioned what he did by the standards of
+right and justice. The only question he ever asked himself was, Would
+McIver win or lose? Any suggestion of a difference of opinion on the
+part of another was taken as a personal insult that was not to be
+tolerated. Therefore, because the man was what he was, his class
+convictions were deeply grounded, fixed and certain. In the turmoil of
+her warring thoughts and disturbed emotions Helen felt her own balance
+so shaken that she instinctively reached out to steady herself by him.
+The man, feeling her turn to him, pressed his suit with all the ardor
+she would permit, for he saw in his success not only possession of the
+woman he wanted, but the overthrow of John's opposition to his business
+plans and the consequent triumph of his personal material interests and
+the interests of his class. But, in spite of the relief she gained from
+the strength of McIver's convictions, some strange influence within
+herself prevented her from yielding. She probably would yield at last,
+she told herself drearily--because there seemed to be nothing else for
+her to do.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile, from his hut on the cliff, the Interpreter watched the
+approach of the industrial storm.
+
+The cloud that had appeared on the Millsburgh horizon with the coming
+of Jake Vodell had steadily assumed more threatening proportions until
+now it hung dark with gloomy menace above the work and the homes of the
+people. To the man in the wheel chair, looking out upon the scene that
+lay with all its varied human interests before him, there was no bit of
+life anywhere that was not in the shadow of the gathering storm. The
+mills and factories along the river, the stores and banks and interests
+of the business section, the farms in the valley, the wretched Flats,
+the cottage homes of the workmen and the homes on the hillside, were
+all alike in the path of the swiftly approaching danger.
+
+The people with anxious eyes watched for the storm to break and made
+such hurried preparations as they could. They heard the dull, muttering
+sound of its heavy voice and looked at one another in silent dread or
+talked, neighbor to neighbor, in low tones. A strange hush was over
+this community of American citizens. In their work, in their pleasures,
+in their home life, in their love and happiness, in their very sorrows,
+they felt the deadening presence of this dread thing that was sweeping
+upon them from somewhere beyond the borders of their native land. And
+against this death that filled the air they seemingly knew not how to
+defend themselves.
+
+This, to the Interpreter, was the almost unbelievable tragedy--that the
+people should not know what to do; that they should not have given more
+thought to making the structure of their citizenship stormproof.
+
+
+"The great trouble is that the people don't line up right," said
+Captain Charlie to John and the Interpreter one evening as the workman
+and the general manager were sitting with the old basket maker on the
+balcony porch.
+
+"Just what do you mean by that, Charlie?" asked John. The man in the
+wheel chair was nodding his assent to the union man's remark.
+
+"I mean," Charlie explained, "that the people consider only capital and
+labor, or workmen and business men. They put loyal American workmen and
+imperialist workmen all together on one side and loyal American
+business men and imperialist business men all together on the other.
+They line up _all_ employees against _all_ employers. For example, as
+the people see it, you and I are enemies and the Mill is our battle
+ground. The fact is that the imperialist manual workman is as much my
+enemy as he is yours. The imperialist business man is as much your
+enemy as he is mine."
+
+"You are exactly right, Charlie," said the Interpreter. "And that is
+the first thing that the Big Idea applied to our industries will do--it
+will line up the great body of loyal American workmen that you
+represent with the great body of loyal American business men that John
+represents against the McIvers of capital and the Jake Vodells of
+labor. And that new line-up alone would practically insure victory.
+Nine tenths of our industrial troubles are due to the fact that
+employers and employees alike fail to recognize their real enemies and
+so fight their friends as often as they fight their foes.
+
+"The people must learn to call an industrial slacker a slacker, whether
+he loafs on a park bench or loafs on the veranda of the country club
+house. They have to recognize that a traitor to the industries is a
+traitor to the nation and that he is a traitor whether he works at a
+bench or runs a bank. They have to say to the imperialist of business
+and to the imperialist of labor alike, 'The industries of this country
+are not for you or your class alone, they are for all because the very
+life of the nation is in them and is dependent upon them.' When the
+people of this country learn to draw the lines of class where they
+really belong there will be an end to our industrial wars and to all
+the suffering that they cause."
+
+"If only the people could be lined up and made to declare themselves
+openly," said John, "Jake Vodell would have about as much chance to
+make trouble among us as the German Crown Prince would have had among
+the French Blue Devils."
+
+Charlie laughed.
+
+"Which means, I suppose," said the Interpreter, "that there would be a
+riot to see who could lay hands on him first."
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+The storm broke at McIver's factory. It was as Jake Vodell had told the
+Interpreter it would be--"easy to find a grievance."
+
+McIver declared that before he would yield to the demands of his
+workmen, his factory should stand idle until the buildings rotted to
+the ground.
+
+The agitator answered that before his men would yield they would make
+Millsburgh as a city of the dead.
+
+Two or three of the other smaller unions supported McIver's employees
+with sympathetic strikes. But the success or failure of Jake Vodell's
+campaign quickly turned on the action of the powerful Mill workers'
+union. The commander-in-chief of the striking forces must win John
+Ward's employees to his cause or suffer defeat. He bent every effort to
+that end.
+
+Sam Whaley and a few like him walked out. But that was expected by
+everybody, for Sam Whaley had identified himself from the day of
+Vodell's arrival in Millsburgh as the agitator's devoted follower and
+right-hand man. But this unstable, whining weakling and his fellows
+from the Flats carried little influence with the majority of the
+sturdy, clearer-visioned workmen.
+
+At a meeting of the Millsburgh Manufacturing Association, McIver
+endeavored to pledge the organization to a concerted effort against the
+various unions of their workmen.
+
+John Ward refused to enter into any such alliance against the workmen,
+and branded McIver's plan as being in spirit and purpose identical with
+the schemes of Jake Vodell. John argued that while the heads of the
+various related mills and factories possessed the legal right to
+maintain their organization for the purpose of furthering such business
+interests as were common to them all, they could not, as loyal
+citizens, attempt to deprive their fellow workmen citizens of that same
+right. Any such effort to array class against class, he declared, was
+nothing less than sheer imperialism, and antagonistic to every
+principle of American citizenship.
+
+When McIver characterized Vodell as an anarchist and stated that the
+unions were back of him and his schemes against the government, John
+retorted warmly that the statement was false and an insult to many of
+the most loyal citizens in Millsburgh. There were individual members of
+the unions who were followers of Jake Vodell, certainly. But
+comparatively few of the union men who were led by the agitator to
+strike realized the larger plans of their leader, while the unions as a
+whole no more endorsed anarchy than did the Manufacturing Association.
+
+McIver then drew for his fellow manufacturers a very true picture of
+the industrial troubles throughout the country, and pointed out clearly
+and convincingly the national dangers that lay in the threatening
+conditions. Millsburgh was in no way different from thousands of other
+communities. If the employers could not defend themselves by an
+organized effort against their employees, he would like Mr. Ward to
+explain who would defend them.
+
+To all of which John answered that it was not a question of employers
+defending themselves against their employees. The owners had no more at
+stake in the situation than did their workmen, for the lives of all
+were equally dependent upon the industries that were threatened with
+destruction. In the revolution that Jake Vodell's brotherhood was
+fomenting the American employers could lose no more than would the
+American employees. The question was, How could American industries be
+protected against both the imperialistic employer and the imperialistic
+employee? The answer was, By the united strength of the loyal American
+employers and employees, openly arrayed against the teachings and
+leadership of Jake Vodell, on the one hand, and equally against all
+such principles and actions as had been proposed by Mr. McIver, on the
+other.
+
+When the meeting closed, McIver had failed to gain the support of the
+association.
+
+Realizing that without the Mill he could never succeed in his plans,
+the factory owner appealed to Adam Ward himself.
+
+The old Mill owner, in full accord with McIver, attempted to force John
+into line. But the younger man refused to enlist in any class war
+against his loyal fellow workmen.
+
+Adam stormed and threatened and predicted utter ruin. John calmly
+offered to resign. The father refused to listen to this, on the ground
+that his ill health did not permit him to assume again the management
+of the business, and that he would never consent to the Mill's being
+operated by any one outside the family.
+
+When Helen returned to her home in the early evening, she found her
+father in a state of mind bordering on insanity.
+
+Striding here and there about the rooms with uncontrollable nervous
+energy, he roared, as he always did on such occasions, about his sole
+ownership of the Mill--the legality of the patents that gave him
+possession of the new process--how it was his genius and hard work
+alone that had built up the Mill--that no one should take his
+possessions from him--waving his arms and shaking his fists in violent,
+meaningless gestures. With his face twitching and working and his eyes
+blazing with excitement and rage, his voice rose almost to a scream:
+"Let them try to take anything away from me! I know what they are going
+to do, but they can't do it. I've had the best lawyers that I could
+hire and I've got it all tied up so tight that no one can touch it.
+
+"I could have thrown Pete Martin out of the Mill any time I wanted. He
+has no claim on me that any court in the world would recognize. Let him
+try anything he dares. I'll starve him to death--I'll turn him into the
+streets--he hasn't a thing in the world that he didn't get by working
+for me. I made him--I will ruin him. You all think that I am sick--you
+think that I am crazy--that I don't know what I am talking about. I'll
+show you--you'll see what will happen if they start any thing--"
+
+The piteous exhibition ended as usual. As if driven by some invisible
+fiend, the man rushed from the presence of those whom he most loved to
+the dreadful company of his own fearful and monstrous thoughts.
+
+And the room where the wife and children of Adam Ward sat was filled
+with the presence of that hidden thing of which they dared not speak.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+Everywhere throughout the city the people were discussing John Ward's
+opposition to McIver.
+
+The community, tense with feeling, waited for an answer to the vital
+question, What would the Mill workers' union do? Upon the answer of
+John Ward's employees to the demands of the agitator for a sympathetic
+strike depended the success or failure of Jake Vodell's Millsburgh
+campaign.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+ADAM WARD'S WORK
+
+
+It was evening. The Interpreter was sitting in his wheel chair on the
+balcony porch with silent Billy not far away. Beyond the hills on the
+west the sky was faintly glowing in the last of the sun's light. The
+Flats were deep in gloomy shadows out of which the grim stacks of the
+Mill rose toward the smoky darkness of their overhanging cloud. Here
+and there among the poor homes of the workers a lighted window or a
+lonely street lamp shone in the murky dusk. But the lights of the
+business section of the city gleamed and sparkled like clusters and
+strings of jewels, while the residence districts on the hillside were
+marked by hundreds of twinkling, starlike points.
+
+The quiet was rudely broken by a voice at the outer doorway of the hut.
+The tone was that of boisterous familiarity. "Hello! hello there!
+Anybody home?"
+
+"Here," answered the Interpreter. "Come in. Or, I should say, come
+out," he added, as his visitor found his way through the darkness of
+the living room. "A night like this is altogether too fine to spend
+under a roof."
+
+"Why in thunder don't you have a light?" said the visitor, with a loud
+freedom carefully calculated to give the effect of old and privileged
+comradeship. But the laugh of hearty good fellowship which followed his
+next remark was a trifle overdone "Ain't afraid of bombs, are you?
+Don't you know that the war is over yet?"
+
+The Interpreter obligingly laughed at the merry witticism, as he
+answered, "There is light enough out here under the stars to think by.
+How are you, Adam Ward?"
+
+From where he stood in the doorway, Adam could see the dim figure of
+the Interpreter's companion at the farther end of the porch. "Who is
+that with you?" demanded the Mill owner suspiciously.
+
+"Only Billy Rand," replied the man in the wheel chair reassuringly.
+"Won't you sit down?"
+
+Before accepting the invitation to be seated, Adam advanced upon the
+man in the wheel chair with outstretched hands, as if eagerly meeting a
+most intimate friend whose regard he prized above all other
+relationships of life. Seizing the Interpreter's hand, he clung to it
+in an excess of cordiality, all the while pouring out between short
+laughs of pretended gladness, a hurried volume of excuses for having so
+long delayed calling upon his dear old friend. To any one at all
+acquainted with the man, it would have been very clear that he wanted
+something.
+
+"It seems ages since I saw you," he declared, as he seated himself at
+last. "It's a shame for a man to neglect an old friend as I have
+neglected you."
+
+The Interpreter returned, calmly, "The last time you called was just
+before your son enlisted. You wanted me to help you keep him at home."
+
+It was too dark to see Adam's face. "So it was, I remember now." There
+was a suggestion of nervousness in the laugh which followed his words.
+
+"The time before that," said the Interpreter evenly, "was when Tom
+Blair was killed in the Mill. You wanted me to persuade Tom's widow
+that you were in no way liable for the accident."
+
+The barometer of Adam's friendliness dropped another degree. "That
+affair was finally settled at five thousand," he said, and this time he
+did not laugh.
+
+"The time before that," said the Interpreter, "was when your old friend
+Peter Martin's wife died. You wanted me to explain to the workmen who
+attended the funeral how necessary it was for you to take that hour out
+of their pay checks."
+
+"You have a good memory," said the visitor, coldly, as he stirred
+uneasily in the dusk.
+
+"I have," agreed the man in the wheel chair; "I find it a great
+blessing at times. It is the only thing that preserves my sense of
+humor. It is not always easy to preserve one's sense of humor, is it,
+Adam Ward?"
+
+When the Mill owner answered, his voice, more than his words, told how
+determined he was to hold his ground of pleasant, friendly comradeship,
+at least until he had gained the object of his visit.
+
+"Don't you ever get lonesome up here? Sort of gloomy, ain't
+it--especially at nights?"
+
+"Oh, no," returned the Interpreter; "I have many interesting callers;
+there are always my work and my books and always, night and day, I have
+our Mill over there."
+
+"Heh! What! _Our_ Mill! Where? Oh, I see--yes--_our_ Mill--that's good!
+_Our_ Mill!"
+
+"Surely you will admit that I have some small interest in the Mill
+where we once worked side by side, will you not, Adam?"
+
+"Oh, yes," laughed Adam, helping on the jest. "But let me see--I don't
+exactly recall the amount of your investment--what was it you put in?"
+
+"Two good legs, Adam Ward, two good legs," returned the old basket
+maker.
+
+Again Adam Ward was at a loss for an answer. In the shadowy presence of
+that old man in the wheel chair the Mill owner was as a wayward child
+embarrassed before a kindly master.
+
+When the Interpreter spoke again his deep voice was colored with gentle
+patience.
+
+"Why have you come to me like this, Adam Ward? What is it that you
+want?"
+
+Adam moved uneasily. "Why--nothing particular--I just thought I would
+call--happened to be going by and saw your light."
+
+There had been no light in the hut that evening. The Interpreter
+waited. The surrounding darkness of the night seemed filled with
+warring spirits from the gloomy Flats, the mighty Mill, the glittering
+streets and stores and the cheerfully lighted homes.
+
+Adam tried to make his voice sound casual, but he could not altogether
+cover the nervous intensity of his interest, as he asked the question
+that was so vital to the entire community. "Will the Mill workers'
+union go out on a sympathetic strike?"
+
+"No."
+
+The Mill owner drew a long breath of relief. "I judged you would know."
+
+The Interpreter did not answer.
+
+Adam spoke with more confidence. "I suppose you know this agitator Jake
+Vodell?"
+
+"I know who he is," replied the Interpreter. "He is a well-known
+representative of a foreign society that is seeking, through the
+working people of this country, to extend its influence and strengthen
+its power."
+
+"The unions are going too far," said Adam. "The people won't stand for
+their bringing in a man like Vodell to preach anarchy and stir up all
+kinds of trouble."
+
+The Interpreter spoke strongly. "Jake Vodell no more represents the
+great body of American union men than you, Adam Ward, represent the
+great body of American employers."
+
+"He works with the unions, doesn't he?"
+
+"Yes, but that does not make him a representative of the union men as a
+whole, any more than the fact that your work with the great body of
+American business men makes you their representative."
+
+"I should like to know why I am not a representative American business
+man." It was evident from the tone of his voice that the Mill owner
+controlled himself with an effort.
+
+The Interpreter answered, without a trace of personal feeling, "You do
+not represent them, Adam Ward, because the spirit and purpose of your
+personal business career is not the spirit and purpose of our business
+men as a whole--just as the spirit and purpose of such men as Jake
+Vodell is not the spirit and purpose of our union men as a whole."
+
+"But," asserted the Mill owner, "it is men like me who have built up
+this country. Look at our railroads, our great manufacturing plants,
+our industries of all kinds! Look what I have done for Millsburgh! You
+know what the town was when you first came here. Look at it now!"
+
+"The new process has indeed wrought great changes in Millsburgh,"
+suggested the Interpreter.
+
+"The new process! You mean that _I_ have wrought great changes in
+Millsburgh. What would the new process have amounted to if it had not
+been for me? Why, even the poor old fools who owned the Mill at that
+time couldn't have done anything with it. I had to force it on them.
+And then when I had managed to get it installed and had proved what it
+would do, I made them increase their capitalization and give me a half
+interest--told them if they didn't I would take my process to their
+competitors and put them out of business. Later I managed to gain the
+control and after that it was easy." His voice changed to a tone of
+arrogant, triumphant boasting. "I may not be a representative business
+man in _your_ estimation, but my work stands just the same. No man who
+knows anything about business will deny that I built up the Mill to
+what it is to-day."
+
+"And that," returned the Interpreter, "is exactly what Vodell says for
+the men who work with their hands in cooperation with men like you who
+work with their brains. You say that you built the Mill because you
+thought and planned and directed its building. Jake Vodell says the men
+whose physical strength materialized your thoughts, the men who carried
+out your plans and toiled under your direction built the Mill. And you
+and Jake are both right to exactly the same degree. The truth is that
+you have _all together_ built the Mill. You have no more right to think
+or to say that you did it than Pete Martin has to think or to say that
+he did it."
+
+When Adam Ward found no answer to this the Interpreter continued.
+"Consider a great building: The idea of the structure has come down
+through the ages from the first habitation of primitive man. The mental
+strength represented in the structure in its every detail is the
+composite thought of every generation of man since the days when human
+beings dwelt in rocky caves and in huts of mud. But listen: The
+capitalist who furnished the money says he did it; the architect says
+he did it; the stone mason says he did it; the carpenter says he did
+it; the mountains that gave the stone say they did it; the forests that
+grew the timber say they did it; the hills that gave the metal say they
+did it.
+
+"The truth is that all did it--that each individual worker, whether he
+toiled with his hands or with his brain, was dependent upon all the
+others as all were dependent upon those who lived and labored in the
+ages that have gone before, as all are dependent at the last upon the
+forces of nature that through the ages have labored for all. And this
+also is true, sir, whether you like to admit it or not; just as we--you
+and I and Pete Martin and the others--all together built the Mill, so
+we all together built it for all. You, Adam Ward, can no more keep for
+yourself alone the fruits of your labor than you alone and
+single-handed could have built the Mill."
+
+The Interpreter paused as if for an answer.
+
+Adam Ward did not speak.
+
+A flare of light from, the stacks of the Mill, where the night shift
+was sweating at its work, drew their eyes. Through the darkness came
+the steady song of industry--a song that was charged with the life of
+millions. And they saw the lights of the business district, where Jake
+Vodell was preaching to a throng of idle workmen his doctrine of class
+hatred and destruction.
+
+The Interpreter's manner was in no way aggressive when he broke the
+silence. There was, indeed, in his deep voice an undertone of sorrow,
+and yet he spoke as with authority. "You were driven here to-night by
+your fear, Adam Ward. You recognize the menace to this community and to
+our nation in the influence and teaching of men like Jake Vodell. Most
+of all, you fear for yourself and your material possessions. And you
+have reason to be afraid of this danger that you yourself have brought
+upon Millsburgh."
+
+"What!" cried the Mill owner. "You say that I am responsible?--that I
+brought this anarchist agitator here?"
+
+The Interpreter answered, solemnly, "I say that but for you and such
+men as you, Adam Ward, Jake Vodell could never gain a hearing in any
+American city."
+
+Adam Ward laughed harshly.
+
+But the old basket maker continued as if he had not heard. "Every act
+of your business career, sir, has been a refusal to recognize those who
+have worked with you. Your whole life has been an over assertion of
+your personal independence and a denial of the greatest of all
+laws--the law of _dependence_, which is the vital principle of life
+itself. And so you have, through these years, upheld and exemplified to
+the working people the very selfishness to which Jake Vodell appeals
+now with such sad effectiveness. It is the class pride and intolerance
+which you have fostered in yourself and family that have begotten the
+class hatred which makes Vodell's plans against our government a
+dangerous possibility. Your fathers fought in a great war for
+independence, Adam Ward. Your son must now fight for a recognition of
+that _dependence_ without which the _independence_ won by your father
+will surely perish from the earth."
+
+At the mention of his son, the Mill owner moved impatiently and spoke
+with bitter resentment. "A fine mess you are making of things with your
+'dependence.'"
+
+"It is a fine mess that you have made of things, Adam Ward, with your
+'_in_dependence,'" returned the Interpreter, sternly.
+
+"I can tell you one thing," said Adam. "Your unions will never
+straighten anything out with the help of Jake Vodell and his gang of
+murdering anarchists."
+
+"You are exactly right," agreed the Interpreter. "And I can tell you a
+thing to match the truth of your statement. Your combinations of
+employers will never straighten anything out with the help of such men
+as McIver and his hired gunmen and his talk about driving men to work
+at the point of the bayonet. But McIver and his principles are not
+endorsed by our American employers," continued the Interpreter, "any
+more than Jake Vodell and his methods are endorsed by our American
+union employees. The fact is that the great body of loyal American
+employers and employees, which is, indeed, the body of our nation
+itself, is fast coming to recognize the truth that our industries must
+somehow be saved from the destruction that is threatened by both the
+McIvers of capital and the Vodells of labor. Our Mill, Adam Ward, that
+you and Pete Martin and I built together and that, whether you admit it
+or not, we built for all mankind, our Mill must be protected against
+both employers and employees. It must be protected, not because the
+ownership, under our laws, happens to be vested in you as an individual
+citizen, but because of that larger ownership which, under the
+universal laws of humanity, is vested in the people whose lives are
+dependent upon that Mill as an essential industry. The Mill must be
+saved, indeed, for the very people who would destroy it."
