Book: Helen of the Old House

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Adam Ward laughed. "Tell that to your partner Billy Rand over there; he
will hear it as quick as the American people will."

But the man in the wheel chair was not disturbed by Adam Ward's
laughing.

"The great war taught the American people some mighty lessons, Adam
Ward," he said. "It taught us that patriotism is not of one class or
rank, but is common to every level of our national social life. It
taught us that heroism is the birthright of both office and shop. Most
of all did the war teach us the lesson of comradeship--that men of
every rank and class and occupation could stand together, live together
and die together, united in the bonds of a common, loyal citizenship
for a common, human cause. And out of that war and its lessons our own
national saviors are come. The loyal patriot employers and the loyal
patriot employees, who on the fields of war were brother members of
that great union of sacrifice and death, will together free the
industries of their own country from the two equally menacing
terrors--imperialistic capital and imperialistic labor.

"The comradeship of your son with the workman Charlie Martin, the stand
that John has taken against McIver, and the refusal of the Mill
workers' union to accept Vodell's leadership--is the answer to your
question, 'Who is to save the Mill?'"

"Rot!" exclaimed Adam Ward. "You talk as though every man who went to
that war was inspired by the highest motives. They were not all heroes
by a good deal."

"True," returned the Interpreter, "they were not all heroes. But there
was the leaven that leavened the lump, and so the army itself was
heroic."

"What about the moral degeneracy and the crime wave that have followed
the return of your heroic army?" demanded Adam.

"True, again," returned the Interpreter; "it is inevitable that men
whose inherited instincts and tendencies are toward crime should
acquire in the school of war a bolder spirit--a more reckless daring in
their criminal living. But again there is the saving leaven that
leavens the lump. If the war training makes criminals more bold, it as
surely makes the leaven of nobility more powerful. One splendid example
of noble heroism is ten thousand times more potent in the world than a
thousand revolting deeds of crime. No--no, Adam Ward, the world will
not forget the lessons it learned over there. The torch of Flanders
fields has not fallen. The world will carry on."

There was such a quality of reverent conviction in the concluding words
of the man in the wheel chair that Adam Ward was silenced.

For some time they sat, looking into the night where the huge bulk of
the Mill with its towering stacks and overhanging clouds seemed to
dominate not only the neighboring shops and factories and the immediate
Flats, but in some mysterious way to extend itself over the business
district and the homes of the city, and, like a ruling spirit, to
pervade the entire valley, even unto the distant line of hills.

When the old basket maker spoke again, that note of strange and solemn
authority was in his voice. "Listen, Adam Ward! In the ideals, the
heroism, the suffering, the sacrifice of the war--in shell hole and
trench and bloody No Man's Land, the sons of men have found again the
God that you and men like you had banished from the Mill. Your boy and
Pete Martin's boy, with more thousands of their comrades than men of
your mind realize, have come back from the war fields of France to
enthrone God once more in the industrial world. And it shall come that
every forge and furnace and anvil and machine shall be an organ to His
praise--that every suit of overalls shall be a priestly robe of
ministering service. And this God that you banished from the Mill and
that is to be by your son restored to His throne and served by a
priesthood of united employers and employees, shall bear a new name,
Adam Ward, and that name shall be WORK."

Awed by the strange majesty of the Interpreter's voice, Adam Ward could
only whisper fearfully, "Work--the name of God shall be Work!" "Ay,
Adam Ward, WORK--and why not? Does not the work of the world express
the ideals, the purpose, the needs, the life, the _oneness_ of the
world's humanity, even as a flower expresses the plant that puts it
forth? And is not God the ultimate flowering of the human plant?"

The Mill owner spoke with timid hesitation, "Could I--do you
think--could I, perhaps, help to, as you say, put God back into the
Mill?"

"Your part in the building of the Mill is finished, Adam Ward," came
the solemn answer. "You have made many contracts with men, sir; you
should now make a contract with your God."

The owner of the new process sprang to his feet with an exclamation of
fear. As one who sees a thing of horror in the dark, he drew back,
trembling.

That deep, inexorable voice of sorrowful authority went on, "Make a
contract with your God, Adam Ward; make a contract with your God."

