Helen of the Old House Part 5

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 cla.s.s, 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 pa.s.sed 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 mult.i.tude, 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 fas.h.i.+oned 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?"