+
+"Very fine!" sneered Adam; "and perhaps you will tell me who is to save
+my Mill that is not my Mill for the very people who own it and who
+would destroy it?"
+
+The voice of the Interpreter was colored with the fire of prophecy as
+he answered, "In the name of humanity, the sons of the men who built
+the Mill will save it for humanity. Your boy John, Adam Ward, and Pete
+Martin's boy Charlie represent the united armies of American employers
+and employees that stand in common loyalty against the forces that are,
+through the destruction of our industries, seeking to bring about the
+downfall of our nation."
+
+Adam Ward laughed. "Tell that to your partner Billy Rand over there; he
+will hear it as quick as the American people will."
+
+But the man in the wheel chair was not disturbed by Adam Ward's
+laughing.
+
+"The great war taught the American people some mighty lessons, Adam
+Ward," he said. "It taught us that patriotism is not of one class or
+rank, but is common to every level of our national social life. It
+taught us that heroism is the birthright of both office and shop. Most
+of all did the war teach us the lesson of comradeship--that men of
+every rank and class and occupation could stand together, live together
+and die together, united in the bonds of a common, loyal citizenship
+for a common, human cause. And out of that war and its lessons our own
+national saviors are come. The loyal patriot employers and the loyal
+patriot employees, who on the fields of war were brother members of
+that great union of sacrifice and death, will together free the
+industries of their own country from the two equally menacing
+terrors--imperialistic capital and imperialistic labor.
+
+"The comradeship of your son with the workman Charlie Martin, the stand
+that John has taken against McIver, and the refusal of the Mill
+workers' union to accept Vodell's leadership--is the answer to your
+question, 'Who is to save the Mill?'"
+
+"Rot!" exclaimed Adam Ward. "You talk as though every man who went to
+that war was inspired by the highest motives. They were not all heroes
+by a good deal."
+
+"True," returned the Interpreter, "they were not all heroes. But there
+was the leaven that leavened the lump, and so the army itself was
+heroic."
+
+"What about the moral degeneracy and the crime wave that have followed
+the return of your heroic army?" demanded Adam.
+
+"True, again," returned the Interpreter; "it is inevitable that men
+whose inherited instincts and tendencies are toward crime should
+acquire in the school of war a bolder spirit--a more reckless daring in
+their criminal living. But again there is the saving leaven that
+leavens the lump. If the war training makes criminals more bold, it as
+surely makes the leaven of nobility more powerful. One splendid example
+of noble heroism is ten thousand times more potent in the world than a
+thousand revolting deeds of crime. No--no, Adam Ward, the world will
+not forget the lessons it learned over there. The torch of Flanders
+fields has not fallen. The world will carry on."
+
+There was such a quality of reverent conviction in the concluding words
+of the man in the wheel chair that Adam Ward was silenced.
+
+For some time they sat, looking into the night where the huge bulk of
+the Mill with its towering stacks and overhanging clouds seemed to
+dominate not only the neighboring shops and factories and the immediate
+Flats, but in some mysterious way to extend itself over the business
+district and the homes of the city, and, like a ruling spirit, to
+pervade the entire valley, even unto the distant line of hills.
+
+When the old basket maker spoke again, that note of strange and solemn
+authority was in his voice. "Listen, Adam Ward! In the ideals, the
+heroism, the suffering, the sacrifice of the war--in shell hole and
+trench and bloody No Man's Land, the sons of men have found again the
+God that you and men like you had banished from the Mill. Your boy and
+Pete Martin's boy, with more thousands of their comrades than men of
+your mind realize, have come back from the war fields of France to
+enthrone God once more in the industrial world. And it shall come that
+every forge and furnace and anvil and machine shall be an organ to His
+praise--that every suit of overalls shall be a priestly robe of
+ministering service. And this God that you banished from the Mill and
+that is to be by your son restored to His throne and served by a
+priesthood of united employers and employees, shall bear a new name,
+Adam Ward, and that name shall be WORK."
+
+Awed by the strange majesty of the Interpreter's voice, Adam Ward could
+only whisper fearfully, "Work--the name of God shall be Work!" "Ay,
+Adam Ward, WORK--and why not? Does not the work of the world express
+the ideals, the purpose, the needs, the life, the _oneness_ of the
+world's humanity, even as a flower expresses the plant that puts it
+forth? And is not God the ultimate flowering of the human plant?"
+
+The Mill owner spoke with timid hesitation, "Could I--do you
+think--could I, perhaps, help to, as you say, put God back into the
+Mill?"
+
+"Your part in the building of the Mill is finished, Adam Ward," came
+the solemn answer. "You have made many contracts with men, sir; you
+should now make a contract with your God."
+
+The owner of the new process sprang to his feet with an exclamation of
+fear. As one who sees a thing of horror in the dark, he drew back,
+trembling.
+
+That deep, inexorable voice of sorrowful authority went on, "Make a
+contract with your God, Adam Ward; make a contract with your God."
+
+With a wild cry of terror Adam Ward fled into the night.
+
+The Interpreter in his wheel chair looked up at the stars.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+It seems scarcely possible that the old basket maker could have
+foreseen the tragic effect of his words--and yet--
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE PEOPLE'S AMERICA
+
+
+At his evening meetings on the street, Jake Vodell with stirring
+oratory kindled the fire of his cause. In the councils of the unions,
+through individuals and groups, with clever arguments and inflaming
+literature, he sought recruits. With stinging sarcasm and withering
+scorn he taunted the laboring people--told them they were fools and
+cowards to submit to the degrading slavery of their capitalist owners.
+With biting invective and blistering epithet he pictured their employer
+enemies as the brutal and ruthless destroyers of their homes. With
+thrilling eloquence he fanned the flames of class hatred, inspired the
+loyalty of his followers to himself and held out to them golden
+promises of reward if they would prove themselves men and take that
+which belonged to them.
+
+But the Mill workers' union, as an organization, was steadfast in its
+refusal to be dominated by this agitator who was so clearly
+antagonistic to every principle of American citizenship. Jake Vodell
+could neither lead nor drive them into a strike that was so evidently
+called in the interests of his cause. And more and more the agitator
+was compelled to recognize the powerful influence of the Interpreter.
+It was not long before he went to the hut on the cliff with a positive
+demand for the old basket maker's open support.
+
+"I do not know why it is," he said, "that a poor old cripple like you
+should have such power among men, but I know it is so. You shall tell
+this Captain Charlie and his crowd of fools that they must help me to
+win for the laboring people their freedom. You shall, for me, enlist
+these Mill men in the cause."
+
+The Interpreter asked, gravely, "And when you have accomplished this
+that you call freedom--when you have gained this equality that you talk
+about--how will your brotherhood be governed?"
+
+Jake Vodell scowled as he gazed at the man in the wheel chair with
+quick suspicion. "Governed?"
+
+"Yes," returned the Interpreter. "Without organization of some sort
+nothing can be done. No industries can be carried on without the
+concerted effort which is organization. Without the industry that is
+necessary to human life the free people you picture cannot exist.
+Without government--which means law and the enforcement of
+law--organization of any kind is impossible."
+
+"There will have to be organization, certainly," answered Vodell.
+
+"Then, there will be leaders, directors, managers with authority to
+whom the people must surrender themselves as individuals," said the
+Interpreter, quietly. "An organization without leadership is
+impossible."
+
+The agitator's voice was triumphant, as he said, "Certainly there will
+be leaders. And their authority will be unquestioned. And these leaders
+will be those who have led the people out of the miserable bondage of
+their present condition."
+
+The Interpreter's voice had a new note in it now, as he said, "In other
+words, sir, what you propose is simply to substitute _yourself_ for
+McIver. You propose to the people that they overthrow their present
+leaders in the industries of their nation in order that you and your
+fellow agitators may become their masters. You demand that the citizens
+of America abolish their national government and in its place accept
+you and your fellows as their rulers? What assurance can you give the
+people, sir, that under your rule they will have more freedom for
+self-government, more opportunities for self-advancement and prosperity
+and happiness than they have at present?"
+
+"Assurance?" muttered the other, startled by the Interpreter's manner.
+
+The old basket maker continued, "Are you and your self-constituted
+leaders of the American working people, gods? Are you not as human as
+any McIver or Adam Ward of the very class you condemn? Would you not be
+subject to the same temptations of power--the same human passions?
+Would you not, given the same opportunity, be all that you say they
+are--or worse?"
+
+Jake Vodell's countenance was black with rage. He started to rise, but
+a movement of Billy Rand made him hesitate. His voice was harsh with
+menacing passion. "And you call yourself a friend of the laboring
+class?"
+
+"It is because I am a friend of my fellow American citizens that I ask
+you what freedom your brotherhood can insure to us that we have not
+now," the Interpreter answered, solemnly. "Look there, sir." He swept,
+in a gesture, the scene that lay within view of his balcony porch.
+"_That_ is America--_my_ America--the America of the _people_. From the
+wretched hovels of the incompetent and unfortunate Sam Whaleys in the
+Flats down there to Adam Ward's castle on the hill yonder, it is _our_
+America. From the happy little home of that sterling workman, Peter
+Martin, to the homes of the business workers on the hillside over
+there, it is _ours_. From the business district to the beautiful farms
+across the river, it belongs to _us all_. And the Mill
+there--representing as it does the industries of our nation and
+standing for the very life of our people--is _our_ Mill. The troubles
+that disturb us--the problems of injustice--the wrongs of selfishness
+that arise through such employers as McIver and such employees as Sam
+Whaley, are _our_ troubles, and we will settle our own difficulties in
+our own way as loyal American citizens."
+
+The self-appointed apostle of the new freedom had by this time regained
+his self-control. His only answer to the Interpreter was a shrug of his
+thick shoulders and a flash of white teeth in his black beard.
+
+The old basket maker with his eyes still on the scene that lay before
+them continued. "Because I love my countrymen, sir, I protest the
+destructive teachings of your brotherhood. Your ambitious schemes would
+plunge my country into a bloody revolution the horrors of which defy
+the imagination. America will find a better way. The loyal American
+citizens who labor in our industries and the equally loyal American
+operators of these industries will never consent to the ruthless murder
+by hundreds and thousands of our best brains and our best manhood in
+support of your visionary theories. My countrymen will never permit the
+unholy slaughter of innocent women and children, that would result from
+your efforts to overthrow our government and establish a wholly
+impossible Utopia upon the basis of an equality that is contrary to
+every law of life. You preach freedom to the working people in order to
+rob them of the freedom they already have. With visions of impossible
+wealth and luxurious idleness you blind them to the greater happiness
+that is within reach of their industry. In the name of an equality, the
+possibility of which your own assumed leadership denies, you incite a
+class hatred and breed an intolerance and envy that destroy the good
+feeling of comradeship and break down the noble spirit of that actual
+equality which we already have and which is our only salvation."
+
+"Equality!" sneered Jake Vodell. "You have a fine equality in this
+America of capitalist-ridden fools who are too cowardly to say that
+their souls are their own. It is the equality of Adam Ward and Sam
+Whaley, I suppose."
+
+"Sam Whaley is a product of your teaching, sir," the Interpreter
+answered. "The equality of which I speak is that of Adam Ward and Peter
+Martin as it is evidenced in the building up of the Mill. It is the
+equality that is in the comradeship of their sons, John and Charlie,
+who will protect and carry on the work of their fathers. It is the
+equality of a common citizenship--of mutual dependence of employer and
+employee upon the industries, that alone can save our people from want
+and starvation and guard our nation from the horrors you would bring
+upon it."
+
+The man laughed. "Suppose you sing that pretty song to McIver, heh?
+What do you think he would say?"
+
+"He would laugh, as you are laughing," returned the Interpreter, sadly.
+
+"Tell it to Adam Ward then," jeered the other. "He will recognize his
+equality with Peter Martin when you explain it, heh?"
+
+"Adam Ward is already paying a terrible price for denying it," the
+Interpreter answered.
+
+Again Jake Vodell laughed with sneering triumph. "Well, then I guess
+you will have to preach your equality to the deaf and dumb man there.
+Maybe you can make him understand it. The old basket maker without any
+legs and the big husky who can neither hear nor talk--they are equals,
+I suppose, heh?"
+
+"Billy Rand and I perfectly illustrate the equality of dependence,
+sir," returned the Interpreter. "Billy is as much my superior
+physically as I am his superior mentally. Without my thinking and
+planning he would be as helpless as I would be without his good bodily
+strength. We are each equally dependent upon the other, and from that
+mutual dependence comes our comradeship in the industry which alone
+secures for us the necessities of life. I could not make baskets
+without Billy's labor--Billy could not make baskets without my planning
+and directing. And yet, sir, you and McIver would set us to fighting
+each other. You would have Billy deny his dependence upon me and use
+his strength to destroy me, thus depriving himself of the help he must
+have if he would live. McIver would have me deny my dependence upon
+Billy and by antagonizing him with my assumed superiority turn his
+strength to the destruction of our comradeship by which I also live.
+Your teaching of class loyalty and class hatred applied to Billy and me
+would result in the ruin of our basket making and in our consequent
+starvation."
+
+Again the Interpreter, from his wheel chair, pointed with outstretched
+arm to the scene that lay with all its varied grades of life--social
+levels and individual interests--before them. "Look," he said, "to the
+inequality that is there--inequalities that are as great as the
+difference between Billy Rand and myself. And yet, every individual
+life is dependent upon all the other individual lives. The Mill yonder
+is the basket making of the people. All alike must look to it for life
+itself. The industries, without which the people cannot exist, can be
+carried on only by the comradeship of those who labor with their hands
+and those who work with their brains. In the common dependence all are
+equal.
+
+"The only equality that your leadership, with its progress of
+destruction, can insure to American employers and employees is an
+equality of indescribable suffering and death."
+
+The old basket maker paused a moment before he added, solemnly, "I
+wonder that you dare assume the responsibility for such a catastrophe.
+Have you no God, sir, to whom you must eventually account?"
+
+The man's teeth gleamed in a grin of malicious sarcasm. "I should know
+that you believed in God. Bah! An old woman myth to scare fools and
+children. I suppose you believe in miracles also?"
+
+"I believe in the miracle of life," the Interpreter answered; "and in
+the great laws of life--the law of inequality and dependence, that in
+its operation insures the oneness of all things."
+
+The agitator rose to his feet, and with a shrug of contempt, said,
+"Very pretty, Mr. Interpreter, very pretty. You watch now from your hut
+here and you shall see what men who are not crippled old basket makers
+will do with that little bit of your America out there. It is I who
+will teach Peter Martin and his comrades in the Mill how to deal with
+your friend Adam Ward and his class."
+
+"You are too late, sir," said the Interpreter, as the man moved toward
+the door.
+
+Jake Vodell turned. "How, too late?" Then as he saw Billy Rand rising
+to his feet, his hand went quickly inside his vest.
+
+The old basket maker smiled as he once more held out a restraining hand
+toward his companion. "I do not mean anything like that, sir. I told
+you some time ago that you were defeated in your Millsburgh campaign by
+Adam Ward's retirement from the Mill. You are too late because you are
+forced now to deal, not with Adam Ward and Peter Martin, but with their
+sons."
+
+"Oh, ho! and what you should say also, is that I am really forced to
+deal with an old basket maker who has no legs, heh? Well, we shall see
+about that, too, Mr. Interpreter, when the time comes--we shall see."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+PETER MARTIN'S PROBLEM
+
+
+It was not long until the idle workmen began to feel the want of their
+pay envelopes. The grocers and butchers were as dependent upon those
+pay envelopes as were the workmen themselves.
+
+The winter was coming on. There was a chill in the air. In the homes of
+the strikers the mothers and their little ones needed not only food but
+fuel and clothing as well. The crowds at the evening street meetings
+became more ominous. Through the long, idle days grim, sullen-faced men
+walked the streets or stood in groups on the corners watching their
+fellow citizens and muttering in low, guarded tones. Members of the
+Mill workers' union were openly branded as cowards and traitors to
+their class. The suffering among the women and children became acute.
+
+But Jake Vodell was a master who demanded of his disciples most heroic
+loyalty, without a thought of the cost--to them.
+
+McIver put an armed guard about his factory and boasted that he could
+live without work. The strikers, he declared, could either starve
+themselves and their families or accept his terms.
+
+The agitator was not slow in making capital of McIver's statements.
+
+The factory owner depended upon the suffering of the women and children
+to force the workmen to yield to him. Jake Vodell, the self-appointed
+savior of the laboring people, depended upon the suffering of women and
+children to drive his followers to the desperate measures that would
+further his peculiar and personal interests.
+
+Through all this, the Mill workers' union still refused to accept the
+leadership of this man whose every interest was anti-American and
+foreign to the principles of the loyal citizen workman. But the fire of
+Jake Vodell's oratory and argument was not without kindling power, even
+among John Ward's employees. As the feeling on both sides of the
+controversy grew more bitter and intolerant, the Mill men felt with
+increasing force the pull of their class. The taunts and jeers of the
+striking workers were felt. The cries of "traitor" hurt. The suffering
+of the innocent members of the strikers' families appealed strongly to
+their sympathies.
+
+When McIver's imperialistic declaration was known, the number who were
+in favor of supporting Jake Vodell's campaign increased measurably.
+
+Nearly every day now at some hour of the evening or night, Pete and
+Captain Charlie, with others from among their union comrades, might
+have been found in the hut on the cliff in earnest talk with the man in
+the wheel chair. The active head of the union was Captain Charlie, as
+his father had been before him, but it was no secret that the guiding
+counsel that held the men of the Mill steady cane from the old basket
+maker.
+
+For John Ward the days were increasingly hard. He could not but sense
+the feeling of the men. He knew that if Jake Vodell could win them,
+such disaster as the people of Millsburgh had never seen would result.
+The interest and sympathy of Helen, the comradeship of Captain Charlie,
+and the strength of the Interpreter gave him courage and hope. But
+there was nothing that he could do. He felt as he had felt sometimes in
+France when he was called upon to stand and wait. It was a relief to
+help Mary as he could in her work among the sufferers. But even this
+activity of mercy was turned against him by both McIver and Vodell. The
+factory man blamed him for prolonging the strike and thus working
+injury to the general business interests of Millsburgh. The strike
+leader charged him with seeking to win the favor of the working class
+in order to influence his own employees against, what he called the
+fight for their industrial freedom.
+
+The situation was rapidly approaching a crisis when Peter Martin and
+Captain Charlie, returning home from a meeting of their union laid one
+evening, found the door of the house locked.
+
+The way the two men stood facing each other without a word revealed the
+tension of their nerves. Captain Charlie's hand shook so that his key
+rattled against the lock. But when they were inside and had switched on
+the light, a note which Mary had left on the table for them explained.
+
+The young woman had gone to the Flats in answer to a call for help.
+John was with her. She had left the note so that her father and brother
+would not be alarmed at her absence in case they returned home before
+her.
+
+In their relief, the two men laughed. They were a little ashamed of
+their unspoken fears.
+
+"We might have known," said Pete, and with the words seemed to dismiss
+the incident from his mind.
+
+But Captain Charlie did not recover so easily. While his father found
+the evening paper and, settling himself in an easy-chair by the table,
+cleaned his glasses and filled and lighted his pipe, the younger man
+went restlessly from room to room, turning on the lights, turning them
+off again--all apparently for no reason whatever. He finished his
+inspection by returning to the table and again picking up Mary's note.
+
+When he had reread the message he said, slowly, "I thought John
+expected to be at the office to-night."
+
+Something in his son's voice caused the old workman to look at him
+steadily, as he answered, "John probably came by on his way to the Mill
+and dropped in for a few minutes."
+
+"I suppose so," returned Charlie. Then, "Father, do you think it wise
+for sister to be so much with John?"
+
+The old workman laid aside his paper. "Why, I don't know--I hadn't
+thought much about it, son. It seems natural enough, considering the
+way you children was all raised together when you was youngsters."
+
+"It's natural enough all right," returned Captain Charlie, and, with a
+bitterness that was very unlike his usual self, he added, "That's the
+hell of it--it's too natural--too human--too right for this day and
+age."
+
+Pete Martin's mind worked rather slowly but he was fully aroused
+now--Charlie's meaning was clear. "What makes you think that Mary and
+John are thinking of each other in that way, son?"
+
+"How could they help it?" returned Captain Charlie. "Sister is exactly
+the kind of woman that John would choose for a wife. Don't I know what
+he thinks of the light-headed nonentities in the set that he is
+supposed to belong to? Hasn't he demonstrated his ideas of class
+distinctions? It would never occur to him that there was any reason why
+John Ward should not love Mary Martin. As for sister--when you think of
+the whole story of their childhood together, of how John and I were all
+through the war, of how he has been in the Mill since we came home, of
+their seeing each other here at the house so much, of the way he has
+been helping her with her work among the poor in the Flats--well, how
+could any woman like sister help loving him?"
+
+While the older man was considering his son's presentation of the case,
+Captain Charlie added, with characteristic loyalty, "God may have made
+finer men than John Ward, but if He did they don't live around
+Millsburgh."
+
+"Well, then, son," said Peter Martin, with his slow smile, "what about
+it? Suppose they are thinking of each other as you say?"
+
+Captain Charlie did not answer for a long minute. And the father,
+watching, saw in that strong young face the shadow of a hurt which the
+soldier workman could not hide.
+
+"It is all so hopeless," said Charlie, at last, in a tone that told
+more clearly than words could have done his own hopelessness. "I--it
+don't seem right for Mary to have to bear it, too."