With a wild cry of terror Adam Ward fled into the night.

The Interpreter in his wheel chair looked up at the stars.

* * * * *

It seems scarcely possible that the old basket maker could have
foreseen the tragic effect of his words--and yet--




CHAPTER XX

THE PEOPLE'S AMERICA


At his evening meetings on the street, Jake Vodell with stirring
oratory kindled the fire of his cause. In the councils of the unions,
through individuals and groups, with clever arguments and inflaming
literature, he sought recruits. With stinging sarcasm and withering
scorn he taunted the laboring people--told them they were fools and
cowards to submit to the degrading slavery of their capitalist owners.
With biting invective and blistering epithet he pictured their employer
enemies as the brutal and ruthless destroyers of their homes. With
thrilling eloquence he fanned the flames of class hatred, inspired the
loyalty of his followers to himself and held out to them golden
promises of reward if they would prove themselves men and take that
which belonged to them.

But the Mill workers' union, as an organization, was steadfast in its
refusal to be dominated by this agitator who was so clearly
antagonistic to every principle of American citizenship. Jake Vodell
could neither lead nor drive them into a strike that was so evidently
called in the interests of his cause. And more and more the agitator
was compelled to recognize the powerful influence of the Interpreter.
It was not long before he went to the hut on the cliff with a positive
demand for the old basket maker's open support.

"I do not know why it is," he said, "that a poor old cripple like you
should have such power among men, but I know it is so. You shall tell
this Captain Charlie and his crowd of fools that they must help me to
win for the laboring people their freedom. You shall, for me, enlist
these Mill men in the cause."

The Interpreter asked, gravely, "And when you have accomplished this
that you call freedom--when you have gained this equality that you talk
about--how will your brotherhood be governed?"

Jake Vodell scowled as he gazed at the man in the wheel chair with
quick suspicion. "Governed?"

"Yes," returned the Interpreter. "Without organization of some sort
nothing can be done. No industries can be carried on without the
concerted effort which is organization. Without the industry that is
necessary to human life the free people you picture cannot exist.
Without government--which means law and the enforcement of
law--organization of any kind is impossible."

"There will have to be organization, certainly," answered Vodell.

"Then, there will be leaders, directors, managers with authority to
whom the people must surrender themselves as individuals," said the
Interpreter, quietly. "An organization without leadership is
impossible."

The agitator's voice was triumphant, as he said, "Certainly there will
be leaders. And their authority will be unquestioned. And these leaders
will be those who have led the people out of the miserable bondage of
their present condition."

The Interpreter's voice had a new note in it now, as he said, "In other
words, sir, what you propose is simply to substitute _yourself_ for
McIver. You propose to the people that they overthrow their present
leaders in the industries of their nation in order that you and your
fellow agitators may become their masters. You demand that the citizens
of America abolish their national government and in its place accept
you and your fellows as their rulers? What assurance can you give the
people, sir, that under your rule they will have more freedom for
self-government, more opportunities for self-advancement and prosperity
and happiness than they have at present?"

"Assurance?" muttered the other, startled by the Interpreter's manner.

The old basket maker continued, "Are you and your self-constituted
leaders of the American working people, gods? Are you not as human as
any McIver or Adam Ward of the very class you condemn? Would you not be
subject to the same temptations of power--the same human passions?
Would you not, given the same opportunity, be all that you say they
are--or worse?"

Jake Vodell's countenance was black with rage. He started to rise, but
a movement of Billy Rand made him hesitate. His voice was harsh with
menacing passion. "And you call yourself a friend of the laboring
class?"

"It is because I am a friend of my fellow American citizens that I ask
you what freedom your brotherhood can insure to us that we have not
now," the Interpreter answered, solemnly. "Look there, sir." He swept,
in a gesture, the scene that lay within view of his balcony porch.
"_That_ is America--_my_ America--the America of the _people_. From the
wretched hovels of the incompetent and unfortunate Sam Whaleys in the
Flats down there to Adam Ward's castle on the hill yonder, it is _our_
America. From the happy little home of that sterling workman, Peter
Martin, to the homes of the business workers on the hillside over
there, it is _ours_. From the business district to the beautiful farms
across the river, it belongs to _us all_. And the Mill there--
representing as it does the industries of our nation and
standing for the very life of our people--is _our_ Mill. The troubles
that disturb us--the problems of injustice--the wrongs of selfishness
that arise through such employers as McIver and such employees as Sam
Whaley, are _our_ troubles, and we will settle our own difficulties in
our own way as loyal American citizens."

