Helen of the Old House Part 6

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 a.s.sociate 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 cla.s.s, but is not so particular as he might be when it comes to choosing his cla.s.s. 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 cla.s.s."

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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s--an intolerance and contempt that breed cla.s.s 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 citizens.h.i.+p for one cla.s.s 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.s 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 att.i.tude 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.