+
+"I'm sorry, son," was all that the old workman said, but Captain
+Charlie knew that his father understood.
+
+After that they did not speak until they heard an automobile stop in
+front of the house.
+
+"That must be Mary now," said Pete, looking at his watch. "They have
+never been so late before."
+
+They heard her step on the porch. The sound of the automobile died away
+in the distance.
+
+When Mary came in and they saw her face, they knew that Charlie was
+right. She tried to return their greetings in her usual manner but
+failed pitifully and hurried on to her room.
+
+The two men looked at each other without a word.
+
+Presently Mary returned and told them a part of her evening's
+experience. Soon after her father and brother had left the house for
+the meeting of their union, a boy from the Flats came with the word
+that the wife of one of Jake Vodell's followers was very ill. Mary,
+knowing the desperate need of the case but fearing to be alone in that
+neighborhood at night, had telephoned John at the Mill and he had taken
+her in his car to the place. The woman, in the agonies of childbirth,
+was alone with her three little girls. The husband and father was
+somewhere helping Jake Vodell in the agitator's noble effort to bring
+happiness to the laboring class. While Mary was doing what she could in
+the wretched home, John went for a doctor, and to bring fuel and
+blankets and food and other things that were needed. But, in spite of
+their efforts, the fighting methods of McIver and Vodell scored another
+point, that they each might claim with equal reason as in his favor--to
+God knows what end.
+
+"I can't understand why you Mill men let them go on," Mary cried, with
+a sudden outburst of feeling, as she finished her story. "You could
+fight for the women and children during the war. Whenever there is a
+shipwreck the papers are always full of the heroism of the men who cry
+'women and children first!' Why can't some one think of the women and
+children in these strikes? They are just as innocent as the women and
+children of Belgium. Why don't you talk on the streets and hold mass
+meetings and drive Jake Vodell and that beast McIver out of the
+country?"
+
+"Jake Vodell and McIver are both hoping that some one will do just
+that, Mary," returned Captain Charlie. "They would like nothing better
+than for some one to start a riot. You see, dear, an open clash would
+result in bloodshed--the troops would be called in by McIver, which is
+exactly what he wants. Vodell would provoke an attack on the soldiers,
+some one would be killed, and we would have exactly the sort of war
+against the government that he and his brotherhood are working for."
+
+The old workman spoke. "Charlie is right, daughter; these troubles will
+never be settled by McIver's way nor Vodell's way. They will be settled
+by the employers like John getting together and driving the McIvers out
+of business--and the employees like Charlie here and a lot of the men
+in our union getting together with John and his crowd and sending the
+Jake Vodells back to whatever country they came from." When her father
+spoke John's name, the young woman's face colored with a quick blush.
+The next moment, unable to control her overwrought emotions, she burst
+into tears and started to leave the room. But at the door Captain
+Charlie caught her in his arms and held her close until the first
+violence of her grief was over.
+
+When she had a little of her usual calmness, her brother whispered, "I
+know all about it, dear."
+
+She raised her head from his shoulder and looked at him with tearful
+doubt. "You know about--about John?" she said, wonderingly.
+
+"Yes," he whispered, with an encouraging smile, "I know--father and I
+were talking about it before you came home. I am going to leave you
+with him now. You must tell father, you know. Goodnight,
+dear--good-night, father."
+
+Slowly Mary turned back into the room. The old workman, sitting there
+in his big chair, held out his arms. With a little cry she ran to him
+as she had gone to him all the years of her life.
+
+When she had told him all--how John that very evening on their way home
+from the Flats had asked her to be his wife--and how she, in spite of
+her love for him, had forced herself to answer, "No," Pete Martin sat
+with his head bowed as one deep in thought.
+
+Mary, knowing her father's slow way, waited.
+
+When the old workman spoke at last it was almost as though, unconscious
+of his daughter's presence, he talked to himself. "Your mother and I
+used to think in the old days when you children were growing up
+together that some time perhaps the two families would be united. But
+when we watched Adam getting rich and saw what his money was doing to
+him and to his home, we got to be rather glad that you children were
+separated. We were so happy ourselves in our own little home here that
+we envied no man. We did not want wealth even for you and Charlie when
+we saw all that went with it. We did not dream that Adam's success
+could ever stand in the way of our children's happiness like this. But
+I guess that is the way it is, daughter. I remember the Interpreter's
+saying once that no man had a right to make even himself miserable
+because no man could be miserable alone."
+
+The old workman's voice grew still more reflective. "It was the new
+process that made Adam rich. He was no better man at the bench than I.
+I never considered him as my superior. He happened to be born with a
+different kind of a brain, that is all. And he thought more of money,
+while I cared more for other things. But there is a good reason why his
+money should not be permitted to stand between his children and my
+children. There is a lot of truth, after all, in Jake Vodell's talk
+about the rights of men who work with their hands. The law upholds Adam
+Ward in his possessions, I know. And it would uphold him Just the same
+if my children were starving. But the law don't make it right. There
+should be some way to make a man do what is right--law or no law. You
+and John--"
+
+"Father!" cried Mary, alarmed at his words. "Surely you are not going
+to hold with Jake Vodell about such things. What do you mean about
+making a man do what is right--law or no law?"
+
+"There, there, daughter," said the old workman, smiling. "I was just
+thinking out loud, I guess. It will be all right for you and John. Run
+along to bed now, and don't let a worry come, even into your dreams."
+
+"I would rather give John up a thousand times than have you like Jake
+Vodell," she said. "You shan't even _think_ that way."
+
+
+
+When she was gone, Peter Martin filled and lighted his pipe again, and
+for another hour sat alone.
+
+Whether or not his thoughts bore any relation to the doctrines of Jake
+Vodell, they led the old workman, on the following day, to pay a visit
+to Adam Ward at his home on the hill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+OLD FRIENDS
+
+
+It was Sunday morning and the church bells were ringing over the little
+city as the old workman climbed the hill to Adam Ward's estate.
+
+There was a touch of frost in the air. The hillside back of the
+interpreter's hut was brown. But the sun was bright and warm and in
+every quarter of the city the people were going to their appointed
+places of worship. The voice of the Mill was silenced.
+
+Pete wondered if he would find Adam at home. He had not thought about
+it when he left the cottage--his mind had been so filled with the
+object of his visit to the man who had once been his working comrade
+and friend.
+
+But Adam Ward was not at church.
+
+The Mill owner's habits of worship were very simply regulated. If the
+minister said things that pleased him, and showed a properly humble
+gratification at Adam's presence in the temple of God, Adam attended
+divine services. If the reverend teacher in the pulpit so far forgot
+himself as to say anything that jarred Adam's peculiar spiritual
+sensitiveness, or failed to greet this particular member of his flock
+with proper deference, Adam stayed at home and stopped his subscription
+to the cause. Nor did he ever fail to inform his pastor and the
+officers of the congregation as to the reason for his nonattendance;
+always, at the time, assuring them that whenever the minister would
+preach the truths that he wanted to hear, his weekly offerings to the
+Lord would be renewed. Thus Adam Ward was just and honest in his
+religious life as he was in his business dealings. He was ready always,
+to pay for that which he received, but, as a matter of principle, he
+was careful always to receive exactly what he paid for.
+
+This Sunday morning Adam Ward was at home.
+
+When Pete reached the entrance to the estate the heavy gates were
+closed. As Mary's father stood in doubt before the iron barrier a man
+appeared on the inside.
+
+"Good-morning, Uncle Pete," he said, in hearty greeting, when he saw
+who it was that sought admittance.
+
+"Good-morning, Henry--and what are you doing in there?" returned the
+workman, who had known the man from his boyhood.
+
+The other grinned. "Oh, I'm one of the guards at this institution now."
+
+Pete looked at him blankly. "Guards? What are you guarding, Henry?"
+
+Standing close to the iron bars of the gate, Henry glanced over his
+shoulder before he answered in a low, cautious tone, "Adam."
+
+The old workman was shocked. "What! you don't mean it!" He shook his
+grizzly head sadly. "I hadn't heard that he was that bad."
+
+Henry laughed. "We're not keepin' the old boy in, Uncle Pete--not yet.
+So far, our orders are only to keep people out. Dangerous people, I
+mean--the kind that might want to run away with the castle, or steal a
+look at the fountain, or sneak a smell of the flowers or something--y'
+understand."
+
+Pete smiled. "How do you like your job, Henry?"
+
+"Oh, it's all right just now when the strike is on. But was you wantin'
+to come in, Uncle Pete, or just passing' by?"
+
+"I wanted to see Adam if I could."
+
+The man swung open the gate. "Help yourself, Uncle Pete, just so you
+don't stick a knife into him or blow him up with a bomb or poison him
+or something." He pointed toward that part of the grounds where Helen
+had watched her father from the arbor. "You'll find him over there
+somewhere, I think. I saw him headed that way a few minutes ago. The
+rest of the family are gone to church."
+
+"Is Adam's life really threatened, Henry?" asked Pete, as he stepped
+inside and the gates were closed behind him.
+
+"Search me," returned the guard, indifferently. "I expect if the truth
+were known it ought to be by rights. He sure enough thinks it is,
+though. Why, Uncle Pete, there can't a butterfly flit over these
+grounds that Adam ain't a yellin' how there's an aeroplane a sailin'
+around lookin' fer a chance to drop a monkey wrench on his head or
+something."
+
+"Poor Adam!" murmured the old workman. "What a way to live!"
+
+"Live?" echoed the guard. "It ain't livin' at all--it's just bein' in
+hell before your time, that's what it is--if you ask me."
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Peter Martin, making his slow way through the beautiful grounds,
+first caught sight of his old bench mate, Adam was pacing slowly to and
+fro across a sunny open space of lawn. As he walked, the Mill owner was
+talking to himself and moving his arms and hands in those continuous
+gestures that seemed so necessary to any expression of his thoughts.
+Once Pete heard him laugh. And something in the mirthless sound made
+the old workman pause. It was then that Adam saw him.
+
+There was no mistaking the sudden fear that for a moment seemed to
+paralyze the man. His gray face turned a sickly white, his eyes were
+staring, his jaw dropped, his body shook as if with a chill. He looked
+about as if he would call for help, and started as if to seek safety in
+flight.
+
+"Good-morning, Adam Ward," said Pete Martin.
+
+And at the gentle kindliness in the workman's voice Adam's manner, with
+a suddenness that was startling, changed. With an elaborate show of
+friendliness he came eagerly forward. His gray face, twitching with
+nervous excitement, beamed with joyous welcome. As he hurried across
+the bit of lawn between them, he waved his arms and rubbed his hands
+together in an apparent ecstasy of gladness at this opportunity to
+receive such an honored guest. His voice trembled with high-pitched
+assurance of his happiness in the occasion. He laughed as one who could
+not contain himself.
+
+"Well, well, well--to think that you have actually come to see me at
+last." He grasped the workman's hand in both his own with a grip that
+was excessive in its hearty energy. With affectionate familiarity he
+almost shouted, "You old scoundrel! I can't believe it is you. Where
+have you been keeping yourself? How are Charlie and Mary? Lord, but
+it's good to see you here in my own home like this."
+
+While Pete was trying to make some adequate reply to this effusive and
+startling reception, Adam looked cautiously about to see if there were
+any chance observers lurking near.
+
+Satisfied that no one was watching, he said, nervously, "Come on, let's
+sit over here where we can talk." And with his hand on Pete's arm, he
+led his caller to lawn chairs that were in the open, well beyond
+hearing of any curious ear in the shrubbery.
+
+Giving the workman opportunity for no more than an occasional
+monosyllable in reply, he poured forth a flood of information about his
+estate: The architectural features of his house--the cost; the
+loveliness of his trees--the cost; the coloring of his flowers--the
+cost; the magnificence of his view, And all the while he studied his
+caller's face with sharp, furtive glances, trying to find some clew to
+the purpose of the workman's visit.
+
+Peter Martin's steady eyes, save for occasional glances at the objects
+of Adam's interest as Adam pointed them out, were fixed on the Mill
+owner with a half-wondering, half-pitying expression. Adam's evident
+nervousness increased. He talked of his Mill--how he had built it up
+from nothing almost, to its present magnitude--of the city and what he
+had done for the people.
+
+The old workman listened without comment.
+
+At last, apparently unable to endure the suspense a moment longer, Adam
+Ward said, nervously, "Well, Pete, out with it! What do you want? I can
+guess what you are here for. We might as well get done with it."
+
+In his slow, thoughtful manner of speech that was so different from the
+Mill owner's agitated expressions, the old workman said, "I have wanted
+for nothing, Adam. We have been contented and happy in our little home.
+But now," he paused as if his thoughts were loath to form themselves
+into words.
+
+The last vestige of pretense left Adam Ward's face as suddenly as if he
+had literally dropped a mask. "It's a good thing you have been
+satisfied," he said, coldly. "You had better continue to be. You know
+that you owe everything you have in the world to me! You need not
+expect anything more."
+
+"Have you not made a big profit on every hour's work that I have done
+in your Mill, Adam?"
+
+"Whatever profit I have or have not made on your work is none of your
+business, sir," retorted Adam. "I have given you a job all these years.
+I could have thrown you out. You haven't a thing on earth that you did
+not buy with the checks you received from me. I have worn myself
+out--made an invalid of myself--building up the business that has
+enabled you and the rest of my employees to make a living. Every cent
+that I ever received from that new process I put back into the Mill.
+You have had more out of it than I ever did."
+
+Peter Martin looked slowly about at the evidence of Adam Ward's wealth.
+When he again faced the owner of the estate he spoke as if doubting
+that he had heard him clearly. "But the Mill is yours, Adam?" he said,
+at last. "And all this is yours. How--where did it come from?"
+
+"Certainly the Mill is mine. Didn't I make it what it is? As for the
+place here--it came from the profits of my business, of course. You
+know I was nothing but a common workman when I started out."
+
+"I know," returned Pete. "And it was the new process that enabled you
+to get control of the Mill--to buy it and build it up--wasn't it? If
+you hadn't happened to have had the process the Mill would have made
+all this for some one else, wouldn't it? We never dreamed that the
+process would grow into such a big thing for anybody when we used to
+talk it over in the old days, did we, Adam?"
+
+Adam Ward looked cautiously around at the shrubbery that encircled the
+bit of lawn. There was no one to be seen within hearing distance.
+
+When he faced his companion again the Mill owner's eyes were blazing,
+but he controlled his voice by a supreme effort of will. "Look here,
+Pete, I'm not going even to discuss that matter with you. I have kept
+you on at the Mill and taken care of you all these years because of our
+old friendship and because I was sorry for you. But if you don't
+appreciate what I have done for you, if you attempt to start any talk
+or anything I'll throw you and Charlie out of your jobs to-morrow. And
+I'll fix it, too, so you will never either of you get another day's
+work in Millsburgh. That process is my property. No one has any
+interest in the patents in any way. I have it tied up so tight that all
+the courts in the world couldn't take it away from me. Law is law and I
+propose to keep what the law says is mine. I have thousands of dollars
+to spend in defense of my legal rights where you have dimes. You
+needn't whine about moral obligations either. The only obligations that
+are of any force in business are legal! If you haven't brains enough to
+look after your own interests you can't expect any one else to look
+after them for you."
+
+When Adam Ward finished his countenance was distorted with hate and
+fear. Before this simple, kindly old workman, in whose honest soul
+there was no shadow of a wish to harm any one in any way, the Mill
+owner was like a creature of evil at bay.
+
+"I did not come to talk of the past, Adam Ward," said Pete, sadly. "And
+I didn't come to threaten you or to ask anything for myself."
+
+At the gentle sadness of his old friend's manner and words, Adam's eyes
+gleamed with vicious triumph. "Well, out with it!" he demanded,
+harshly. "What are you here for?"
+
+"Your boy and my girl love each other, Adam."
+
+An ugly grin twisted the gray lips of Pete's employer.
+
+But Mary's father went on as though he had not seen. "The children were
+raised together, Adam. I have always thought of John almost as if he
+were my own son. It seems exactly right that he should want Mary and
+that she should want him. There is no man in the world I would rather
+it would be."
+
+Adam listened, still grinning, as the old workman continued in his
+slow, quiet speech.
+
+"I never cared before for all that the new process made for you. You
+wanted money--I didn't. But it don't seem right that what you
+have--considering how you got it--should stand in the way of Mary's
+happiness. I understand that there is nothing I can do about it, but I
+thought that, considering everything, you might be willing to--"
+
+Adam Ward laughed aloud--laughed until the tears of his insane glee
+filled his eyes. "So that's your game," he said, at last, when he could
+speak. "You hadn't brains enough to protect yourself to start out with
+and you have found out that you haven't a chance in the world against
+me in the courts. So you try to make it by setting your girl up to
+catch John."
+
+"You must stop that sort of talk, Adam Ward." Peter Martin was on his
+feet, and there was that in his usually stolid countenance which made
+the Mill owner shrink back. "I was a fool, as you say. But my mistake
+was that I trusted you. I believed in your pretended friendship for me.
+I thought you were as honest and honorable as you seemed to be. I
+didn't know that your religion was all such a rotten sham. I have never
+cared that you grew rich while I remained poor. All these years I have
+been sorry for you because I have had so much of the happiness and
+contentment and peace that you have lost. But you must understand, sir,
+that there are some things that I will do in defense of my children
+that I would not do in defense of myself."
+
+Adam, white and trembling, drew still farther away. "Be careful," he
+cried, "I can call half a dozen men before you can move."
+
+Pete continued as if the other had not spoken. "There is no reason in
+the world why John and Mary should not marry."
+
+Adam Ward's insane hatred for the workman and his evil joy over this
+opportunity to make his old comrade suffer was stronger even than his
+fear. With another snarling laugh he retorted, viciously, "There is the
+best reason in the world why they will never marry. _I_ am the reason,
+Pete Martin! And I'd like to see you try to do anything about it."
+
+Mary's father answered, slowly, "I do not understand your hatred for
+me, Adam. All these years I have been loyal to you. I have never talked
+of our affairs to any one--"
+
+Adam interrupted him with a burst of uncontrollable rage. "_Talk_, you
+fool! Talk all you please. Tell everybody anything you like. Who will
+believe you? You will only get yourself laughed at for being the
+short-sighted idiot you were. That process is patented in my name. I
+own it. You don't need to keep still on my account, but I tell you
+again that if you do try to start anything I'll ruin you and I'll ruin
+your children." Suddenly, as if in fear that his rage would carry him
+too far, his manner changed and he spoke with forced coldness. "I am
+sorry that I cannot continue this interview, Pete. You have all that
+you will ever get from me--children or no children. Go on about your
+business as usual and you may hold your job in the Mill as long as you
+are able to do your work. I had thought that I might give you some sort
+of a little pension when you got too old to keep up your end with the
+rest of the men."
+
+And then Adam Ward added the crowning insolent expression of his insane
+and arrogant egotism. With a pious smirk of his gray, twitching face,
+he said, "I want you to know, too, Pete, that you can approach me any
+time without any feeling of humiliation."
+
+He turned abruptly away and a moment later the old workman, watching,
+saw him disappear behind some tall bushes.
+
+As Pete Martin went slowly back to the entrance gate he did not know
+that the owner of the estate was watching him. From bush to bush Adam
+crept with the stealthy care of a wild creature, following its
+prey--never taking his eyes from his victim, save for quick glances
+here and there to see that he himself was not observed. Not until Pete
+had passed from sight down the hill road did Adam appear openly. Then,
+going to the watchman at the gate, he berated him for admitting the old
+workman and threatened him with the loss of his position if he so
+offended Again.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Peter Martin arrived home he found Jake Vodell and Charlie
+discussing the industrial situation. The strike leader had come once
+more to try to enlist the support of the old workman and his son in his
+war against the employer class.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+A LAST CHANCE
+
+
+Jake Vodell greeted the old workman cordially. "You have been to church
+this fine morning, I suppose, heh?" he said, with a sneering laugh that
+revealed how little his interview with Captain Charlie was contributing
+to his satisfaction.
+
+"No," returned Pete. "I did not attend church this morning--I do go,
+though, generally."
+
+"Oh-ho! you worship the God of your good master Adam Ward, I suppose."
+
+But Pete Martin was in no way disturbed by the man's sarcasm. "No," he
+said, slowly, "I do not think that Adam and I worship the same God."
+
+"Is it so? But when the son goes to war so bravely and fights for his
+masters one would expect the father to say his prayers to his masters'
+God, heh?"
+
+Captain Charlie retorted, sharply, "The men who fought in the war
+fought for this nation--for every citizen in it. We fought for McIver
+just as we fought for Sam Whaley. Our loyalty in this industrial
+question is exactly the same. We will save the industries of this
+country for every citizen alike because our national life is at stake.
+Did you ever hear of a sailor refusing to man the pumps on a sinking
+ship because the vessel was not his personal property?"
+
+"Bah!" growled Jake Vodell. "Your profession of loyalty to your country
+amuses me. _Your_ country! It is McIver's country--Adam Ward's country,
+I tell you. It is my little band of live, aggressive heroes who are the
+loyal ones. We are the ones who will save the industries, but we will
+save them for the laboring people alone. And you shirkers in your Mill
+workers' union are willing to stand aside and let us do your fighting
+for you. Have you no pride for your class at all?"
+
+"Oh, yes," returned Captain Charlie, "we have plenty of class pride.
+Only you see, Vodell, we don't consider ourselves in your class. You
+are no more loyal to the principles of our American unions than you are
+to the principles of our government. You don't represent our unions.
+You represent something foreign to the interests of every American
+citizen. You are trying to use our unions in your business, that is
+all. And because you manage to get hold of a few poor fellows like Sam
+Whaley, you think you can lead the working people. If you really think
+our loyalty to our country is a joke, drop in at an American Legion
+meeting some evening--bring along your foreign flag and all your
+foreign friends. I'll promise you a welcome that will, I think,
+convince you that we have some class pride after all."