The self-appointed apostle of the new freedom had by this time regained
his self-control. His only answer to the Interpreter was a shrug of his
thick shoulders and a flash of white teeth in his black beard.

The old basket maker with his eyes still on the scene that lay before
them continued. "Because I love my countrymen, sir, I protest the
destructive teachings of your brotherhood. Your ambitious schemes would
plunge my country into a bloody revolution the horrors of which defy
the imagination. America will find a better way. The loyal American
citizens who labor in our industries and the equally loyal American
operators of these industries will never consent to the ruthless murder
by hundreds and thousands of our best brains and our best manhood in
support of your visionary theories. My countrymen will never permit the
unholy slaughter of innocent women and children, that would result from
your efforts to overthrow our government and establish a wholly
impossible Utopia upon the basis of an equality that is contrary to
every law of life. You preach freedom to the working people in order to
rob them of the freedom they already have. With visions of impossible
wealth and luxurious idleness you blind them to the greater happiness
that is within reach of their industry. In the name of an equality, the
possibility of which your own assumed leadership denies, you incite a
class hatred and breed an intolerance and envy that destroy the good
feeling of comradeship and break down the noble spirit of that actual
equality which we already have and which is our only salvation."

"Equality!" sneered Jake Vodell. "You have a fine equality in this
America of capitalist-ridden fools who are too cowardly to say that
their souls are their own. It is the equality of Adam Ward and Sam
Whaley, I suppose."

"Sam Whaley is a product of your teaching, sir," the Interpreter
answered. "The equality of which I speak is that of Adam Ward and Peter
Martin as it is evidenced in the building up of the Mill. It is the
equality that is in the comradeship of their sons, John and Charlie,
who will protect and carry on the work of their fathers. It is the
equality of a common citizenship--of mutual dependence of employer and
employee upon the industries, that alone can save our people from want
and starvation and guard our nation from the horrors you would bring
upon it."

The man laughed. "Suppose you sing that pretty song to McIver, heh?
What do you think he would say?"

"He would laugh, as you are laughing," returned the Interpreter, sadly.

"Tell it to Adam Ward then," jeered the other. "He will recognize his
equality with Peter Martin when you explain it, heh?"

"Adam Ward is already paying a terrible price for denying it," the
Interpreter answered.

Again Jake Vodell laughed with sneering triumph. "Well, then I guess
you will have to preach your equality to the deaf and dumb man there.
Maybe you can make him understand it. The old basket maker without any
legs and the big husky who can neither hear nor talk--they are equals,
I suppose, heh?"

"Billy Rand and I perfectly illustrate the equality of dependence,
sir," returned the Interpreter. "Billy is as much my superior
physically as I am his superior mentally. Without my thinking and
planning he would be as helpless as I would be without his good bodily
strength. We are each equally dependent upon the other, and from that
mutual dependence comes our comradeship in the industry which alone
secures for us the necessities of life. I could not make baskets
without Billy's labor--Billy could not make baskets without my planning
and directing. And yet, sir, you and McIver would set us to fighting
each other. You would have Billy deny his dependence upon me and use
his strength to destroy me, thus depriving himself of the help he must
have if he would live. McIver would have me deny my dependence upon
Billy and by antagonizing him with my assumed superiority turn his
strength to the destruction of our comradeship by which I also live.
Your teaching of class loyalty and class hatred applied to Billy and me
would result in the ruin of our basket making and in our consequent
starvation."

