BOOK III

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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_."