+
+The agitator rose heavily to his feet. "It is your friendship with this
+John Ward that makes you turn from your own class. I have known how it
+would be with you. But it is no matter. You shall see. We will make a
+demonstration in Millsburgh that will win the men of your union in
+spite of you and your crippled old basket maker. If you had a personal
+grievance against Adam Ward as so many others have you would be with me
+fast enough. But he and his son have made you blind with their
+pretended kindness."
+
+Pete Martin spoke now with a dignity and pride that moved Captain
+Charlie deeply. "Mr. Vodell, you are wrong. My son is too big to be
+influenced in this matter by any personal consideration. Whatever there
+is that is personal between Charlie and John or between Adam Ward and
+myself will never be brought into this controversy."
+
+Jake Vodell shrugged his heavy shoulders. "Very well--I will go now.
+You will see that in the end the working people will know who are for
+their interests and who are against them, and we will know, too, how to
+reward our friends and punish our enemies. I am sorry. I have given you
+to-day your last chance. You have a pretty little place here, heh?"
+
+There was a look in his dark face, as he gazed about appraisingly, that
+made Captain Charlie go a step toward him. "_You_ have given us our
+last chance? Is this a sample of the freedom that you offer so
+eloquently to the people? Instead of the imperialist McIver we are to
+have the imperialist Vodell, are we? Between the two of you I prefer
+McIver. He is at least sane enough to be constructive in his
+imperialism. My father and I have lived here all our lives, as most of
+our neighbors have. The majority of the workmen in this community own
+their homes just as we do. We are a part of the life of this city. What
+have you at stake? Where is your home and family? What is your
+nationality? What is your record of useful industry? Before you talk
+about giving a last chance to workmen like my father you will need to
+produce the credentials of your authority. We have your number, Jake
+Vodell. You may as well go back to the land where you belong, if you
+belong anywhere on earth. You will never hang your colors in the union
+Mill workers' hall. We have a flag there now that suits us. The chance
+you offer, last or first, is too darned big a chance for any sane
+American workman to monkey with."
+
+Jake Vodell answered harshly as he turned to go. "At least I know now
+for sure who it is that makes the Mill workers such traitors to their
+class." He looked at Pete. "Your son has made his position very clear.
+We shall see now how bravely the noble Captain will hold his ground. As
+for you, well--always the old father can pray to his God for his son.
+It is so, heh?"
+
+Quickly the man passed through the white gate and disappeared down the
+street toward the Flats.
+
+"I am afraid that fellow means trouble, son," said Pete, slowly.
+
+"Trouble," echoed Captain Charlie, "Jake Vodell has never meant
+anything but trouble."
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+Adam Ward did not join his family when they returned from church. A
+nervous headache kept him in his room.
+
+In the afternoon John went for a long drive into the country. He felt
+that he must be alone--that he must think things out, for both Mary and
+himself.
+
+As he looked back on it all now, it seemed to him that he had always
+loved this girl companion of his old-house days. In his boyhood he had
+accepted her as a part of his daily life just as he had accepted his
+sister. Those years of his schooling had been careless, thoughtless
+years, and followed, as they were, by his war experience, they seemed
+now to have had so small a part in the whole that they scarcely counted
+at all. His renewed comradeship with Charlie in the army had renewed
+also, through the letters that Charlie always shared with him, his
+consciousness of Mary. In the months just passed his love had ripened
+and become a definite thing, fixed and certain in his own mind and
+heart as the fact of life itself. He had no more thought of accepting
+as final Mary's answer than he had of turning the management of the
+Mill over to Jake Vodell or to Sam Whaley. But still there were things
+that he must think out.
+
+On that favorite hillside spot where he and Charlie had spent so many
+hours discussing their industrial problems, John faced squarely the
+questions raised by Mary's "no."
+
+Through the chill of the fall twilight John went home to spend the
+evening with his mother. But he did not speak to her of Mary. He could
+not, somehow, in the house that was so under the shadow of that hidden
+thing.
+
+His father was still in his room.
+
+On his way to his own apartment after his mother had retired, John
+stopped at his father's door to knock gently and ask if there was
+anything that he could do.
+
+The answer came, "No, I will be all right--let me alone."
+
+Later Helen returned from somewhere with McIver. Then John heard McIver
+leaving and Helen going to her mother for their usual good-night visit.
+
+Seeing the light under his door, as she passed, she tapped the panel
+and called softly that it was tune all good little boys were fast
+asleep.
+
+It was an hour, perhaps, after John had gone to bed that he was
+awakened by the sound of some one stealing quietly into his room.
+Against the dim night light in the hall, he caught the outline of an
+arm and shoulder as the intruder carefully closed the door. Reaching
+out to the lamp at the head of his bed, he snapped on the light and
+sprang to his feet.
+
+"Father!"
+
+"Sh--be careful, John, they will hear you!" Adam Ward's gray face was
+ghastly with nervous excitement and fear, and he was shaking as with a
+chill.
+
+"No one must know I told you," he whispered, "but the new process is
+the source of everything we have--the Mill and everything. If it wasn't
+for my patent rights we would have nothing. You and I would be working
+in the Mill just like Pete and his boy."
+
+John spoke soothingly. "Yes, father, I understand, but it will be all
+right--I'll take care of it."
+
+Adam chuckled. "They're after it. But I've got it all sewed up so tight
+they can't touch it. That old fool, Pete, was here to feel me out
+to-day."
+
+"Pete--here!"
+
+Adam grinned. "While you folks were at church."
+
+"But what did he want, father?"
+
+"They've got a new scheme now. They've set Mary after you. They figure
+that if the girl can land you they'll get a chance at what I have made
+out of the process that way. I told him you was too smart to be caught
+like that. But you've got to watch them. They'll do anything."
+
+In spite of his pity for his father, John Ward drew from him, overcome
+by a feeling of disgust and shame which he could not wholly control.
+
+Adam, unconscious of his son's emotions, went on. "I've made it all in
+spite of them, John, but I've had to watch them. They'll be after you
+now that I have turned things over to you, just as they have been after
+me. They'll never get it, though. They'll never get a penny of it. I'll
+destroy the Mill and everything before I'll give up a dollar of what
+I've made."
+
+John Ward could not speak. It was too monstrous--too horrible. As one
+in a hideous dream, he listened. What was back of it all? Why did his
+father in his spells of nervous excitement always rave so about the
+patented process? Why did he hate Pete Martin so bitterly? What was
+this secret thing that was driving Adam Ward insane?
+
+Thinking to find an answer to these perplexing questions, if there was
+any answer other than the Mill owner's mental condition, John forced
+himself to the pretense of sharing his father's fears. He agreed with
+Adam's arraignment of Pete, echoed his father's expression of hatred
+for the old workman, thanked Adam for warning him, boasted of his own
+ability to see through their tricks and schemes and to protect the
+property his father had accumulated.
+
+In this vein they talked in confidential whispers until John felt that
+he could venture the question, "Just what is it about the process that
+they are after, father? If I knew the exact history of the thing I
+would be in a much better position to handle the situation as you want,
+wouldn't I?"
+
+Adam Ward's manner changed instantly. With a look of sly cunning he
+studied John's face. "There is nothing about the process, son," he
+said, steadily. "You know all there is to know about it now."
+
+But when John, thinking that his father had regained his self-control,
+urged him to go back to his bed, Adam's painful agitation returned.
+
+For some moments he paced to and fro as if in nervous indecision, then,
+going close to John, he said in a low, half whisper, "John, there is
+something else I wanted to ask you. You have been to college and over
+there in the war, you must have seen a lot of men die--" He paused.
+"Yes, yes, you must have been close to death a good many times. Tell
+me, John, do you believe that there is anything after--I mean anything
+beyond this life? Does a man's conscious existence go on when he is
+dead?"
+
+"Yes," said John, wondering at this apparent change in his father's
+thought. "I believe in a life beyond this. You believe in it, too,
+don't you, father?"
+
+"Of course," returned Adam. "We can't know, though, for sure, can we?
+But, anyway, a man would be foolish to risk it, wouldn't he?"
+
+"To risk what, father?"
+
+"To risk the chance of there being no hell," came the startling answer.
+"My folks raised me to believe in hell, and the preachers all teach it.
+And if there should be such a place of eternal torment a man would be a
+fool not to fix up some way to get out of it, wouldn't he?"
+
+John did not know what to say.
+
+Adam Ward leaned closer to his son and with an air of secrecy
+whispered, "That's exactly what I've done, John--I've worked out a
+scheme to tie God up in a contract that will force Him to save me. The
+old Interpreter gave me the idea. You see if it should turn out that
+there is no hell my plan can't do any harm and if there is a hell it
+makes me safe anyway."
+
+He chuckled with insane satisfaction. "They say that God knows
+everything--that nobody can figure out a way to beat Him, but I have--I
+have worked out a deal with God that is bound to give me the best of
+it. I've got Him tied up so tight that He'll be bound to save me. Some
+people think I'm crazy, but you wait, my boy--they'll find out how
+crazy I am. They'll never get me into hell. I have been figuring on
+this ever since the Interpreter told me I had better make a contract
+with God. And after Pete left this morning I got it all settled. A man
+can't afford to take any chances with God and so I made this deal with
+Him. Hell or no hell, I'm safe. God don't get the best of me,--And you
+are safe, too, son, with the new process, if you look after your own
+interests, as I have done, and don't overlook any opportunities. I
+wanted to tell you about this so you wouldn't worry about me. I'll go
+back to bed now. Don't tell mother and Helen what we have been talking
+about. No use to worry them--they couldn't understand anyway. And don't
+forget, John, what Pete told me about Mary. Their scheme won't work of
+course. I know you are too smart for them. But just the same you've got
+to be on your guard against her all the time. Never take any
+unnecessary chances. Don't talk over a deal with a man when any one can
+hear. If you are careful to have no witnesses when you arrange a deal
+you are absolutely safe. It is what you can slip into the written
+contract that counts--once you get your man's signature. That's always
+been my way. And now I have even put one over on God."
+
+He stole cautiously out of the room and back to his own apartment.
+
+Outside his father's door John waited, listening, until he was
+convinced that sleep had at last come to the exhausted man.
+
+Late that same Sunday evening, when the street meeting held by Jake
+Vodell was over, there was another meeting in the room back of the pool
+hall. The men who sat around that table with the agitator were not
+criminals--they were workmen. Sam Whaley and two others were men with
+families. They were all American citizens, but they were under the
+spell of their leader's power. They had been prepared for that
+leadership by the industrial policies of McIver and Adam Ward.
+
+This meeting of that inner circle was in no way authorized by the
+unions. The things they said Sam Whaley would not have dared to say
+openly in the Mill workers' organization. The plans they proposed to
+carry out in the name of the unions they were compelled to make in
+secret. In their mad, fanatical acceptance of the dreams that Vodell
+wrought for them; in their blind obedience to the leadership he had so
+cleverly established; in their reckless disregard of the consequences
+under the spell of his promised protection, they were as insane, in
+fact, as the owner of the Mill himself.
+
+The supreme, incredible, pitiful tragedy of it all was this: That these
+workmen committed themselves to the plans of Jake Vodell in the name of
+their country's workmen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE FLATS
+
+
+Helen Ward knew that she could not put off much longer giving McIver a
+definite answer. When she was with him, the things that so disturbed
+her mind and heart were less real--she was able to see things clearly
+from the point of view to which she had been trained. Her father's
+mental condition was nothing more than a nervous trouble resulting from
+overwork--John's ideals were highly creditable to his heart and she
+loved him dearly for them, but they were wholly impossible in a world
+where certain class standards must be maintained--the Mill took again
+its old vague, indefinite place in her life--the workman Charlie Martin
+must live only in her girlhood memories, those secretly sad memories
+that can have no part in the grown-up present and must not be permitted
+to enter into one's consideration of the future. In short, the presence
+of McIver always banished effectually the Helen of the old house: with
+him the daughter of Adam Ward was herself.
+
+And Helen was tempted by this feeling of relief to speak the decisive
+word that would finally put an end to her indecision and bring at least
+the peace of certainty to her troubled mind. In the light of her
+education and environment, there was every reason why she should say,
+"Yes" to McIver's insistent pleadings. There was no shadow of a reason
+why she should refuse him. One word and the Helen of the old house
+would be banished forever--the princess lady would reign undisturbed.
+
+And yet, for some reason, that word was not spoken. Helen told herself
+that she would speak it. But on each occasion she put it off. And
+always when the man was gone and she was alone, in spite of the return
+in full force of all her disturbing thoughts and emotions, she was glad
+that she had not committed herself irrevocably--that she was still
+free.
+
+She had never felt the appeal of all that McIver meant to her as she
+felt it that Sunday. She had never been more disturbed and unhappy than
+she was the following day when John told her a little of his midnight
+experience with their father and how Adam's excitement had been caused
+by Peter Martin's visit. All of which led her, early in the afternoon,
+to the Interpreter.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+She found the old basket maker working with feverish energy. Billy Rand
+at the bench in the corner of the room was as busy with his part of
+their joint industry.
+
+It was the Interpreter's habit, when Helen was with him, to lay aside
+his work. But of late he had continued the occupation of his hands even
+as he talked with her. She had noticed this, as women always notice
+such things--but that was all. On this day, when the old man in the
+wheel chair failed to give her his undivided attention, something in
+his manner impressed the trivial incident more sharply on her mind.
+
+He greeted her kindly, as always, but while she was conscious of no
+lack of warmth in his welcome, she felt in the deep tones of that
+gentle voice a sadness that moved her to quick concern. The dark eyes
+that never failed to light with pleasure at her coming were filled with
+weary pain. The strong face was thin and tired. As he bent his white
+head over the work in his lap he seemed to have grown suddenly very
+weak and old.
+
+With an awakened mind, the young woman looked curiously about the room.
+
+She had never seen it so filled with materials and with finished
+baskets. The table with the big lamp and the magazines and papers had
+been moved into the far corner against the book shelves, as though he
+had now neither time nor thought for reading. The floor was covered
+thick with a litter of chips and shavings. Even silent Billy's face was
+filled with anxiety and troubled care as he looked from Helen to his
+old companion in the wheel chair and slowly turned back to his work on
+the bench.
+
+"What is the matter here?" she demanded, now thoroughly aroused.
+
+"Matter?" returned the Interpreter. "Is there anything wrong here,
+Helen?"
+
+"You are not well," she insisted. "You look all worn out--as if you had
+not slept for weeks--what is it?"
+
+"Oh, that is nothing," he answered, with a smile. "Billy and I have
+been working overtime a little--that is all."
+
+"But why?" she demanded, "why must you wear yourself out like this?
+Surely there is no need for you to work so hard, day and night."
+
+He answered as if he were not sure that he had heard her aright. "No
+need, Helen? Surely, child, you cannot be so ignorant of the want that
+exists within sight of your home?"
+
+She returned his look wonderingly. "You mean the strike?"
+
+Bending over his work again, the old basket maker answered,
+sorrowfully, "Yes, Helen, I mean the strike."
+
+There was something in the Interpreter's manner--something in the
+weary, drooping figure in that wheel chair--in the tired, deep-lined
+face--in the pain-filled eyes and the gentle voice that went to the
+deeps of Helen Ward's woman heart.
+
+With her, as with every one in Millsburgh, the strike was a topic of
+daily conversation. She sympathized with her brother in his anxiety.
+She was worried over the noticeable effect of the excitement upon her
+father. She was interested in McIver's talk of the situation. But in no
+vital way had her life been touched by the industrial trouble. In no
+way had she come in actual contact with it. The realities of the
+situation were to her vague, intangible, remote from her world, as
+indeed the Mill itself had been, before her visit with John that day.
+To her, the Interpreter was of all men set apart from the world. In his
+little hut on the cliff, with his books and his basket making, her
+gentle old friend's life, it seemed to her, held not one thing in
+common with the busy world that lay within sight of the balcony-porch.
+The thought that the industrial trouble could in any way touch him came
+to her with a distinct shock.
+
+"Surely," she protested, at last, "the strike cannot affect you. It has
+nothing to do with your work."
+
+"Every strike has to do with all work everywhere, child," returned the
+man in the wheel chair, while his busy fingers wove the fabric of a
+basket. "Every idle hand in the world, Helen, whatever the cause of its
+idleness, compels some other's hand to do its work. The work of the
+world must be done, child--somehow, by some one--the work of the world
+must be done. The little Maggies and Bobbies of the Flats down there
+must be fed, you know--and their mother too--yes, and Sam Whaley
+himself must be cared for. And so you see, because of the strike, Billy
+and I must work overtime."
+
+Certainly there was no hint of rebuke in the old basket maker's kindly
+voice, but the daughter of Adam Ward felt her cheeks flush with a quick
+sense of shame. That her old friend in the wheel chair should so accept
+the responsibility of his neighbor's need and give himself thus to help
+them, while she--
+
+"Is there," she faltered, "is there really so much suffering among the
+strikers?"
+
+Without raising his eyes from his work, he answered, "The women and
+children--they are so helpless."
+
+"I--I did not realize," she murmured. "I did not know."
+
+"You were not ignorant of the helpless women and children who suffered
+in foreign lands," he returned. "Why should you not know of the mothers
+and babies in Millsburgh?"
+
+"But McIver says--" she hesitated.
+
+The Interpreter caught up her words. "McIver says that by feeding the
+starving families of the strikers the strike is prolonged. He relies
+upon the hunger and cold and sickness of the women and children for his
+victory. And Jake Vodell relies upon the suffering in the families of
+his followers for that desperate frenzy of class hatred, without which
+he cannot gain his end. Does McIver want for anything? No! Is Jake
+Vodell in need? No! It is not the imperialistic leaders in these
+industrial wars who pay the price. It is always the little Bobbies and
+Maggies who pay. The people of America stood aghast with horror when an
+unarmed passenger ship was torpedoed or a defenseless village was
+bombed by order of a ruthless Kaiser; but we permit these Kaisers of
+capital and labor to carry on their industrial wars without a thought
+of the innocent ones who must suffer under their ruthless policies."
+
+He paused; then, with no trace of bitterness, but only sadness in his
+voice, he added, "You say you do not know, child--and yet, you could
+know so easily if you would. Little Bobby and Maggie do not live in a
+far-off land across the seas. They live right over there in the shadow
+of your father's Mill--the Mill which supplies you, Helen, with every
+material need and luxury of your life."
+
+As if she could bear to hear no more, Helen rose quickly and went from
+the room to stand on the balcony-porch.
+
+It was not so much the Interpreter's words--it was rather the spirit in
+which they were spoken that moved her so deeply. By her own heart she
+was judged. "For every idle hand," he had said. Her hands were idle
+hands. Her old white-haired friend in his wheel chair was doing her
+work. His crippled body drooped with weariness over his task because
+she did nothing. His face was lined with care because she was careless
+of the need that burdened him. His eyes were filled with sadness and
+pain because she was indifferent--because she did not know--had not
+cared to know.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sun was almost down that afternoon when Bobby Whaley came out of
+the wretched house that was his home to stand on the front doorstep.
+The dingy, unpainted buildings of the Flats--the untidy hovels and
+shanties--the dilapidated fences and broken sidewalks--unlovely at
+best, in the long shadows of the failing day, were sinister with the
+gloom of poverty.
+
+High above the Mill the twisting columns of smoke from the tall stacks
+caught the last of the sunlight and formed slow, changing
+cloud-shapes--rolling hills of brightness with soft, shadowy valleys
+and canyons of mysterious depths between--towering domes and crags and
+castled heights--grim, foreboding, beautiful.
+
+The boy who stood on the steps, looking so listlessly about, was not
+the daring adventurer who had so boldly led his sister up the zigzag
+steps to the Interpreter's hut. He was not the Bobby who had ridden in
+such triumph beside the princess lady so far into the unknown country.
+His freckled face was thin and pinched. The skin was drawn tight over
+the high cheek bones and the eyes were wide and staring. His young body
+that had been so sturdy was gaunt and skeletonlike. The dirty rags that
+clothed him were scarcely enough to hide his nakedness. The keen autumn
+air that had put the flush of good red blood into the cheeks of the
+golfers at the country club that afternoon whirled about his bare feet
+and legs with stinging cruelty. His thin lips and wasted limbs were
+blue with cold. Turning slowly, he seemed about to reenter the house,
+but when his hand touched the latch he paused and once more uncertainly
+faced toward the street. There was no help for him in his home. He knew
+no other place to go for food or shelter.
+
+As the boy again looked hopelessly about the wretched neighborhood, he
+saw a woman coming down the street. He could tell, even at that
+distance, that the lady was a stranger to the Flats. Her dress, simple
+as it was, and her veil marked her as a resident of some district more
+prosperous than that grimy community in the shadow of the Mill.
+
+A flash of momentary interest lighted the hungry eyes of the lad. But,
+no, it could not be one of the charity workers--the charity ladies
+always came earlier in the day and always in automobiles.
+
+Then he saw the stranger stop and speak to a boy in front of a house
+two doors away. The neighbor boy pointed toward Bobby and the lady came
+on, walking quickly as if she were a little frightened at being alone
+amid such surroundings.
+
+At the gap where once had been a gate in the dilapidated fence, she
+turned in toward the house and the wondering boy on the front step. She
+was within a few feet of the lad when she stopped suddenly with a low
+exclamation.
+
+Bobby thought that she had discovered her mistake in coming to the
+wrong place. But the next moment she was coming closer, and he heard,
+"Bobby, is that really you! You poor child, have you been ill?"
+
+"_I_ ain't been sick, if that's what yer mean," returned the boy. "Mag
+is, though. She's worse to-day."