Again the Interpreter, from his wheel chair, pointed with outstretched
arm to the scene that lay with all its varied grades of life--social
levels and individual interests--before them. "Look," he said, "to the
inequality that is there--inequalities that are as great as the
difference between Billy Rand and myself. And yet, every individual
life is dependent upon all the other individual lives. The Mill yonder
is the basket making of the people. All alike must look to it for life
itself. The industries, without which the people cannot exist, can be
carried on only by the comradeship of those who labor with their hands
and those who work with their brains. In the common dependence all are
equal.

"The only equality that your leadership, with its progress of
destruction, can insure to American employers and employees is an
equality of indescribable suffering and death."

The old basket maker paused a moment before he added, solemnly, "I
wonder that you dare assume the responsibility for such a catastrophe.
Have you no God, sir, to whom you must eventually account?"

The man's teeth gleamed in a grin of malicious sarcasm. "I should know
that you believed in God. Bah! An old woman myth to scare fools and
children. I suppose you believe in miracles also?"

"I believe in the miracle of life," the Interpreter answered; "and in
the great laws of life--the law of inequality and dependence, that in
its operation insures the oneness of all things."

The agitator rose to his feet, and with a shrug of contempt, said,
"Very pretty, Mr. Interpreter, very pretty. You watch now from your hut
here and you shall see what men who are not crippled old basket makers
will do with that little bit of your America out there. It is I who
will teach Peter Martin and his comrades in the Mill how to deal with
your friend Adam Ward and his class."

"You are too late, sir," said the Interpreter, as the man moved toward
the door.

Jake Vodell turned. "How, too late?" Then as he saw Billy Rand rising
to his feet, his hand went quickly inside his vest.

The old basket maker smiled as he once more held out a restraining hand
toward his companion. "I do not mean anything like that, sir. I told
you some time ago that you were defeated in your Millsburgh campaign by
Adam Ward's retirement from the Mill. You are too late because you are
forced now to deal, not with Adam Ward and Peter Martin, but with their
sons."

"Oh, ho! and what you should say also, is that I am really forced to
deal with an old basket maker who has no legs, heh? Well, we shall see
about that, too, Mr. Interpreter, when the time comes--we shall see."




CHAPTER XXI

PETER MARTIN'S PROBLEM


It was not long until the idle workmen began to feel the want of their
pay envelopes. The grocers and butchers were as dependent upon those
pay envelopes as were the workmen themselves.

The winter was coming on. There was a chill in the air. In the homes of
the strikers the mothers and their little ones needed not only food but
fuel and clothing as well. The crowds at the evening street meetings
became more ominous. Through the long, idle days grim, sullen-faced men
walked the streets or stood in groups on the corners watching their
fellow citizens and muttering in low, guarded tones. Members of the
Mill workers' union were openly branded as cowards and traitors to
their class. The suffering among the women and children became acute.

But Jake Vodell was a master who demanded of his disciples most heroic
loyalty, without a thought of the cost--to them.

McIver put an armed guard about his factory and boasted that he could
live without work. The strikers, he declared, could either starve
themselves and their families or accept his terms.

The agitator was not slow in making capital of McIver's statements.

The factory owner depended upon the suffering of the women and children
to force the workmen to yield to him. Jake Vodell, the self-appointed
savior of the laboring people, depended upon the suffering of women and
children to drive his followers to the desperate measures that would
further his peculiar and personal interests.

Through all this, the Mill workers' union still refused to accept the
leadership of this man whose every interest was anti-American and
foreign to the principles of the loyal citizen workman. But the fire of
Jake Vodell's oratory and argument was not without kindling power, even
among John Ward's employees. As the feeling on both sides of the
controversy grew more bitter and intolerant, the Mill men felt with
increasing force the pull of their class. The taunts and jeers of the
striking workers were felt. The cries of "traitor" hurt. The suffering
of the innocent members of the strikers' families appealed strongly to
their sympathies.

When McIver's imperialistic declaration was known, the number who were
in favor of supporting Jake Vodell's campaign increased measurably.

Nearly every day now at some hour of the evening or night, Pete and
Captain Charlie, with others from among their union comrades, might
have been found in the hut on the cliff in earnest talk with the man in
the wheel chair. The active head of the union was Captain Charlie, as
his father had been before him, but it was no secret that the guiding
counsel that held the men of the Mill steady cane from the old basket
maker.

