Book: Helen of the Old House

H >> Harold Bell Wright >> Helen of the Old House




Charlie Martin's silence revealed how accurately John had guessed his
Mill comrade's hidden thoughts.

The new manager continued, "The thing that straightened me out on the
question of our different ranks was that scrap where Captain Charlie
and Private John found themselves caught in the same shell hole with no
one else anywhere near except friend enemy, and somebody had to do
something darned quick. Do you remember our argument?"

"Do I remember!" exclaimed Charlie. "I remember how you said it was
your job to take the chance because I, being an officer, was worth more
to the cause and because the loss of a private didn't matter so much
anyhow."

John retorted quickly, "And you said that it was up to you to take the
chance because it was an officer's duty to take care of his men."

"And then," said Charlie, "you told me to go to hell, commission and
all. And I swore that I'd break you for insolence and insubordination
if we ever got out of the scrape alive."

"And so," grinned John, "we compromised by pulling it off together. And
from that time on I felt different and was as proud of you and your
officer's swank as if I had been the lucky guy myself."

"Yes," said Captain Charlie, smiling affectionately, "and I could see
the grin in your eyes every time you saluted."

"No one else ever saw it, though," returned Private Ward, proudly.

"Don't think for a minute that I overlooked that either," said Captain
Martin. "If any one else had seen it, I would have disciplined you for
sure."

"And don't you think for a minute that I didn't know that, too,"
retorted John. "I could feel you laying for me, and every man in the
company knew it just as be knew our friendship. That's what made us all
love you so. We used to say that if Captain Charlie would just take a
notion to start for Berlin and invite us to go along the war would be
over right there."

Charlie Martin laughed appreciatively. Then he said, earnestly, "After
all, old man, it wasn't an officers' war and it wasn't a privates' war,
was it? Any more than it was the war of America, or England, or France,
or Australia, or Canada--it was _our_ war. And that, I guess, is the
main reason why it all came out as it did."

"Now," said John, with hearty enthusiasm, "you are talking sense."

"But it is all very different now, John," said Charlie, slowly.
"Millsburgh is not France and the Mill is not the United States Army."

"No," returned John, "and yet there is not such a lot of difference,
when you come to think it out."

"We can't disguise the facts," said Captain Martin stubbornly.

"We are not going to disguise anything," retorted John. "I had an idea
how you would feel over my promotion, and that is why I wanted you out
here to-day. You've got to get this 'it's all very different now' stuff
out of your system. So go ahead and shoot your facts."

"All right," said Charlie. "Let's look at things as they are. It was
all very well for us to moon over what we would do if we ever got back
home when we knew darned well our chances were a hundred to one against
our ever seeing the old U.S. again. We spilled a lot of sentiment about
comradeship and loyalty and citizenship and equality and all that,
but--"

"Can your chatter!" snapped John. "Drag out these facts that you are so
anxious to have recognized. Let's have a good look at whatever it is
that makes you rough-neck sons of toil so superior to us lily-fingered
employers. Go to the bat."

"Well," offered Charlie, reluctantly, "to begin with, you are a
millionaire, a university man, member of select clubs; I am nothing but
a common workman."

John returned, quickly, "We are both citizens of the United States. In
the duties and privileges of our citizenship we stand on exactly the
same footing, just as in the army we stood on the common ground of
loyalty. And we are both equally dependent upon the industries of our
country--upon the Mill, and upon each other. Exactly as we were both
dependent upon the army and upon each other in France."

"You are the general manager of the Mill, practically the owner," said
Charlie. "I am only one of your employees."

The son of Adam Ward answered scornfully, "Yes, over there it was
Captain Charlie Martin and Private John Ward of the United States Army.
I suppose it is a lot different now that it is Captain John Ward and
Private Charlie Martin of the United States Industries."

Charlie continued, "You live in a mansion in a select district on the
hill, I live in a little cottage on the edge of the Flats!"

"Over there it was officers' quarters and barracks," said John,
shortly.

Charlie tried again, "You wear white collars and tailored clothes at
your work--I wear dirty overalls."

"We used to call 'em uniforms," barked John.

Captain Charlie hesitated a little before he offered his next fact, and
when he spoke it was with a little more feeling. "There are our
families to take into account too, John. Your sister--well--isn't it a
fact that your sister would no more think of calling on Mary than she
would think of putting on overalls and going to work in the Mill?"

It was John's turn now to hesitate.

"Don't you see?" continued Charlie, "we belong to different worlds, I
tell you, John."

Deliberately Helen's brother knocked the ashes from his pipe and
refilled it with thoughtful care.