+
+His manner was sullenly defiant, as if the warmly dressed stranger had
+in some way revealed herself as his enemy.
+
+"Don't you know me, Bobby?"
+
+"Not with yer face covered up like that, I don't."
+
+She laughed nervously and raised her veil.
+
+"Huh, it's you, is it? Funny--Mag's been a-talkin' about her princess
+lady all afternoon. What yer doin' here?"
+
+Before this hollow-cheeked skeleton of a boy Helen Ward felt strangely
+like one who, conscious of guilt, is brought suddenly into the presence
+of a stern judge.
+
+"Why, Bobby," she faltered, "I--I came to see you and Maggie--I was at
+the Interpreter's this afternoon and he told me--I mean something he
+said made me want to come."
+
+"The Interpreter, he's all right," said the boy. "So's Mary Martin."
+
+"Aren't you just a little glad to see me, Bobby?"
+
+The boy did not seem to hear. "Funny the way Mag talks about yer all
+the time. She's purty sick all right. Peterson's baby, it died."
+
+"Can't we go into the house and see Maggie? You must be nearly frozen
+standing out here in the cold."
+
+"Huh, I'm used to freezin'--I guess yer can come on in though--if yer
+want to. Mebbe Mag 'd like to see yer."
+
+He pushed open the door, and she followed him into the ghastly
+barrenness of the place that he knew as home.
+
+Never before had the daughter of Adam Ward viewed such naked, cruel
+poverty. She shuddered with the horror of it. It was so unreal--so
+unbelievable.
+
+A small, rusty cookstove with no fire--a rude table with no cloth--a
+rickety cupboard with its shelves bare save for a few dishes--two
+broken-backed chairs--that was all. No, it was not all--on a window
+ledge, beneath a bundle of rags that filled the opening left by a
+broken pane, was a small earthen flowerpot holding a single scraggly
+slip of geranium.
+
+Helen seemed to hear again the Interpreter saying, "A girl with true
+instincts for the best things of life and a capacity for great
+happiness."
+
+At Bobby's call, Mrs. Whaley came from another room.
+
+The boy did not even attempt an introduction but stood sullenly aside,
+waiting developments, and the mother in her pitiful distress evidently
+failed to identify their visitor when Helen introduced herself.
+
+"I'm pleased to meet you, ma'am," she said, mechanically, and gazed at
+the young woman with a stony indifference, as though her mind, deadened
+by fearful anxiety and physical suffering, refused even to wonder at
+the stranger's presence in her home.
+
+Helen did not know what to say--in the presence of this living tragedy
+of motherhood she felt so helpless, so overwhelmed with the uselessness
+of mere words. What right had she, a stranger from another world, to
+intrude unasked upon the privacy of this home? And yet, something deep
+within her--something more potent in its authority than the
+conventionalities that had so far ruled her life--assured her that she
+had the right to be there.
+
+"I--I called to see Bobby and Maggie," she faltered. "I met them, you
+know, at the Interpreter's."
+
+As if Helen's mention of the old basket maker awakened a spark of life
+in her pain-deadened senses, the woman returned, "Yes, ma'am--take a
+chair. No, not that one--it's broke. Here--this one will hold you up, I
+guess."
+
+With nervous haste she dusted the chair with her apron. "You'd best
+keep your things on. We don't have no fire except to cook by--when
+there's anything to cook."
+
+She found a match and lighted a tiny lamp, for it was growing dark.
+
+"Bobby tells me that little Maggie is ill," offered Helen.
+
+Mrs. Whaley looked toward the door of that other room and wrung her
+thin, toil-worn hands in the agony of her mother fear. "Yes,
+ma'am--she's real bad, I guess. Poor child, she's been ailin' for some
+time. And since the strike--" Her voice broke, and her eyes, dry as if
+they had long since exhausted their supply of tears, were filled with
+hopeless misery.
+
+"We had the doctor once before things got so bad; about the time my man
+quit his work in the Mill to help Jake Vodell, it was. And the doctor
+he said all she needed was plenty of good food and warm clothes and a
+chance to play in the fresh country air."
+
+She looked grimly about the bare room. "We couldn't have the doctor no
+more. I don't know as it would make any difference if we could. My man,
+he's away most of the time. I ain't seen him since yesterday mornin'.
+And to-day Maggie's been a lot worse. I--I'm afraid--"
+
+Helen wanted to cry aloud. Was it possible that she had asked the
+Interpreter only a few hours before if there was really much suffering
+in the families of the strikers? "You can see Maggie if you want,"
+said the mother. "She's in there."
+
+She rose as if to show her visitor to the room.
+
+But Helen said, quickly, "In just a moment. Mrs. Whaley, won't you tell
+me first--is there--is there no one to help you?" She asked the
+question timidly, as if fearing to offend.
+
+The other woman answered, hopelessly, "The charity ladies do a little,
+and the Interpreter and Mary Martin do all they can. But you see,
+ma'am, there's so many others just like us that there ain't near enough
+to go 'round."
+
+The significance of the woman's colorless words went to Helen's heart
+with appalling force--"so many others just like us." This stricken home
+was not then an exception. With flashing vividness her mind pictured
+many rooms similar to the cold and barren apartment where she sat. She
+visioned as clearly as she saw Mrs. Whaley the many other wives and
+mothers with Bobbies and Maggies who were caught helplessly in the
+monstrous net of the strike, as these were caught. She knew now why the
+Interpreter and Billy Rand worked so hard. And again she felt her
+cheeks burn with shame as when the old basket maker had said, "For
+every idle hand--"
+
+Helen Ward had been an active leader in the foreign relief work during
+the war. Her portrait had even been published in the papers as one who
+was devoted to the cause of the stricken women and children abroad. But
+that had all been impersonal, while this--Already in her heart she was
+echoing the old familiar cry of the comparative few, "If only the
+people knew! If only they could be made to see as she had been made to
+see! The people are not so cruel. They simply do not know. They are
+ignorant, as she was ignorant."
+
+Aloud she was saying to Bobby, as she thrust her purse in the boy's
+hand, "You must run quickly, Bobby, to the nearest store and get the
+things that your mother needs first, and have some one telephone for a
+doctor to come at once."
+
+To the mother she added, hurriedly, as if fearing a protest, "Please,
+Mrs. Whaley, let me help. I am so sorry I did not know before. Won't
+you forgive me and let me help you now?"
+
+"Gee!" exclaimed Bobby, who had opened the purse. "Look-ee, mom! Gee!"
+
+As one in a dream, the mother turned from the money in the boy's hand
+to Helen. "You ain't meanin', ma'am, for us to use all that?"
+
+"Yes--yes--don't be afraid to get what you need--there will be more
+when that is gone."
+
+The poor woman did not fill the air with loud cries of hysterical
+gratitude and superlative prayers to God for His blessing upon this one
+who had come so miraculously to her relief. For a moment she stood
+trembling with emotion, while her tearless eyes were fixed upon Helen's
+face with a look of such gratitude that the young woman was forced to
+turn away lest her own feeling escape her control. Then, snatching the
+money from the boy's hands, she said, "I had better go myself,
+ma'am--Bobby can come along to help carry things. If you"--she
+hesitated, with a look toward that other room--"if you wouldn't mind
+stayin' with Maggie till we get back?"
+
+A minute later and Helen was alone in that wretched house in the
+Flats--alone save for the sick child in the next room.
+
+The door to the street had scarcely closed when a wave of terror swept
+over her. She started to her feet. She could not do it. She would call
+Mrs. Whaley back. She would go herself for the needed things. But there
+was a strength in Helen Ward that few of her most intimate friends,
+even, realized; and before her hand touched the latch of the door she
+had command of herself once more. In much the same spirit that her
+brother John perhaps had faced a lonely night watch in Flanders fields,
+Adam Ward's daughter forced herself to do this thing that had so
+unexpectedly fallen to her.
+
+For some minutes she walked the floor, listening to the noises of the
+neighborhood. Anxiously she opened the door and looked out into the
+fast, gathering darkness. No one of her own people knew where she was.
+She had heard terrible things of Jake Vodell and his creed of
+terrorism. McIver had pressed it upon her mind that the strikers were
+all alike in their lawlessness. What if Sam Whaley should return to
+find her there? She listened--listened.
+
+A faint, moaning sound came from the next room. She went quickly to the
+doorway, but in the faint light she could see only the shadowy outline
+of a bed. Taking the lamp she entered fearfully.
+
+Save for the bed, an old box that served as a table, and one chair,
+this room was as bare as the other. With the lamp in her hand Helen
+stood beside the bed.
+
+The tiny form of little Maggie was lost under the ragged and dirty
+coverlet. The child's face in the tangled mass of her unkempt hair was
+so wasted and drawn, her eyes, closed under their dark lids, so deeply
+sunken, and her teeth so exposed by the thin fleshless lips, that she
+seemed scarcely human. One bony arm with its clawlike hand encircled
+the rag doll that she had held that day when Helen took the two
+children into the country.
+
+As Helen looked all her fears vanished. She had no thought, now, of
+where she was or how she came there. Deep within her she felt the
+awakening of that mother soul which lives in every woman. She did not
+shrink in horror from this hideous fruit of Jake Vodell's activity. She
+did not cry out in pity or sorrow. She uttered no word of protest. As
+she put the lamp down on the box, her hand did not tremble. Very
+quietly she placed the chair beside the bed and sat down to watch and
+wait as motherhood in all ages has watched and waited.
+
+While poor Sam Whaley was busy on some mission assigned to him by his
+leader, Jake Vodell, and his wife and boy were gone for the food
+supplied by a stranger to his household, this woman, of the class that
+he had been taught to hate, held alone her vigil at the bedside of the
+workman's little girl.
+
+A thin, murmuring voice came from the bed. Helen leaned closer. She
+heard a few incoherent mutterings--then, "No--no--Bobby, yer wouldn't
+dast blow up the castle. Yer'd maybe kill the princess lady--yer know
+yer couldn't do that!"
+
+Again the weak little voice sank into low, meaning less murmurs. The
+tiny, clawlike fingers plucked at the coverlet. "Tain't so, the
+princess lady _will_ find her jewel of happiness, I tell yer, Bobby,
+jest like the Interpreter told us--cause her heart is kind--yer know
+her heart is--kind--kind--"
+
+Silence again. Some one passed the house. A dog howled. A child in the
+house next door cried. Across the street a man's voice was raised in
+anger.
+
+Suddenly little Maggie's eyes opened wide. "An' the princess lady is
+a-comin' some day to take Bobby and me away up in the sky to her
+beautiful palace place where there's flowers and birds an' everythin'
+all the time an'--an'--"
+
+The big eyes were fixed on Helen's face as the' young woman stooped
+over the bed, and the light of a glorious smile transformed the wasted
+childish features.
+
+"Why--why--yer--yer've come!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+McIVER'S OPPORTUNITY
+
+
+When the politician stopped at the cigar stand late that afternoon for
+a box of the kind he gave his admirers, the philosopher, scratching the
+revenue label, remarked, "I see by the papers that McIver is still
+a-stayin'."
+
+"Humph!" grunted the politician with careful diplomacy.
+
+The bank clerk who was particular about his pipe tobacco chimed in,
+"McIver is a stayer all right when it comes to that."
+
+"Natural born fighter, sir," offered the politician tentatively.
+
+"Game sport, McIver is," agreed the undertaker, taking the place at the
+show case vacated by the departing bank clerk.
+
+The philosopher, handing out the newcomer's favorite smoke, echoed his
+customer's admiration. "You bet he's a game sport." He punched the cash
+register with vigor. "Don't give a hang what it costs the other
+fellow."
+
+The undertaker laughed.
+
+"I remember one time," said the philosopher, "McIver and a bunch was
+goin' fishin' up the river. They stopped here early in the morning and
+while they was gettin' their smokes the judge--who's always handin' out
+some sort of poetry stuff, you know--he says: 'Well, Jim, we're goin'
+to have a fine day anyway. No matter whether we catch anything or not
+it will be worth the trip just to get out into the country.' Mac, he
+looked at the judge a minute as if he wanted to bite him--you know what
+I mean--then he says in that growlin' voice of his, 'That may do for
+you all right, judge, but I'm here to tell you that when _I_ go fishin'
+_I go for fish_.'"
+
+The cigar-store philosopher's story accurately described the dominant
+trait in the factory man's character. To him business was a sport, a
+game, a contest of absorbing interest. He entered into it with all the
+zest and strength of his virile manhood. Mind and body, it absorbed
+him. And yet, he knew nothing of that true sportsman's passion which
+plays the game for the joy of the game itself. McIver played to win;
+not for the sake of winning, but for the value of the winnings. Methods
+were good or bad only as they won or lost. He was incapable of
+experiencing those larger triumphs which come only in defeat. The
+Interpreter's philosophy of the "oneness of all" was to McIver the
+fanciful theory of an impracticable dreamer, who, too feeble to take a
+man's part in life, contented himself by formulating creeds of weakness
+that befitted his state. Men were the pieces with which he played his
+game--they were of varied values, certainly, as are the pieces on a
+chess table, but they were pieces on the chess table and nothing more.
+All of which does not mean that Jim McIver was cruel or unkind. Indeed,
+he was genuinely and generously interested in many worthy charities,
+and many a man had appealed to him, and not in vain, for help. But to
+have permitted these humanitarian instincts to influence his play in
+the game of business would have been, to his mind, evidence of a
+weakness that was contemptible. The human element, he held, must, of
+necessity, be sternly disregarded if one would win.
+
+While his fellow townsmen were discussing him at the cigar stand, and
+men everywhere in Millsburgh were commenting on his determination to
+break the strikers to his will at any cost, McIver, at his office, was
+concluding a conference with a little company of his fellow employers.
+
+It was nearly dark when the conference finally ended and the men went
+their several ways. McIver, with some work of special importance
+waiting his attention, telephoned that he would not be home for dinner.
+He would finish what he had to do and would dine at the club later in
+the evening.
+
+The big factory inside the high, board fence was silent. The night came
+on. Save for the armed men who guarded the place, the owner was alone.
+
+Absorbed in his consideration of the business before him, the man was
+oblivious of everything but his game. An hour went by. He forgot that
+he had had no dinner. Another hour--and another.
+
+He was interrupted at last by the entrance of a guard.
+
+"Well, what do you want?" he said, shortly, when the man stood before
+him.
+
+"There's a woman outside, sir. She insists that she must see you."
+
+"A woman!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Who is she?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Well, what does she look like?"
+
+"I couldn't see her face, she's got a veil on."
+
+The factory owner considered. How did any one outside of his home know
+that he was in his office at that hour? These times were dangerous.
+"Vodell is likely to try anything," he said, aloud. "Better send her
+about her business."
+
+"I tried to," the guard returned, "but she won't go--says she is a
+friend of yours and has got to see you to-night."
+
+"A friend! Huh! How did she get here?"
+
+"In a taxi, and the taxi beat it as soon as she got out."
+
+Again McIver considered. Then his heavy jaw set, and he growled, "All
+right, bring her in--a couple of you--and see that you stand by while
+she is here. If this is a Vodell trick of some sort, I'll beat him to
+it."
+
+Helen, escorted by two burly guards, entered the office.
+
+McIver sprang to his feet with an exclamation of amazement, and his
+tender concern was unfeigned and very comforting to the young woman
+after the harrowing experience through which she had just passed.
+
+Sending the guards back to their posts, he listened gravely while she
+told him where she had been and what she had seen.
+
+"But, Helen," he cried, when she had finished, "it was sheer madness
+for you to be alone in the Flats like that--at Whaley's place and in
+the night, too! Good heavens, girl, don't you realize what a risk you
+were taking?"
+
+"I had to go, Jim," she returned.
+
+"You had to go?" he repeated. "Why?"
+
+"I had to see for myself if--if things were as bad as the Interpreter
+said. Oh, can't you understand, Jim, I could not believe it--it all
+seemed so impossible. Don't you see that I had to know for sure?"
+
+"I see that some one ought to break that meddlesome old basket maker's
+head as well as his legs," growled McIver indignantly. "The idea of
+sending you, Adam Ward's daughter, of all people, alone into that nest
+of murdering anarchists."
+
+"But the Interpreter didn't send me, Jim," she protested. "He did not
+even know that I was going. No one knew."
+
+"I understand all that," said McIver. "The Interpreter didn't send
+you--oh, no--he simply made you think that you ought to go. That's the
+way the tricky old scoundrel does everything, from what I am told."
+
+She looked at him steadily. "Do you think, Jim, the Interpreter's way
+is such a bad way to get people to do things?"
+
+"Forgive me," he begged humbly, "but it makes me wild to think what
+might have happened to you. It's all right now, though. I'll take you
+home, and in the future you can turn such work over to the regular
+charity organizations." He was crossing the room for his hat and
+overcoat. "Jove! I can't believe yet that you have actually been in
+such a mess and all by your lonesome, too."
+
+She was about to speak when he stopped, and, as if struck by a sudden
+thought, said, quickly, "But Helen, you haven't told me--how did you
+know I was here?"
+
+She explained hurriedly, "The doctor sent a taxi for me and I
+telephoned your house from a drug store. Your man told me you expected
+to be late at the office and would dine at the club. I phoned the club
+and when I learned that you were not there I came straight on. I--I had
+to see you to-night, Jim. And I was afraid if I phoned you here at the
+office you wouldn't let me come."
+
+McIver evidently saw from her manner that there was still something in
+the amazing situation that they had not yet touched upon. Coming back
+to his desk, he said, "I don't think I understand, Helen. Why were you
+in such a hurry to see me? Besides, don't you know that I would have
+gone to you, at once, anywhere?"
+
+"I know, Jim," she returned, slowly, as one approaching a difficult
+subject, "but I couldn't tell you what I had seen. I couldn't talk to
+you about these things at home."
+
+"I understand," he said, gently, "and I am glad that you wanted to come
+to me. But you are tired and nervous and all unstrung, now. Let me take
+you home and to-morrow we will talk things over."
+
+As if he had not spoken, she said, steadily, "I wanted to tell you
+about the terrible, terrible condition of those poor people, Jim. I
+thought you ought to know about them exactly as they are and not in a
+vague, indefinite way as I knew about them before I went to see for
+myself."
+
+The man moved uneasily. "I do know about the condition of these people,
+Helen. It is exactly what I expected would happen."
+
+She was listening carefully. "You expected them to--to be hungry and
+cold and sick like that, Jim?"
+
+"Such conditions are always a part of every strike like this," he
+returned. "There is nothing unusual about it, and it is the only thing
+that will ever drive these cattle back to their work. They simply have
+to be starved to it."
+
+"But John says--"
+
+He interrupted. "Please, Helen--I know all about what John says. I know
+where he gets it, too--he gets it from the Interpreter who gave you
+this crazy notion of going alone into the Flats to investigate
+personally. And John's ideas are just about as practical."
+
+"But the mothers and children, Jim?"
+
+"The men can go back to work whenever they are ready," he retorted.
+
+"At your terms, you mean?" she asked.
+
+"My terms are the only terms that will ever open this plant again. The
+unions will never dictate my business policies, if every family in
+Millsburgh starves."
+
+She waited a moment before she said, slowly, "I must be sure that I
+understand, Jim--do you mean that you are actually depending upon such
+pitiful conditions as I have seen to-night to give you a victory over
+the strikers?"
+
+The man made a gesture of impatience. "It is the principle of the thing
+that is at stake, Helen. If I yield in this instance it will be only
+the beginning of a worse trouble. If the working class wins this time
+there will be no end to their demands. We might as well turn all our
+properties over to them at once and be done with it. This strike in
+Millsburgh is only a small part of the general industrial situation.
+The entire business interests of the country are involved."
+
+Again she waited a little before answering. Then she said, sadly, "How
+strange! It is hard for me to realize, Jim, that the entire business
+interests of this great nation are actually dependent upon the poor
+little Maggie Whaleys."
+
+"Helen!" he protested, "you make me out a heartless brute."
+
+"No, Jim, I know you are not that. But when you insist that what I saw
+to-night--that the suffering of these poor, helpless mothers and their
+children is the only thing that will enable you employers to break this
+strike and save the business of the country--it--it does seem a good
+deal like the Germans' war policy of frightfulness that we all
+condemned so bitterly, doesn't it?"
+
+"These things are not matters of sentiment, Helen. Jake Vodell is not
+conducting his campaign by the Golden Rule."
+
+"I know, Jim, but I could not go to Jake Vodell as I have come to
+you--could I? And I could not talk to the poor, foolish strikers who
+are so terribly deceived by him. Don't you suppose, Jim, that most of
+the strikers think they are right?"
+
+The man stirred uneasily. "I can't help what they think. I can consider
+only the facts as they are."
+
+"That is just what I want, Jim," she cried. "Only it seems to me that
+you are leaving out some of the most important facts. I can't help
+believing that if our great captains of industry and kings of finance
+and teachers of economics and labor leaders would consider _all_ the
+facts they could find some way to settle these differences between
+employers and employees and save the industries of the country without
+starving little girls and boys and their mothers."
+
+"If I could have my way the government would settle the difficulty in a
+hurry," he said, grimly.
+
+"You mean the soldiers?"
+
+"Yes, the government should put enough troops from the regular army in
+here to drive these men back to their jobs."
+
+"But aren't these working people just as much a part of our government
+as you employers? Forgive me, Jim, but your plan sounds to me too much
+like the very imperialism that our soldiers fought against in France."
+
+"Imperialism or not!" he retorted, "the business men of this country
+will never submit to the dictatorship of Jake Vodell and his kind. It
+would be chaos and utter ruin. Look what they are doing in other
+countries."
+
+"Of course it would," she agreed, "but the Interpreter says that if the
+business men and employers and the better class of employees like Peter
+Martin would get together as--as John and Charlie Martin are--that Jake
+Vodell and his kind would be powerless."