For John Ward the days were increasingly hard. He could not but sense
the feeling of the men. He knew that if Jake Vodell could win them,
such disaster as the people of Millsburgh had never seen would result.
The interest and sympathy of Helen, the comradeship of Captain Charlie,
and the strength of the Interpreter gave him courage and hope. But
there was nothing that he could do. He felt as he had felt sometimes in
France when he was called upon to stand and wait. It was a relief to
help Mary as he could in her work among the sufferers. But even this
activity of mercy was turned against him by both McIver and Vodell. The
factory man blamed him for prolonging the strike and thus working
injury to the general business interests of Millsburgh. The strike
leader charged him with seeking to win the favor of the working class
in order to influence his own employees against, what he called the
fight for their industrial freedom.

The situation was rapidly approaching a crisis when Peter Martin and
Captain Charlie, returning home from a meeting of their union laid one
evening, found the door of the house locked.

The way the two men stood facing each other without a word revealed the
tension of their nerves. Captain Charlie's hand shook so that his key
rattled against the lock. But when they were inside and had switched on
the light, a note which Mary had left on the table for them explained.

The young woman had gone to the Flats in answer to a call for help.
John was with her. She had left the note so that her father and brother
would not be alarmed at her absence in case they returned home before
her.

In their relief, the two men laughed. They were a little ashamed of
their unspoken fears.

"We might have known," said Pete, and with the words seemed to dismiss
the incident from his mind.

But Captain Charlie did not recover so easily. While his father found
the evening paper and, settling himself in an easy-chair by the table,
cleaned his glasses and filled and lighted his pipe, the younger man
went restlessly from room to room, turning on the lights, turning them
off again--all apparently for no reason whatever. He finished his
inspection by returning to the table and again picking up Mary's note.

When he had reread the message he said, slowly, "I thought John
expected to be at the office to-night."

Something in his son's voice caused the old workman to look at him
steadily, as he answered, "John probably came by on his way to the Mill
and dropped in for a few minutes."

"I suppose so," returned Charlie. Then, "Father, do you think it wise
for sister to be so much with John?"

The old workman laid aside his paper. "Why, I don't know--I hadn't
thought much about it, son. It seems natural enough, considering the
way you children was all raised together when you was youngsters."

"It's natural enough all right," returned Captain Charlie, and, with a
bitterness that was very unlike his usual self, he added, "That's, the
hell of it--it's too natural--too human--too right for this day and
age."

Pete Martin's mind worked rather slowly but he was fully aroused
now--Charlie's meaning was clear. "What makes you think that Mary and
John are thinking of each other in that way, son?"

"How could they help it?" returned Captain Charlie. "Sister is exactly
the kind of woman that John would choose for a wife. Don't I know what
he thinks of the light-headed nonentities in the set that he is
supposed to belong to? Hasn't he demonstrated his ideas of class
distinctions? It would never occur to him that there was any reason why
John Ward should not love Mary Martin. As for sister--when you think of
the whole story of their childhood together, of how John and I were all
through the war, of how he has been in the Mill since we came home, of
their seeing each other here at the house so much, of the way he has
been helping her with her work among the poor in the Flats--well, how
could any woman like sister help loving him?"

While the older man was considering his son's presentation of the case,
Captain Charlie added, with characteristic loyalty, "God may have made
finer men than John Ward, but if He did they don't live around
Millsburgh."

"Well, then, son," said Peter Martin, with his slow smile, "what about
it? Suppose they are thinking of each other as you say?"

Captain Charlie did not answer for a long minute. And the father,
watching, saw in that strong young face the shadow of a hurt which the
soldier workman could not hide.

"It is all so hopeless," said Charlie, at last, in a tone that told
more clearly than words could have done his own hopelessness. "I--it
don't seem right for Mary to have to bear it, too."

"I'm sorry, son," was all that the old workman said, but Captain
Charlie knew that his father understood.

After that they did not speak until they heard an automobile stop in
front of the house.

"That must be Mary now," said Pete, looking at his watch. "They have
never been so late before."

They heard her step on the porch. The sound of the automobile died away
in the distance.

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