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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9410-8.txt b/9410-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8830368 --- /dev/null +++ b/9410-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11060 @@ +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: ISO-8859-1 + +*** 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 reëstablished 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 coöperation 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 cañons 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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELEN OF THE OLD HOUSE *** + +***** This file should be named 9410-8.txt or 9410-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/4/1/9410/ + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Josephine Paolucci and PG +Distributed Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/9410-8.zip b/9410-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8716cc4 --- /dev/null +++ b/9410-8.zip diff --git a/9410.txt b/9410.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..294ffcc --- /dev/null +++ b/9410.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11060 @@ +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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELEN OF THE OLD HOUSE *** + +***** This file should be named 9410.txt or 9410.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/4/1/9410/ + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Josephine Paolucci and PG +Distributed Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Helen of the Old House + +Author: Harold Bell Wright + +Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9410] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on September 30, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE 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 be 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 out 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 cooeperation 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 canons 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 + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELEN OF THE OLD HOUSE *** + +This file should be named 7hohs10.txt or 7hohs10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7hohs11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7hohs10a.txt + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Josephine Paolucci +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Helen of the Old House + +Author: Harold Bell Wright + +Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9410] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on September 30, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE 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 be 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 out 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 reëstablished 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 coöperation 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 cañons 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 + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELEN OF THE OLD HOUSE *** + +This file should be named 8hohs10.txt or 8hohs10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8hohs11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8hohs10a.txt + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Josephine Paolucci +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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