+
+He did not answer, and she continued, "As I understand brother and the
+Interpreter, this man Vodell does not represent the unions at all--he
+merely uses some of the unions, wherever he can, through such men as
+Sam Whaley. Isn't that so, Jim?"
+
+"Whether it is so or not, the result is the same," he answered. "If the
+unions of the laboring classes permit themselves to be used as tools by
+men like Jake Vodell they must take the consequences."
+
+He rose to his feet as one who would end an unprofitable discussion.
+"Come, Helen, it is useless for you to make yourself ill over these
+questions. You are worn out now. Come, you really must let me take you
+home."
+
+"I suppose I must," she answered, wearily.
+
+He went to her. "It is wonderful for you to do what you have done
+to-night, and for you to come to me like this. Helen--won't you give me
+my answer--won't you--?"
+
+She put out her hands with a little gesture of protest. "Please, Jim,
+let's not talk about ourselves to-night. I--I can't."
+
+Silently he turned away to take up his hat and coat. Silently she stood
+waiting.
+
+But when he was ready, she said, "Jim, there is just one thing more."
+
+"What is it, Helen?"
+
+"Tell me truly: you _could_ stop this strike, couldn't you? I mean if
+you would come to some agreement with your factory men, all the others
+would go back to work, too, wouldn't they?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I could."
+
+She hesitated--then falteringly, "Jim, if I--if I promise to be your
+wife will you--will you stop the strike? For the sake of the mothers
+and children who are cold and hungry and sick, Jim--will you--will you
+stop the strike?"
+
+For a long minute, Jim McIver could not answer. He wanted this woman as
+a man of his strength wants the woman he has chosen. At the beginning
+of their acquaintance his interest in Helen had been largely stimulated
+by the business possibilities of a combination of his factory and Adam
+Ward's Mill. But as their friendship had grown he had come to love her
+sincerely, and the more material consideration of their union had faded
+into the background. Men like McIver, who are capable of playing their
+games of business with such intensity and passion, are capable of great
+and enduring love. They are capable, too, of great sacrifices to
+principle. As he considered her words and grasped the full force of her
+question his face went white and his nerves were tense with the
+emotional strain.
+
+At last he said, gently, "Helen, dear, I love you. I want you for my
+wife. I want you more than I ever wanted anything. Nothing in the world
+is of any value to me compared with your love. But, dear girl, don't
+you see that I can't take you like this? You cannot sell yourself to
+me--even for such a price. I cannot buy you." He turned away.
+
+"Forgive me, Jim," she cried. "I did not realize what I was saying.
+I--I was thinking of little Maggie--I--I know you would not do what you
+are doing if you did not think you were right. Take me home now,
+please, Jim."
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+Silently they went out to his automobile. Tenderly he helped her into
+the car and tucked the robe about her. The guards swung open the big
+gates, and they swept away into the night. Past the big Mill and the
+Flats, through the silent business district and up the hill they glided
+swiftly--steadily. And no word passed between them.
+
+They were nearing the gate to the Ward estate when Helen suddenly
+grasped her companion's arm with a low exclamation.
+
+At the same moment McIver instinctively checked the speed of his car.
+
+They had both seen the shadowy form of a man walking slowly past the
+entrance to Helen's home.
+
+To Helen, there was something strangely familiar in the dim outlines of
+the moving figure. As they drove slowly on, passing the man who was now
+in the deeper shadows of the trees and bushes which, at this spot grew
+close to the fence, she turned her head, keeping her eyes upon him.
+
+Suddenly a flash of light stabbed the darkness. A shot rang out. And
+another.
+
+Helen saw the man she was watching fall.
+
+With a cry, she started from her seat; and before McIver, who had
+involuntarily stopped the car, could check her, she had leaped from her
+place beside him and was running toward the fallen man.
+
+With a shout "Helen!" McIver followed.
+
+As she knelt beside the form on the ground McIver put his hand on her
+shoulder. "Helen," he said, sharply, as if to bring her to her senses,
+"you must not--here, let me--"
+
+Without moving from her position she turned her face up to him. "Don't
+you understand, Jim? It is Captain Charlie."
+
+Two watchmen on the Ward estate, who had heard the shots, came running
+up.
+
+McIver tried to insist that Helen go with him in his roadster to the
+house for help and a larger car, but she refused.
+
+When he returned with John, the chauffeur and one of the big Ward
+machines, after telephoning the police and the doctor, Helen was
+kneeling over the wounded man just as he had left her.
+
+She did not raise her head when they stood beside her and seemed
+unconscious of their presence. But when John lifted her up and she
+heard her brother's voice, she cried out and clung to him like a
+frightened child.
+
+The doctor arrived just as they were carrying Captain Charlie into the
+room to which Mrs. Ward herself led them. The police came a moment
+later.
+
+While the physician, with John's assistance, was caring for his
+patient, McIver gave the officers what information he could and went
+with them to the scene of the shooting.
+
+He returned to the house after the officers had completed their
+examination of the spot and the immediate vicinity just in time to meet
+John, who was going out. Helen and her mother were with the doctor at
+the bedside of the assassin's victim.
+
+McIver wondered at the anguish in John Ward's face. But Captain
+Charlie's comrade only asked, steadily, "Did the police find anything,
+Jim?"
+
+"Not a thing," McIver answered. "What does the doctor say, John?"
+
+John turned away as if to hide his emotion and for a moment did not
+answer. Then he spoke those words so familiar to the men of Flanders'
+fields, "Charlie is going West, Jim. I must bring his father and
+sister. Would you mind waiting here until I return? Something might
+develop, you know."
+
+"Certainly, I will stay, John--anything that I can do--command me,
+won't you?"
+
+"Thank you, Jim--I'll not be long."
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+While he waited there alone, Jim McIver's mind went back over the
+strange incidents of the evening: Helen's visit to the Whaley home and
+her coming to him. Swiftly he reviewed their conversation. What was it
+that had so awakened Helen's deep concern for the laboring class? He
+had before noticed her unusual interest in the strike and in the
+general industrial situation--but to-night--he had never dreamed that
+she would go so far. Why had she continued to refuse an answer to his
+pleading? What was Charlie Martin doing in that neighborhood at that
+hour? How had Helen recognized him so quickly and surely in the
+darkness? The man, as these and many other unanswerable questions
+crowded upon him, felt a strange foreboding. Mighty forces beyond his
+understanding seemed stirring about him. As one feels the gathering of
+a storm in the night, he felt the mysterious movements of elements
+beyond his control.
+
+He was disturbed suddenly by the opening of an outer door behind him.
+Turning quickly, he faced Adam Ward.
+
+Before McIver could speak, the Mill owner motioned him to be silent.
+
+Wondering, McIver obeyed and watched with amazement as the master of
+that house closed the door with cautious care and stole softly toward
+him. To his family Adam Ward's manner would not have appeared so
+strange, but McIver had never seen the man under one of his attacks of
+nervous excitement.
+
+"I'm glad you are here, Jim," Adam said, in a shaking whisper. "You
+understand these things. John is a fool--he don't believe when I tell
+him they are after us. But you know what to do. You have the right idea
+about handling these unions. Kill the leaders; and if the men won't
+work, turn the soldiers loose on them. You said the right thing, 'Drive
+them to their jobs with bayonets.' Pete Martin's boy was one of them,
+and he got what was coming to him to-night. And John and Helen brought
+him right here into my house. They've got him upstairs there now. They
+think I'll stand for it, but you'll see--I'll show them! What was he
+hanging around my place for in the night like this? I know what he was
+after. But he got what he wasn't looking for this time and Pete will
+get his too, if he--"
+
+"Father!"
+
+Unnoticed, Helen had come into the room behind them. In pacing the open
+door she had seen her father and had realized instantly his condition.
+But the little she had heard him say was not at all unusual to her, and
+she attached no special importance to his words.
+
+Adam Ward was like a child, abashed in her presence.
+
+She looked at McIver appealingly. "Father is excited and nervous, Jim.
+He is not at all well, you know."
+
+McIver spoke with gentle authority, "If you will permit me, I will go
+with him to his room for a little quiet talk. And then, perhaps, he can
+sleep. What do you say, Mr. Ward?"
+
+"Yes--yes," agreed Adam, hurriedly.
+
+Helen looked her gratitude and McIver led the Mill owner away.
+
+When they were in Adam's own apartment and the door was shut McIver's
+manner changed with startling abruptness. With all the masterful power
+of his strong-willed nature he faced his trembling host, and his heavy
+voice was charged with the force of his dominating personality.
+
+"Listen to me, Adam Ward. You must stop this crazy nonsense. If you act
+and talk like this the police will have the handcuffs on you before you
+know where you are."
+
+Adam cringed before him. "Jim--I--I--do they think that I--"
+
+"Shut up!" growled McIver. "I don't want to hear another word. I have
+heard too much now. Charlie Martin stays right here in this house and
+your family will give him every attention. His father and sister will
+be here, too, and you'll not open your mouth against them. Do you
+understand?"
+
+"Yes--yes," whispered the now thoroughly frightened Adam.
+
+"Don't you dare even to speak to Mrs. Ward or John or Helen as you have
+to me. And for God's sake pull yourself together and remember--you
+don't know any more than the rest of us about this business--you were
+in your room when you heard the shots."
+
+"Yes, of course, Jim--but I--I--"
+
+"Shut up! You are not to talk, I tell you--even to me."
+
+Adam Ward whimpered like a child.
+
+For another moment McIver glared at him; then, "Don't forget that I saw
+this affair and that I went over the ground with the police. I'm going
+back downstairs now. You go to bed where you belong and stay there."
+
+He turned abruptly and left the room.
+
+But as he went down the stairway McIver drew his handkerchief from his
+pocket and wiped the perspiration from his brow.
+
+"What in God's name," he asked himself, "did Adam Ward's excited fears
+mean? What terrible thing gave birth to his mad words? What awful
+pattern was this that the unseen forces were weaving? And what part was
+he, with his love for Helen, destined to fill in it all?" That his life
+was being somehow woven into the design he felt certain--but how and to
+what end? And again the man in all his strength felt that dread
+foreboding.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Peter Martin and his daughter arrived with John at the big house
+on the hill, Mrs. Ward met them at the door.
+
+The old workman betrayed no consciousness of the distance the years of
+Adam Ward's material prosperity had placed between these two families
+that in the old-house days had lived in such intimacy.
+
+Mary hesitated. It must have been that to the girl, who saw it between
+herself and the happy fulfillment of her womanhood, the distance seemed
+even greater than it actually was.
+
+But her hesitation was only for an instant. One full look into the
+gentle face that was so marked by the years of uncomplaining
+disappointment and patient unhappiness and Mary knew that in the heart
+of John Ward's mother the separation had brought no change. In the arms
+of her own mother's dearest friend the young woman found, even as a
+child, the love she needed to sustain her in that hour.
+
+When they entered the room where Captain Charlie lay unconscious, Helen
+rose from her watch beside the bed and held out her hands to her
+girlhood playmate. And in her gesture there was a full surrender--a
+plea for pardon. Humbly she offered--lovingly she invited--while she
+held her place beside the man who was slowly passing into that shadow
+where all class forms are lost, as if she claimed the right before a
+court higher than the petty courts of human customs. No word was
+spoken--no word was needed. The daughter of Peter Martin and the
+daughter of Adam Ward knew that the bond of their sisterhood was
+sealed.
+
+In that wretched home in the Flats, little Maggie Whaley smiled in her
+sleep as she dreamed of her princess lady.
+
+The armed guards at their stations around McIver's dark and silent
+factory kept their watch.
+
+The Mill, under the cloud of smoke, sang the deep-voiced song of its
+industry as the night shift carried on.
+
+In the room back of the pool hall, Jake Vodell whispered with two of
+his disciples.
+
+In the window of the Interpreter's hut on the cliff a lamp gleamed
+starlike above the darkness below.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+AT THE CALL OF THE WHISTLE
+
+
+Everywhere in Millsburgh the shooting of Captain Charlie was the one
+topic of conversation. As the patrons of the cigar stand came and went
+they talked with the philosopher of nothing else. The dry-goods
+pessimist delivered his dark predictions to a group of his fellow
+citizens and listened with grave shakes of his head to the counter
+opinions of the real-estate agent. The grocer questioned the garage man
+and the lawyer discussed the known details of the tragedy with the
+postmaster, the hotel keeper and the politician. The barber asked the
+banker for his views and reviewed the financier's opinion to the judge
+while a farmer and a preacher listened. The milliner told her customers
+about it and the stenographer discussed it with the bookkeeper. In the
+homes, on the streets, and, later in the day, throughout the country,
+the shock of the crime was felt.
+
+Meanwhile, the efforts of the police to find the assassin were
+fruitless. The most careful search revealed nothing in the nature of a
+clew.
+
+Millsburgh had been very proud of Captain Martin and the honors he had
+won in France, as Millsburgh was proud of Adam Ward and his
+success--only with a different pride. The people had known Charlie from
+his birth, as they had known his father and mother all their years.
+There had been nothing in the young workman's life--as every one
+remarked--to lead to such an end.
+
+It is doubtful if in the entire community there was a single soul that
+did not secretly or openly think of the tragedy as being in some dark
+way an outcome of the strike. And, gradually, as the day passed, the
+conjectures, opinions and views crystallized into two opposing
+theories--each with its natural advocates.
+
+One division of the people held that the deed was committed by some one
+of Jake Vodell's followers, because of the workman's known opposition
+to a sympathetic strike of the Mill workers' union. Captain Charlie's
+leadership of the Mill men was recognized by all, and it was conceded
+generally that it was his active influence, guided by the Interpreter's
+counsel, that was keeping John Ward's employees at work. Without the
+assistance of the Mill men the strike leader could not hope for
+victory. With Captain Charlie's personal influence no longer a factor,
+it was thought that the agitator might win the majority of the Mill
+workers and so force the union into line with the strikers.
+
+This opinion was held by many of the business men and by the more
+thoughtful members of the unions, who had watched with grave
+apprehension the increasing bitterness of the agitator's hatred of
+Captain Charlie, because of the workman's successful opposition to his
+schemes.
+
+The opposing theory, which was skillfully advanced by Jake Vodell
+himself and fostered by his followers, was that the mysterious assassin
+was an agent of McIver's and that the deed was committed for the very
+purpose of charging the strikers with the crime and thus turning public
+sympathy against them.
+
+This view, so plausible to the minds of the strikers, prepared, as they
+were, by hardship and suffering, found many champions among the Mill
+men themselves. Not a few of those who had stood with Charlie in his
+opposition to the agitator and against their union joining the strike
+now spoke openly with bitter feeling against the employer class. The
+weeks of agitation--the constant pounding of Vodell's arguments--the
+steady fire of his oratory and the continual appeal to their class
+loyalty made it easy for them to stand with their fellow workmen, now
+that the issue was being so clearly forced.
+
+So the lines of the industrial battle were drawn closer--the opposing
+forces were massed in more definite formation--the feeling was more
+intense and bitter. In the gloom and hush of the impending desperate
+struggle that was forced upon it by the emissary of an alien
+organization, this little American city waited the coming of the dark
+messenger to Captain Charlie. It was felt by all alike that the
+workman's death would precipitate the crisis.
+
+And through it all the question most often asked was this, "Why was the
+workman, Charlie Martin, at the gate to Adam Ward's estate at that hour
+of the night?"
+
+To this question no one ventured even the suggestion of a satisfactory
+answer.
+
+All that long day Helen kept her watch beside the wounded man. Others
+were there in the room with her, but she seemed unconscious of their
+presence. She made no attempt, now, to hide her love. There was no
+pretense--no evasion. Openly, before them all, she silently
+acknowledged him--her man--and to his claim upon her surrendered
+herself without reserve.
+
+James McIver called but she would not see him.
+
+When they urged her to retire and rest, she answered always with the
+same words: "I must be here when he awakens--I must."
+
+And they, loving her, understood.
+
+It was as if the assassin's hand had torn aside the curtain of material
+circumstances and revealed suddenly the realities of their inner lives.
+They realized now that this man, who had in their old-house days won
+the first woman love of his girl playmate, had held that love against
+all the outward changes that had taken her from him. John and his
+mother knew, now, why Helen had never said "Yes" to Jim McIver. Peter
+Martin and Mary knew why, in Captain Charlie's heart, there had seemed
+to be no place for any woman save his sister.
+
+At intervals the man on the bed moved uneasily, muttering low words and
+disconnected fragments of speech. Army words--some of them were--as if
+his spirit lived for the moment again in the fields of France. At other
+times the half-formed phrases were of his work--the strike--his home.
+Again he spoke his sister's name or murmured, "Father," or "John." But
+not once did Helen catch the word she longed to hear him speak. It was
+as if, even in his unconscious mental wanderings, the man still guarded
+the name that in secret he had held most dear.
+
+Three times during the day he opened his eyes and looked
+about--wonderingly at first--then as though he understood. As one
+contented and at peace, he smiled and drifted again into the shadows.
+But now at times his hand went out toward her with a little movement,
+as though he were feeling for her in the dark.
+
+About midnight he seemed to be sleeping so naturally that they
+persuaded Helen to rest. At daybreak she was again at her post.
+
+Mrs. Ward and Mary had gone, in their turn, for an hour or two of
+sorely needed rest. Peter Martin was within call downstairs. John, who
+was watching with his sister, had left the room for the moment and
+Helen was at the bedside alone.
+
+Suddenly through the quiet morning air came the deep-toned call of the
+Mill whistle.
+
+As a soldier awakens at the sound of the morning bugle, Captain Charlie
+opened his eyes.
+
+Instantly she was bending over him. As he looked up into her face she
+called his name softly. She saw the light of recognition come into his
+eyes. She saw the glory of his love.
+
+"Helen," he said--and again, "Helen."
+
+It was as if the death that claimed him had come also for her.
+
+For the first time in many months the voice of the Mill was not heard
+by the Interpreter in his little hut on the cliff. Above the silent
+buildings the smoke cloud hung like a pall. From his wheel chair the
+old basket maker watched the long procession moving slowly down the
+hill.
+
+There were no uniforms in that procession--no military band with
+muffled drums led that solemn march--no regimental colors in honor of
+the dead. There were no trappings of war--no martial ceremony. And yet,
+to the Interpreter, Captain Charlie died in the service of his country
+as truly as if he had been killed on the field of battle.
+
+Long after the funeral procession had passed beyond his sight, the
+Interpreter sat there at the window, motionless, absorbed in thought.
+Twice silent Billy came to stand beside his chair, but he did not heed.
+His head was bowed. His great shoulders stooped. His hands were idle.
+
+There was a sound of some one knocking at the door.
+
+The Interpreter did not hear.
+
+The sound was repeated, and this time he raised his head questioningly.
+
+Again it came and the old basket maker called, "Come in."
+
+The door opened. Jim McIver entered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+JAKE VODELL'S MISTAKE
+
+
+Since that night of the tragedy McIver had struggled to grasp the
+hidden meaning of the strange series of incidents. But the more he
+tried to understand, the more he was confused and troubled. Nor had he
+been able, strong-willed as he was, to shake off the feeling that he
+was in the midst of unseen forces--that about him mysterious influences
+were moving steadily to some fixed and certain end.
+
+In constant touch, through his agents, with the strike situation, he
+had watched the swiftly forming sentiment of the public. He knew that
+the turning point of the industrial war was near. He did not deceive
+himself. He knew Jake Vodell's power. He knew the temper of the
+strikers. He saw clearly that if the assassin who killed Captain
+Charlie was not speedily discovered the community would suffer under a
+reign of terror such as the people had never conceived. And, what was
+of more vital importance to McIver, perhaps, if the truth was not soon
+revealed, Jake Vodell's charges that the murder was inspired by McIver
+himself would become, in the minds of many, an established fact. With
+the full realization of all that would result to the community and to
+himself if the identity of the murderer was not soon established,
+McIver was certain in his own mind that he alone knew the guilty man.
+
+To reveal what he believed to be the truth of the tragedy would be to
+save the community and himself--and to lose, for all time, the woman he
+loved. McIver did not know that through the tragedy Helen was already
+lost to him.
+
+In his extremity the factory owner had come at last to the man who was
+said to wield such a powerful influence over the minds of the people.
+He had never before seen the interior of that hut on the cliff nor met
+the man who for so many years had been confined there. Standing just
+outside the door, he looked curiously about the room with the
+unconscious insolence of his strength.
+
+The man in the wheel chair did not speak. When Billy looked at him he
+signaled his wishes in their silent language, and, watching his
+visitor, waited.
+
+For a long moment McIver gazed at the old basket maker as if estimating
+his peculiar strength, then he said with an unintentional touch of
+contempt in his heavy voice, "So _you_ are the Interpreter."
+
+"And you," returned the man in the wheel chair, gently, "are McIver."
+
+McIver was startled. "How did you know my name?"
+
+"Is McIver's name a secret also?" came the strange reply.
+
+McIver's eyes flashed with a light that those who sat opposite him in
+the game of business had often seen. With perfect self-control he said,
+coolly, "I have been told often that I should come to see you but--" he
+paused and again looked curiously about the room.
+
+The Interpreter, smiling, caught up the unfinished sentence. "But you
+do not see how an old, poverty-stricken and crippled maker of baskets
+can be of any use to you."
+
+McIver spoke as one measuring his words. "They tell me you help people
+who are in trouble."
+
+"Are you then in trouble?" asked the Interpreter, kindly.
+
+The other did not answer, and the man in the wheel chair continued,
+still kindly, "What trouble can the great and powerful McIver have? You
+have never been hungry--you have never felt the cold--you have no
+children to starve--no son to be killed."
+
+"I suppose you hold me personally responsible for the strike and for
+all the hardships that the strikers have brought upon themselves and
+their families?" said McIver. "You fellows who teach this
+brotherhood-of-man rot and never have more than one meal ahead
+yourselves always blame men like me for all the suffering in the
+world."
