Helen of the Old House Part 26

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 cla.s.s against cla.s.s 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. G.o.d 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 h.e.l.l. 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 rea.s.suring 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!"