Helen of the Old House Part 12

"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 att.i.tude 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 G.o.d 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.ses 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 hobn.o.bbing 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 pa.s.sion, 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 rea.s.suring 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, "h.e.l.lo, 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.