+
+The Interpreter replied with a dignity that impressed even McIver. "Who
+am I that I should assume to blame any one? Who are you, sir, that
+assume the power implied by either your acceptance or your denial of
+the responsibility? You are only a part of the whole, as I am a part.
+You, in your life place, are no less a creature of circumstances--an
+accident--than I, here in my wheel chair--than Jake Vodell. We are
+all--you and I, Jake Vodell, Adam Ward, Peter Martin, Sam Whaley--we
+are all but parts of the great oneness of life. The want, the misery,
+the suffering, the unhappiness of humanity is of that unity no less
+than is the prosperity, peace and happiness of the people. Before we
+can hope to bring order out of this industrial chaos we must recognize
+our mutual dependence upon the whole and acknowledge the equality of
+our guilt in the wretched conditions that now exist."
+
+As the Interpreter spoke, James McIver again felt the movement of those
+unseen forces that were about him. His presence in that little hut on
+the cliff seemed, now, a part of some plan that was not of his making.
+He was awed by the sudden conviction that he had not come to the
+Interpreter of his own volition, but had been led there by something
+beyond his understanding.
+
+"Why should your fellow workmen not hate you, sir?" continued the old
+basket maker. "You hold yourself apart, superior, of a class distinct
+and separate. Your creed of class is intolerance. Your very business
+policy is a declaration of class war. Your boast that you can live
+without the working people is madness. You can no more live without
+them than they can live without you. You can no more deny the mutual
+dependence of employer and employee with safety to yourself than Samson
+of old could pull down the pillars of the temple without being himself
+buried in the ruins."
+
+By an effort of will McIver strove to throw off the feeling that
+possessed him. He spoke as one determined to assert himself. "We cannot
+recognize the rights of Jake Vodell and his lawless followers to
+dictate to us in our business. It would mean ruin, not only of our
+industries, but of our government."
+
+"Exactly so," agreed the Interpreter. "And yet, sir, you claim for
+yourself the right to live by the same spirit of imperialism that
+animates Vodell. You make the identical class distinction that he
+makes. You appeal to the same class intolerance and hatred. You and
+Jake Vodell have together brought about this industrial war in
+Millsburgh. The community itself--labor unions and business men
+alike--is responsible for tolerating the imperialism that you and this
+alien agitator, in opposition to each other, advocate. The community is
+paying the price."
+
+The factory owner flushed. "Of course you would say these things to
+Jake Vodell."
+
+"I do," returned the Interpreter, gently.
+
+"Oh, you _are_ in touch with him then?"
+
+"He comes here sometimes. He is coming this afternoon--at four o'clock.
+Will you not stay and meet him, Mr. McIver?" McIver hesitated. He
+decided to ignore the invitation. With more respect in his manner than
+he had so far shown, he said, courteously, "May I ask why Jake Vodell
+comes to you?"
+
+The Interpreter replied, sadly, as one who accepts the fact of his
+failure, "For the same reason that McIver came."
+
+McIver started with surprise. "You know why I came to you?"
+
+The man in the wheel chair looked steadily into his visitor's eyes. "I
+know that you are not personally responsible for the death of the
+workman, Captain Martin."
+
+McIver sprang to his feet. He fairly gasped as the flood of questions
+raised by the Interpreter's words swept over him.
+
+"You--you know who killed Charlie Martin?" he demanded at last.
+
+The old basket maker did not answer.
+
+"If you know," cried McIver, "why in God's name do you not tell the
+people? Surely, sir, you are not ignorant of the danger that threatens
+this community. The death of this union man has given Vodell just the
+opportunity he needed and he is using it. If you dare to shield the
+guilty man--whoever he is--you will--"
+
+"Peace, McIver! This community will not be plunged into the horrors of
+a class war such as you rightly fear. There are yet enough sane and
+loyal American citizens in Millsburgh to extinguish the fire that you
+and Jake Vodell have started."
+
+     *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Jake Vodell came to the Interpreter's hut shortly after McIver had
+left, he was clearly in a state of nervous excitement.
+
+"Well," he said, shortly, "I am here--what do you want--why did you
+send for me?"
+
+The Interpreter spoke deliberately with his eyes fixed upon the dark
+face of the agitator. "Vodell, I have told you twice that your campaign
+in Millsburgh was a failure. Your coming to this community was a
+mistake. Your refusal to recognize the power of the thing that made
+your defeat certain was a mistake. You have now made your third and
+final mistake."
+
+"A mistake! Hah--that is what you think. You do not know. I tell you
+that I have turned a trick that will win for me the game. Already the
+people are rallying to me. I have put McIver at last in a hole from
+which he will not escape. The Mill workers are ready _now_ to do
+anything I say. You will see--to-morrow I will have these employers and
+all their capitalist class eating out of my hand. To me they shall beg
+for mercy. I--I will dictate the terms to them and they will pay. You
+may take my word--they will pay."
+
+The man paced to and fro with the triumphant air of a conqueror, and
+his voice rang with his exultation.
+
+"No, Jake Vodell," said the Interpreter, calmly. "You are deceiving
+yourself. Your dreams are as vain as your mistake is fatal."
+
+The man faced the old basket maker suddenly, as if arrested by a
+possible meaning in the Interpreter's words that had not at first
+caught his attention.
+
+"And what is this mistake that I have made?" he growled.
+
+The answer came with solemn portent. "You have killed the wrong man."
+
+The agitator was stunned. His mouth opened as if he would speak, but no
+word came from his trembling lips. He drew back as if to escape.
+
+The old man in the wheel chair continued, sadly, "_I_ am the one you
+should have killed--I am the cause of your failure to gain the support
+of the Mill workers' union."
+
+The strike leader recovered himself with a shrug of his heavy
+shoulders.
+
+"So that is it," he sneered; "you would accuse me of shooting your
+Captain Charlie, heh?"
+
+"You have accused yourself, sir."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"By the use you are making of Captain Charlie's death. If you did not
+know who committed the crime--if you did not feel sure that the
+identity of the assassin would remain a mystery to the people--you
+would not dare risk charging the employers with it."
+
+With an oath the other returned, "I tell you that McIver or his hired
+gunmen did it so they could lay the blame on the strikers and so turn
+the Mill workers' union against us. That is what the Mill men believe."
+
+"That is what you want them to believe. It is an old trick, Vodell. You
+have used it before."
+
+The agitator's eyes narrowed under his scowling brows. "Look here," he
+growled, "I do not like this talk of yours. Perhaps you had better
+prove what you charge, heh?"
+
+"Please God, I will prove it," came the calm answer.
+
+Jake Vodell, as he looked down upon the seemingly helpless old man in
+the wheel chair, was thinking, "It would be safer if this old basket
+maker were not permitted to speak these things to others--his
+influence, after all, is a thing to consider."
+
+"No, Jake Vodell," said the Interpreter gently, "you won't do it. Billy
+Rand is watching us. If you make a move to do what you are thinking,
+Billy will kill you."
+
+The Interpreter raised his hand and his silent companion came quickly
+to stand beside his chair.
+
+With a shrug of his shoulders Vodell drew back a few steps toward the
+door.
+
+"Bah! Why should I waste my time with a crippled old basket maker--I
+have work to do. If you watch from the window of your shanty you will
+see to-morrow whether or not the Mill workers are with me. I will make
+for you a demonstration that will be known through the country. I told
+you at the first that the working people would find out who is their
+friend. Now you shall see what they will do to the enemies of their
+class. Who can say, Mr. Interpreter, perhaps your miserable hut so high
+up here would make a good torch to signal the beginning of the show,
+heh?"
+
+When the door had closed behind Jake Vodell, the Interpreter said,
+aloud, "So he has set to-morrow night for his demonstration. We must
+work fast, Billy--there is no time to lose."
+
+With his hands he asked his companion for paper and pencil. When Billy
+brought them he wrote a few words and folding the message gave it to
+the big man who stood waiting.
+
+For a few minutes they talked together in their silent way. Then Billy
+Rand put the Interpreter's message carefully in his pocket and
+hurriedly left the hut.
+
+     *       *       *       *       *
+
+That evening Jake Vodell addressed the largest crowd that had yet
+assembled at his street meetings. With characteristic eloquence the
+agitator pictured Captain Charlie as a martyr to the unprincipled
+schemes of the employer class.
+
+"McIver and his crew are charging the strikers with this crime in order
+to set our union brothers against us," he shouted. "They think that by
+setting up a division among us they can win. They know that if the
+working people stand together, true to their class, loyal to their
+comrades, they will rule the world. Why don't the police produce the
+murderer of Captain Charlie? I will tell you the answer, my brother
+workmen: it is because the law and the officers of the law are under
+the control of those who do not want the murderer produced--that is
+why. They dare not produce him. The life of a poor working man--what is
+that to these masters of crime who acknowledge no law but the laws they
+make for themselves. You workers have no laws. A slave knows no justice
+but the whim of his master. Think of the mothers and children in your
+homes--you slaves who create the wealth of your lords and masters. And
+now they have taken the life of one of your truest and most loyal union
+leaders. Where will they stop? If you do not stand like men against
+these cruel outrages what have you to hope for? You know as well as I
+that no workman in Millsburgh would raise his hand against such a
+fellow worker as Captain Charlie Martin."
+
+While the agitator was speaking, Billy Rand moved quickly here and
+there through the crowd, as if searching for some one.
+
+After the mass meeting on the street there was a meeting of the Mill
+workers' union.
+
+Later, Vodell's inner circle met in the room back of Dago Bill's pool
+hall.
+
+It was midnight when Billy Rand finally returned to the waiting
+Interpreter.
+
+Evidently he had failed in the mission entrusted to him by the old
+basket maker.
+
+The next morning, Billy Rand again went forth with the Interpreter's
+message.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE MOB AND THE MILL
+
+
+On the morning following the day of the funeral scarcely half of the
+usual force of workmen appeared at the Mill. The men who did choose to
+work were forced to pass a picket line of strikers who with jeers and
+threats and arguments sought to turn them from their purpose.
+
+The death of Captain Charlie, by defining more clearly the two lines of
+public sentiment, had increased Jake Vodell's strength materially, but
+the Mill workers' union had not yet officially declared for the
+sympathetic strike that would deliver the community wholly into the
+hands of the agitator. The Mill men, who were still opposed to Jake
+Vodell's leadership and coolly refused to hold the employers guilty of
+the death of Captain Charlie upon the mere unsupported assertions of
+the strike leader, were therefore free to continue their work. This
+action of the members of the Mill workers' union who were loyal to
+John, however, quite naturally increased the feeling of their comrades
+who had accepted Vodell's version of the murder. Thus, the final crisis
+of the industrial battle centered about the Mill.
+
+Every hour that John Ward could keep the Mill running lessened Vodell's
+chances of final victory. The strike leader knew that if these days
+immediately following Captain Charlie's death passed without closing
+the Mill, his cause was lost. The workmen were now aroused to the
+highest pitch of excitement. The agitator realized that if they were
+not committed by some action to his cause before the fever of their
+madness began to abate, his followers would, day by day, in ever
+increasing numbers go back to work under John. The successful operation
+of the Mill was a demonstration to the public that Vodell's campaign
+against the employers was not endorsed by the better and stronger
+element of employees. To the mind of the strike leader a counter
+demonstration was imperative. To that immediate end the man now bent
+every effort.
+
+All day the members of the agitator's inner circle were active. When
+evening came, a small company of men gathered in a vacant store
+building not far from the Mill. There was little talk among them. When
+one did speak it was to utter a mere commonplace or perhaps to greet
+some newcomer. They were as men who meet at a given place by agreement
+to carry out some definite and carefully laid plan. Moment by moment
+the company grew in numbers until the gathering assumed such
+proportions that it overflowed the building and filled the street. And
+now, scattered through the steadily growing crowd, the members of that
+inner circle were busy with exhortations and arguments preparing the
+workmen for what was to follow.
+
+Presently from the direction of the strike headquarters came another
+company with Jake Vodell himself in their midst. These had assembled at
+the strike headquarters. Without pausing they swept on down the street
+toward the Mill, taking with them the crowd that was waiting at the old
+store. Scarcely had they reached the front of the large main building
+when they were joined by still another crowd that had been gathering in
+the neighborhood of McIver's factory. Thus, with startling suddenness,
+a great company of workmen was assembled at the Mill.
+
+But a large part of that company had yet to be molded to Vodell's
+purpose. Many had gone to the designated places in response to the
+simple announcement that a labor meeting would be held there. Only
+those of the agitator's trusted inner circle had known of the plan to
+unite these smaller gatherings in one great mass meeting. Only these
+chosen few knew the real purpose of that meeting. There were hundreds
+of workmen in that throng who were opposed to Vodell and his methods,
+but they were unorganized, with no knowledge of the strike leader's
+plans. And so it had been easy for the members of that inner circle to
+lead these separate smaller gatherings to the larger assembly in front
+of the Mill.
+
+To accomplish the full purpose of his demonstration against the
+employer class, the strike leader must make it appear to the public as
+the united action of the working people of Millsburgh. The requirements
+of his profession made Jake Vodell a master of mob psychology. With the
+leaven of his chosen inner circle and the temper of the many strikers
+whose nerves were already strained to the breaking point by their weeks
+of privation, the agitator was confident that he could bend the
+assembled multitude to his will. Those who were opposed to his
+leadership and to his methods--disorganized and taken by surprise as
+they were--would be helpless. At the same time their presence in the
+mob would appear to give their sanction and support to whatever was
+accomplished.
+
+Quickly word of the gathering spread throughout the community. From
+every direction--from the Flats, from the neighborhood of the Martin
+home--and from the more distant parts of the city--men were moving
+toward the Mill. With every moment the crowd increased in size.
+Everywhere among the mass of men Vodell's helpers were busy.
+
+A block away an automobile stopped at the curb in front of a deserted
+house. A man left the car, and, keeping well out of the light from the
+street lamps, walked swiftly to the outskirts of the mob. With his face
+hidden by the turned-up collar of his overcoat and the brim of his hat
+pulled low, he moved here and there in the thin edge of the multitude.
+
+The agitator, standing on a goods box on the street opposite the big
+doors of the main Mill building, began his address. As one man, the
+hundreds of assembled workmen turned toward the leader of the strike. A
+hush fell over them. But there was one in that great crowd to whom the
+words of Jake Vodell meant nothing. Silent Billy Rand, pushing his way
+through the press of men, searched face after face with simple,
+untiring purpose.
+
+A squad of police arrived. Vodell, calling attention to them,
+facetiously invited the guardians of the law to a seat of honor on the
+rostrum. The crowd laughed.
+
+At that moment Billy Rand caught sight of the face he was seeking. When
+the Interpreter's messenger grasped his arm, the man, who was standing
+well back in the edge of the crowd, started with fear. Billy thrust the
+note into his hand. As he read the message he shook so that the paper
+rattled in his fingers. Helplessly he looked about. He seemed paralyzed
+with horror. Again Billy Rand grasped his arm and this time drew him
+aside, out of the crowd.
+
+Helpless and shaken, the man made no effort to resist, as the
+Interpreter's deaf and dumb companion hurried him away down the street.
+
+At the foot of the zigzag stairway Billy's charge sank down on the
+lower step, as if he had no strength to go on. Without a moment's pause
+Billy lifted him to his feet and almost carried him up the stairs and
+into the hut to place him, cowering and whimpering, before the man in
+the wheel chair.
+
+     *       *       *       *       *
+
+John and Helen had gone to the Martin cottage that evening to spend an
+hour with the old workman and his daughter. They had just arrived when
+the telephone rang.
+
+It was the watchman at the Mill. He had called John at the Ward home,
+and Mrs. Ward had directed him to call the cottage.
+
+In a few words John told the others of the crowd at the Mill. He must
+go at once.
+
+"But not alone, boy," said Peter Martin. "This is no more your job than
+'tis mine."
+
+As they were leaving, John said hurriedly to Helen, "Telephone Tom to
+come for you at once and take Mary home with you. Mother may need you,
+and Mary must not be left here alone. I'll bring Uncle Pete home with
+me."
+
+A moment later the old workman and the general manager, in John's
+roadster, were on their way to the Mill.
+
+When Tom arrived at the cottage with Helen's car the two young women
+were ready. They were entering the automobile when Billy Rand appeared.
+It was evident from his labored breathing that he had been running, but
+his face betrayed no excitement. With a pleased smile, as one who would
+say, "Luckily I got here just in time," he handed a folded paper to
+Mary.
+
+By the light of the automobile lamp she read the Interpreter's message
+aloud to Helen.
+
+"Telephone John to come to me at once with a big car. If you can't get
+John tell Helen."
+
+For an instant they looked at each other questioningly. Then Helen
+spoke to the chauffeur. "To the Interpreter's, Tom." She indicated to
+Billy Rand that he was to go with them.
+
+     *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not Jake Vodell's purpose to call openly in his address to the
+assembled workmen for an attack on the Mill. Such a demonstration
+against the employer class was indeed the purpose of the gathering, but
+it must come as the spontaneous outburst from the men themselves. His
+speech was planned merely to lay the kindling for the fire. The actual
+lighting of the blaze would follow later. The conflagration, too, would
+be started simultaneously from so many different points in the crowd
+that no one individual could be singled out as having incited the riot.
+
+The agitator was still speaking when John and Peter Martin arrived on
+the scene. Quietly and carefully John drove through the outskirts of
+the crowd to a point close to the wall and not far from the main door
+of the building, nearly opposite the speaker. Stopping the motor the
+two men sat in the car listening to Vodell's address.
+
+The agitator did not call attention to the presence of the manager of
+the Mill as he had to the police, nor was there any noticeable break in
+his speech. But throughout the great throng there was a movement--a
+ripple of excitement--as the men looked toward John and the old
+workman, and turned each to his neighbor with low-spoken comments. And
+then, from every part of the crowd, the agitator saw individuals moving
+quietly toward the manager's car until between the two men in the
+automobile and the main body of the speaker's audience a small compact
+group of workmen stood shoulder to shoulder. They were the men of the
+Mill workers' union who had refused to follow Jake Vodell. And every
+man, as he took his place, greeted John and the old workman with a low
+word, or a nod and a smile. The agitator concluded his address, and
+amid the shouts and applause left his place on the goods box to move
+about among his followers.
+
+Presently, a low murmur arose like a growling undertone. Now and then a
+voice was raised sharply in characteristic threat or epithet against
+the employer class. The murmur swelled into a heavy menacing roar. The
+crowd, shaken by some invisible inner force, swayed to and fro. A
+shrill yell rang out and at the signal scores of hoarse voices were
+raised in shouts of mad defiance--threats and calls for action. As the
+whirling waters of a maelstrom are drawn to the central point, the mob
+was massed before the doors of the Mill.
+
+The little squad of police was struggling forward. John Ward sprang to
+his feet. The loyal union men about the car stood fast.
+
+At the sound of the manager's voice the mob hesitated. In all that
+maddened crowd there was not a soul in ignorance of John Ward's
+comradeship with his fellow workmen. In spite of Jake Vodell's careful
+teaching--in spite of his devilish skill in using McIver as an example
+in his appeals and arguments inciting their hatred against all
+employers as a class, they were checked in their madness by the
+presence of Captain Charlie's friend.
+
+But it was only for the moment. The members of Vodell's inner circle
+were at work among them. John had spoken but a few sentences when he
+was interrupted by voices from the crowd.
+
+"Tell us where your old man got this Mill that he says is his?"
+
+"Where did Adam get his castle on the hill?"
+
+"We and our families live in shanties."
+
+"Who paid for your automobile, John?"
+
+"We and our children walk."
+
+As the manager, ignoring the voices, continued his appeal, the
+interruptions came with more frequency, accompanied now by groans,
+shouts, hisses and derisive laughter.
+
+"You're all right, John, but you're in with the wrong bunch."
+
+"We're going to run things for a while now and give you a chance to do
+some real work."
+
+The police pleaded with them. The mob jeered, "Go get a job with
+McIver's gunmen. Go find the man who murdered Captain Charlie."
+
+Once more the growling undertones swelled into a roar. "Come on--come
+on--we've had enough talk--let's do something."
+
+As the crowd surged again toward the Mill doors, there was a forward
+movement of the close-packed group of workmen about the ear. John,
+leaning over them, said, sharply, "No--no--not that--men, not that!"
+
+Then suddenly the movement of the mob toward the Mill was again checked
+as Peter Martin raised his voice. "If you won't listen to Mr. Ward,"
+said the old man, when he had caught their attention, "perhaps you'll
+not mind hearin' me."
+
+In the stillness of the uncertain moment, a voice answered, "Go ahead,
+Uncle Pete!"
+
+Standing on the seat of the automobile, the kindly old workman looked
+down into the grim faces of his comrades. And, as they saw him there
+and thought of Captain Charlie, a deep breath of feeling swept over the
+throng.
+
+In his slow, thoughtful way the veteran of the Mill spoke. "There'll be
+no one among you, I'm thinkin', that'll dare say as how I don't belong
+to the workin' class. An' there'll be no man that'll deny my right to
+be heard in any meeting of Millsburgh working men. I helped the
+Interpreter to organize the first union that was ever started in this
+city--and so far we've managed to carry on our union work without any
+help from outsiders who have no real right to call themselves American
+citizens even--much less to dictate to us American workmen."
+
+There was a stir among Vodell's followers. A voice rose but was
+silenced by the muttered protest which it caused. Jake Vodell, quick to
+grasp the feeling of the crowd, was making his way toward his goods box
+rostrum. Here and there he paused a moment to whisper to one of his
+inner circle.
+
+The old workman continued, "You all know the principles that my boy
+Charlie stood for. You know that he was just as much against employers
+like McIver as he was against men like this agitator who is leading you
+into this trouble here to-night. Jake Vodell has made you believe that
+my boy was killed by the employer class. But I tell you men that
+Charlie had no better friend in the world than his employer, John Ward.
+And I tell you that John and Charlie were working together here for the
+best interests of us all--just as they were together in France. You
+know what my boy would say if he was here to-night. He would say just
+what I am saying. He would tell you that we workmen have got to stand
+by the employers who stand by us. He would tell you that we American
+union workmen must protect ourselves and our country against this
+anarchy and lawlessness that has got you men here to-night so all
+excited and beside yourselves that you don't know what you're doing. In
+Captain Charlie's name I ask you men to break up this mob and go
+quietly to your homes where you can think this thing over. We--"
+
+From his position across the street Jake Vodell suddenly interrupted
+the old workman with a rapid fire of questions and insinuations and
+appeals to the mob.
+
+Peter Martin, poorly equipped for a duel of words with such a master of
+the art, was silenced.
+
+Slowly the mob swung again to the agitator. Under the spell of his
+influence they were responding once more to his call, when a big
+automobile rolled swiftly up to the edge of the crowd and stopped.
+
+John Ward was the first to recognize his sister's car. With a word to
+the men near him he sprang to the ground and ran forward. The loyal
+workmen went with him.
+
+In the surprise of the moment, not knowing what was about to happen,
+Jake Vodell stood silent. In breathless suspense every eye in the crowd
+was fixed upon that little group about Helen's car.
+
+Another moment and the assembled workmen witnessed a sight that they
+will never forget. Down the lane that opened as if by magic through the
+mass of men came the loyal members of the Mill workers' union. High on
+their shoulders they carried the Interpreter.
+
+In a silence, deep as the stillness of death, they bore him through
+those close-packed walls of humanity, straight to the big doors of the
+Mill. With their backs against the building they held him high--face to
+face with Jake Vodell and the mob that the agitator was swaying to his
+will.
+
+The old basket maker's head was bare and against the dark background of
+the dingy walls his venerable face with its crown of silvery hair was
+as the face of a prophet.
+
+They did not cheer. In silent awe they stood with tense, upturned
+faces.
+
+A voice, low but clear and distinct, cut the stillness.
+
+"Hats off!"
+
+As one man, they uncovered their heads.
+
+The Interpreter's deep voice--kindly but charged with strange
+authority--swept over them.
+
+"Workmen--what are you doing here? Are you toys that you give
+yourselves as playthings into the hands of this man who chooses to use
+you in his game? Are you children to be led by his idle words and moved
+by his foolish dreams? Are you men or are you cattle to be stampeded by
+him, without reason, to your own destruction? Would you, at this
+stranger's bidding, dig a pit for your fancied enemies and fall into it
+yourselves?"
+
+Not a man in that great crowd of workmen moved. In breathless silence
+they stood awed by the majesty of the old basket maker's
+presence--hushed by the sorrowful authority of his voice.
+
+Solemnly the Interpreter continued, "The one who took the life of your
+comrade workman, Captain Charlie, was not a tool in the hands of your
+employers as you have been led to believe. Neither was that dreadful
+act inspired by the workmen of Millsburgh. Captain Charlie was killed
+by a poor, foolish weakling who was under the same spell that to-night
+has so nearly led you into this blind folly of destroying that which
+should be your glory and your pride. Sam Whaley has confessed to me. He
+has surrendered himself to the proper authorities. But the instigator
+of the crime--the one who planned, ordered and directed it--the leader
+who dominated and drove his poor tool to the deed is this man Jake
+Vodell."
+
+The sound of the Interpreter's voice ceased. For a moment longer that
+dead silence held--then as the full import of the old basket maker's
+words went home to them, the crowd with a roar of fury turned toward
+the spot where the agitator had stood when the arrival of the
+Interpreter interrupted his address.
+
+But Jake Vodell had disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+CONTRACTS
+
+
+They had carried the Interpreter back to his wheel chair in the hut on
+the cliff.
+
+John, Peter Martin and the two young women were bidding the old basket
+maker goodnight when suddenly they were silenced by the dull, heavy
+sound of a distant explosion.
+
+A moment they stood gazing at one another, then John voiced the
+thoughts that had gripped the minds of every one in that little group:
+
+"The Mill!"
+
+Springing to the door that opened on to the balcony porch, John threw
+it open and they went out, taking the Interpreter in his chair. In
+breathless silence they strained their eyes toward the dark mass of the
+Mill with its forest of stacks and its many lights.
+
+"Everything seems to be all right there," murmured John.
+
+But as the last word left his lips a chorus of exclamations came from
+the others. Farther up the river a dull red glow flushed the sky.
+
+"McIver's!"
+
+"The factory!"
+
+The Interpreter said, quietly, "Jake Vodell."
+
+With every second the red glow grew brighter--reaching higher and
+higher--spreading wider and wider over the midnight sky. Then they
+could see the flames--threadlike streaks and flashes in the dark cloud
+of smoke at first but increasing in volume, climbing and climbing in
+writhing, twisting columns of red fury. The wild, long-drawn shriek of
+the fire whistles, the clanging roar of the engines, the frantic rush
+of speeding automobiles awoke the echoes of the cliffs and aroused the
+sleeping creatures on the hillsides. The volume of the leaping,
+whirling mass of flames increased until the red glare shut out the
+stars.
+
+The officers of the law who were hunting Jake Vodell heard that
+explosion and telephoned their stations for orders. The business men of
+the little city, awakened from their sleep, looked from their windows,
+muttered drowsy conjectures and returned to their beds. Mothers and
+children in their homes heard and turned uneasily in their dreams. The
+dwellers in the Flats heard and wondered fearfully.
+
+Before morning dawned the telegraph wires would carry the word
+throughout the land. In every corner of our country the people would
+read, as they have all too often read of similar explosions. They would
+read, offer idle comments, perhaps, and straightway forget. That is the
+wonder and the shame of it--that with these frequent warnings ringing
+in our ears we are not warned. With these things continually forced
+upon our attention we do not heed. With the demonstration before our
+eyes we are not convinced. We are not aroused to the meaning of it all.
+
+In his cell in the county jail, Sam Whaley heard that explosion and
+knew what it was.
+
+The Interpreter was right when he said, "Jake Vodell."
+
+It was an hour, perhaps, after the Interpreter's friends had left the
+hut when the old basket maker, who was still sitting at the window
+watching the burning factory, heard an automobile approaching at a
+frightful pace from the direction of the fire. The noise of the
+speeding machine ceased with startling suddenness at the foot of the
+stairway, and the Interpreter heard some one running up the steps with
+headlong haste. Without pausing to knock, Adam Ward burst into the room
+and stood panting and shaking with mad excitement before the man in the
+wheel chair.
+
+The Mill owner's condition was pitiful. By his eyes that were
+glittering with wild, unnatural light, by the gray, twitching features,
+the grotesque gestures, the trembling, jerking limbs, the Interpreter
+knew that the last flickering gleam of reason had gone out. The hour
+toward which the man himself had looked with such dread had come. Adam
+Ward was insane.
+
+With a leering grin of triumph the madman went closer to the old basket
+maker. "I got away again. They were right after me but they couldn't
+catch me. That roadster of mine is the fastest car in the county--cost
+me four thousand dollars. I knew if I could get here I would be safe.
+They wouldn't think of looking for me here in your shanty, would they?
+They can't get in anyway if they should come. You wouldn't--you
+wouldn't let them get me, would you?"
+
+"Peace, Adam Ward! You are safe here."
+
+The insane man chuckled. "The folks at the house think I am in my room
+asleep. They don't know that I never sleep. I'll tell you something. If
+a man sleeps he goes to hell--hell--hell--" His voice rose almost to a
+scream and he shook with terror.
+
+"Did you see it? Did you see when hell broke out to-night over there
+where McIver's factory used to be? I did--I was there and I heard them
+roaring in the fibres of torment and screaming in the flames. They
+called for me but I laughed and came here. They'll never get Adam Ward
+into hell. They don't know it yet, but I've got a contract with God. I
+fixed it up myself just like you told me to and God signed it without
+reading it just as Peter Martin did. I'll show them! It'll take more
+than God to get the best of Adam Ward in a deal."
+
+He walked about the room, waving his arms and laughing in hideous
+triumph, muttering mad boasts and mumbling to himself or taunting the
+phantom creatures of his disordered brain.
+
+The helpless Interpreter could only wait silently for whatever was to
+follow.
+
+At last the madman turned again to the old basket maker. Placing a
+chair close in front of the Interpreter, he seated himself and in a
+confidential whisper said, "Did you know that everybody thinks I am
+going insane? Well, I am not. Nobody knows it, but it's not me that's
+crazy--it's John. He's been that way ever since he got home from
+France. The poor boy thinks the world is still at war and that he can
+run the Mill just as he fought the Germans over there. There's another
+thing that you ought to know, too--you are crazy yourself. Don't be
+afraid, I won't tell anybody else. But you ought to know it. If a man
+knows it when he is going crazy it gives him a chance to fix things up
+with God so they can't get him into hell for all eternity, you see. So
+I thought I had better tell you."
+
+The Interpreter spoke in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. "Thank you, Adam,
+I appreciate your kindness."
+
+"I was there at the Mill tonight," Adam continued, "and I heard you
+tell them who killed Charlie Martin. And then those crazy fools went
+tearing off to hunt Jake Vodell." He chuckled and laughed. "What
+difference does it make who killed Charlie Martin? I own the patented
+process. I am the man they want. But they can't touch me. I hired the
+best lawyers in the country and I've got it sewed up tight. I put one
+over on Pete Martin in that deal and I've put one over on God, too.
+I've got God sewed up tight, I tell you, just like I sewed up Peter
+Martin. They can howl their heads off but they'll never get me into
+hell."
+
+He leaned back in his chair with the satisfied air of a business man
+crediting himself with having closed a successful transaction.
+
+Then, with a manner and voice that was apparently normal, he said, "Did
+I ever tell you about how I got that patented process of mine,
+Wallace?" The Interpreter knew by his use of that name, so seldom heard
+in these later years, that Adam's mind was back in the old days when,
+with Peter Martin, they had worked side by side at the same bench in
+the Mill.
+
+Hoping to calm him, the old basket maker returned indifferently, "No,
+Adam, I don't remember that you ever told me, but don't you think some
+other time would be better perhaps than to-night? It is getting late
+and you--"
+
+The other interrupted with a wave of his hand. "Oh, that's all right.
+It's safe enough to talk about it now. Besides," he added, with a
+cunning leer, "nobody would believe you if you should tell them the
+truth. You're nothing but a crazy old basket maker and I am Adam Ward,
+don't forget that for a minute." He glared threateningly at the man in
+the wheel chair, and the Interpreter, fearing another outburst, said,
+soothingly, "Certainly, Adam, I understand. I will not forget."
+
+With the manner of one relating an interesting story in which he
+himself figured with great personal credit, Adam Ward said:
+
+"It was Pete Martin, you see, who actually discovered the new process.
+But, luckily for me, I was the first one he told about it. He had
+worked it all out and I persuaded him not to say a thing to any one
+else until the patents were secured. Pete didn't really know the value
+of what he had. But I knew--I saw from the first that it would
+revolutionize the whole business, and I knew it would make a fortune
+for the man that owned the patents.
+
+"Pete and I were pretty good friends in those days, but friendship
+don't go far in business. I never had a friend in my life that I
+couldn't use some way. So I had Pete over to my house every evening and
+made a lot over him and talked over his new process and made
+suggestions how he should handle it, until finally he offered to give
+me a half interest if I would look after the business details. That, of
+course, was exactly what I was playing for. And all this time, you see,
+I took mighty good care that not a soul was around when Pete and I
+talked things over. So we fixed it all up between us--with no one to
+hear us, mind you--that we were to share equally--half and half--in
+whatever the new process brought.
+
+"After that, I went ahead and got all the patents good and tight and
+then I fixed up a nice little document for Pete to sign. But I waited
+and I didn't say a word to Pete until one evening when he and his wife
+were studying and figuring out the plans for the house they were going
+to build. I sat and planned with them a while until I saw how Pete's
+mind was all on his new house, and then all at once I put my little
+document down on the table in front of him and said, 'By the way, Pete,
+those patents will be coming along pretty soon and I have had a little
+contract fixed up just as a matter of form--you know how we planned it
+all. Here's where you sign--'"
+
+Adam Ward paused to laugh with insane glee. "Pete did just what I knew
+he'd do--he signed that document without even reading a line of it and
+went on with his house planning and figuring as if nothing had
+happened. But something had happened--something big had happened.
+Instead of the way we had planned it together when we were talking
+alone with nobody to witness it, Pete signed to me outright for one
+dollar all his rights and interests in that new patented process."
+
+Again the madman laughed triumphantly. "Pete never even found out what
+he'd done until nearly a year later. And then he wouldn't believe it
+until the lawyers made him. He couldn't do anything of course. I had it
+sewed up too tight. That process is mine, I tell you--mine by all the
+laws in the country. What if I did take advantage of him! That's
+business. A man ought to have sense enough to read what he puts his
+signature to. You don't catch me trusting anybody far enough to sign
+anything he puts before me without reading it. Why--why--what are you
+crying for?"
+
+Adam Ward was not mistaken--the Interpreter's eyes were wet with tears.
+
+The sight of the old basket maker's grief sent the insane man off on
+another tangent. "Don't you worry about me. Helen and John and their
+mother worry a lot about me. They think I'm going to hell."
+
+He sprang to his feet with a hoarse inarticulate cry. "They'll never
+get me into hell! God has got to keep His contracts and I've fixed it
+all up so He'll have to save me whether He wants to or not. The papers
+are all signed and everything. My lawyer has got them in his safe. God
+can't help Himself. You told me I'd better do it and I have. I'm not
+afraid to meet God now! I'll show Him just like I showed Pete."
+
+He rushed from the room as abruptly as he had entered. The Interpreter
+heard him plunging down the stairs. The roar of his automobile died
+away in the distance.
+
+In an early morning extra edition, the Millsburgh _Clarion_ announced
+the death of two of the most prominent citizens.
+
+James McIver was killed in the explosion that burned his factory.
+
+Adam Ward's body was found in a secluded corner of his beautiful
+estate. He died by his own hand.
+
+The cigar-store philosopher put his paper down and reached into the
+show case for the box that the judge wanted. "It looks like McIver
+played the wrong cards in his little game with Jake Vodell," he
+remarked, as the judge made a careful selection.
+
+"I am afraid so," returned the judge.
+
+The postmaster took a handful from the same box and said, as he dropped
+a dollar on the top of the show case, "I see Sam Whaley has confessed
+that the blowing up of the factory was all set as part of their
+program. Their plan was to wreck the Mill first then McIver's place.
+Where do you suppose Jake Vodell got away to?"
+
+"Hard to guess," said the judge.
+
+The philosopher put the proper change before them. "There's one thing
+sure--the people of these here United States had better get good and
+busy findin' out where he is."
+
+It was significant that neither the philosopher nor his customers
+mentioned the passing of Adam Ward.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+THE OLD HOUSE
+
+
+"_Tell them, O Guns, that we have heard their call,
+
+That we have sworn, and will not turn aside, That we will onward till
+we win or fall,
+
+That we will keep the faith for which they died_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+"JEST LIKE THE INTERPRETER SAID"
+
+
+It is doubtful if in all Millsburgh there was a soul who felt a
+personal loss in the passing of their "esteemed citizen" Adam Ward.
+During the years that followed his betrayal of Peter Martin's
+friendship the man had never made a friend who loved him for
+himself--who believed in him or trusted him. In business circles his
+reputation for deals that were always carefully legal but often
+obviously dishonest had caused the men he met to accept him only so far
+as their affairs made the contact necessary. Because of the power he
+had through his possession of the patented process he was known. His
+place in the community had been fixed by what he took from the
+community. His habit of boasting of his possessions, of his power, and
+of his business triumphs, and his way of considering the people as his
+personal debtors had been a never-failing subject of laughing comment.
+Men spoke of his death in a jocular vein--made jests about
+it--wondering what he was really worth. But one and all invariably
+concluded their comments with some word of sincere sympathy for his
+family.
+
+Because of the people's estimation of the Mill owner's character, the
+publication of his will created a sensation the like of which was never
+before known in the community.
+
+One half of his estate, including the Mill, Adam Ward gave to his
+family. The other half he gave to his old workman friend, Peter Martin.
+
+Millsburgh was stunned, stupefied with amazement and wonder. But no one
+outside the two families, save the Interpreter, ever knew the real
+reason for the bequest. The old basket maker alone understood that this
+was Adam Ward's deal with God--it was the contract by which he was to
+escape the hell of his religious fears--the horrors of which he had so
+often suffered in his dreams and the dread of which had so preyed upon
+his diseased mind.
+
+When the necessary time for the legal processes in the settlement of
+Adam Ward's estate had passed, John called the Mill workers together.
+In his notice of the meeting, the manager stated simply that it was to
+consider the mutual interests of the employers and employees by
+safeguarding the future of the industry. When the workmen had
+assembled, they wondered to see on the platform with their general
+manager, Helen and her mother, Mary and Peter Martin, the city mayor,
+with representative men from the labor unions and from the business
+circles of the community, and, sitting in his wheel chair, the
+Interpreter.
+
+To the employees in the Mill and to the representatives of the people
+the announcement of the final disposition of Adam Ward's estate was
+made.
+
+The house on the hill with the beautiful grounds surrounding it became
+in effect the property of the people--with an endowment fixed for its
+maintenance. It was to be converted into a center of community
+interest, one feature of which was to be an institute for the study of
+patriotism.
+
+"We have foundations for the promotion of the sciences, of art and of
+business," said the legal gentleman who made the announcements. "Why
+not an institution for the study and promotion of patriotism--research
+in the fields of social and industrial life that are peculiarly
+American--lectures, classes, and literature on the true Americanization
+of those who come to us from foreign countries--the promotion of true
+American principles and standards of citizenship in our public schools
+and educational institutions and among our people--the collection and
+study of authentic data from the many industrial and social experiments
+that are being carried on--these are some of the proposed activities."
+
+This Institute of American Patriotism would be under the leadership of
+the Interpreter and would stand as a memorial to the memory of Captain
+Charlie Martin.
+
+When the mayor, in behalf of the people, had made a fitting response to
+this presentation, John told the Mill men that their employer, Pete
+Martin, would make an announcement.
+
+The old workman was greeted with cheers. Some one in the crowd called,
+good-naturedly, "How does it feel to be an owner, Uncle Pete?"
+Everybody laughed and the veteran himself grinned.
+
+"I guess I'm too old to change my feelings much, Bill Sewold," he
+answered. "And that's about what I was going to tell you. The lawyers
+say that I own half of our Mill here and that I can do what I please
+with it. But I can't some way make it seem any more mine than it always
+was. Mary and I are agreed that we'd like to do what we know Charlie
+would be in for if he was here, and we've talked it over with John and
+his folks and they feel just like we do about it.
+
+"The lawyers can explain the workin's of the plan to you better than I
+can; but this is the main idea: The whole thing has been made over into
+a company with John and his mother and sister owning one half and me
+the other. What John wants me to tell you is that he and his folks are
+turning one half of their interest and Mary and me are turning one half
+of our interest back to you workmen. So that from now on all the
+employees of the Mill will be employers--and all the employers will be
+employees. With John and me and our folks owning one half, you can see
+that we're figuring on keeping the management in the proper hands, John
+will be in the office where he belongs and the rest of us will be where
+we belong. Considering our recent demonstration, I guess you'll all
+agree that a lot of us need to be protected by the rest of us from all
+of us. And now all we have to do is to work. And I'd like to see Jake
+Vodell or any other foreign agitator try to start another industrial
+war in Millsburgh."
+
+It was the Interpreter who asked the assembled workmen to endorse a
+petition to the governor asking clemency for Sam Whaley. The ground
+upon which the petition was based was that the guilty principal in the
+crime was still at liberty--that others, still unknown, were involved
+with him--that Sam Whaley by his confession had saved the Mill and the
+community from the full horrors planned by the agitator, and that under
+the new standard of industrial citizenship the former follower of the
+anarchist might in time become a useful member of society.
+
+A solemn hush fell over the company when Peter Martin, Mary, John and
+Helen were the first to sign the petition.
+
+The old house is no longer empty, deserted and forlorn. Repaired and
+repainted from the front gate to the back-yard fence--with well-kept
+lawn, flowers and garden--it impresses the passer-by with its air of
+modest home happiness. To Helen and her mother who live there, to John
+and his wife, Mary, and to the old workman who live in the cottage next
+door, the spirit of the old days has returned.
+
+The neighbors in passing always stop for a word with the gray-haired
+woman who works among her flowers just as she used to do before the
+discovery of the new process, or with her sweet-faced daughter. The
+workmen going to or from the Mill always have a smile or a word of
+greeting for the mother and the sister of their comrade manager.
+
+Nor is there a man or woman in all the city or in the country round
+about who does not know and love this Helen of the old house, who is
+giving herself so without reserve to the people's need, who has, as the
+Interpreter says, "found herself in service."
+
+But when the deep tones of the Mill whistle sound over the city, the
+valley and the hillsides, there is a look in Helen's eyes that only
+those who know her best understand.
+
+And often in these days the neighborhood of the old house rings with
+the merry voices of Bobby and Maggie and their playmates. From the
+Flats--from the tenement houses--from the homes of the laborers, they
+come, these children, to this beautiful woman who loves them all and
+who calls them, somewhat fancifully, her "jewels of happiness."
+
+"Yer see," explained little Maggie, "the princess lady, she jest couldn't
+help findin' them there happiness jewels--'cause her heart was so
+kind--jest like the Interpreter said."
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Helen of the Old House, by Harold Bell Wright
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