Then he said, gravely, "Helen doesn't realize, as we do, old man. How
could she? The girl has not had a chance to learn what the war taught
us. She is exactly like thousands of other good women, and men, too,
for that matter. They simply don't understand. Good Lord!" he exploded,
suddenly "when I think what a worthless snob I was before I enlisted I
want to kick my fool self to death. But we are drifting away from the
main thought," he finished.

"Oh, I don't know," returned the other.

"I thought we were discussing the question of rank," said John.

"Well," retorted Charlie, dryly, "isn't that exactly the whole question
as your sister sees it?"

"You give me a pain!" growled John. "I'll admit that Helen, right now,
attaches a great deal of importance to some things that--well, that are
not so very important after all. But she is no worse than I was before
I learned better. And you take my word she'll learn, too. Sister visits
the old Interpreter too often not to absorb a few ideas that she failed
to acquire at school. He will help her to see the light, just as he
helped me. But for him, I would have been nothing but a gentleman
slacker myself--if there is any such animal. But what under heaven has
all this to do with our relation as employer and employee in the Mill?
What effect would Mary have had on you over there if she had gone to
you with 'Oh, Charlie dear, you mustn't go out in that dreadful No
Man's Land to-night. It is so dirty and wet and cold. Remember that you
are an officer, Charlie dear, and let Private John go.'"

Captain Charlie laughed--this new general manager of the Mill was so
like the buddie he had loved in France. "Do you remember that night--"
he began, but his comrade interrupted him rudely.

"Shut up! I've got to get this thing off my chest and you've got to
hear me out. This country of ours started out all right with the
proposition that all men are created free and equal. But ninety per
cent of our troubles are caused by our crazy notions as to what that
equality really means. The rest of our grief comes from our fool claims
to superiority of one sort or another. It looks to me as though you and
Helen agreed exactly on this question of rank and I am here to tell you
that you are both wrong."

Captain Charlie Martin sat up at this, but before he could speak John
shot a question at him. "Tell me, when Private Ward saluted Captain
Martin as the regulations provide, was the action held by either the
officer or the private to be a recognition of the superiority of
Captain Martin or the inferiority of Private Ward--was it?"

"Not that any one could notice," answered Charlie with a grin.

"You bet your life it wasn't," said John. "Well, then," he continued,
"what was it that the salute recognized?"

"Why, it was the captain's _rank_."

"Exactly; and what determined that rank?"

"The number of men he commanded."

"That's it!" cried John. "The rank of the captain represented
the--the"--he searched for a word--"the _oneness_ of all the men in his
command. And so you see the thing that the individual private really
saluted as superior to himself was the _oneness_ of all his comrades,
both privates and officers in the company."

"Sure," said Charlie, looking a little puzzled, as if he did not quite
see what the manager of the Mill was driving at. "The salute was merely
a sign of the individual's surrender of his own personal will to the
authority of the rank that represented all his fellow individuals."

"Yes," said John, "and when Jack Pershing stood up there with the rest
of the kings and we paraded past, were we humiliated because we were
not dressed exactly like the reviewing generals? We were not. We stuck
out our chests and pulled in our chins as if the whole show was framed
to honor us. And that is exactly what it was, Charlie, because we were
all included in Pershing's rank. The army was not honoring Pershing the
man, it was honoring _itself_."

"Yes," said Charlie, as if he still did not quite grasp his comrade's
purpose.

"Here," said John, "this is the idea. You remember how when we were
kids we used to get hold of an old magnifying glass and use it as a
burning glass?"

"I remember we darned near set fire to Hank Webster's barn once,"
smiled Charlie.

"Well," returned John, "think of the army as a sun, and of every loyal
individual soldier, officer and private alike, as a ray of that sun and
_there_ is your true equality. Pershing's rank was simply the burning
glass that focused our two million individual rays to a point of such
equality that they could move as one. And I noticed another thing in
that review, too," continued John, earnestly, "even if I was supposed
to have my eyes front, I noticed that General Pershing saluted the
colors. And that meant simply this, that as each individual soldier
honored the whole army in his recognition of the general's rank, the
army itself, through its commander, honored the greater _oneness_ of
the nation. And so Foch's rank was a burning glass that focused the
different allied nations into a still greater _oneness_, and drew their
strength to such a point of equality that it lighted a fire under old
Kaiser Bill."

"But what has all this to do with you and me now?" demanded Charlie.
"It looks to me as though you are the one that is getting away from the
main thought."

"I am not," returned John. "It has this to do with you and me: Our
little part as a nation in that world job in France is finished all
right, and the national job that we have to tackle now, here at home,
is a little different, but the principle of unity involved is exactly
the same. Our everyday work can no more be done by those who work with
their hands alone than the Germans could have been whipped by privates
alone. Nor can our industries be carried on by those who do the
planning and managing alone any more than the army could have carried
out a campaign with nothing but officers."

"Oh, I see now what you are getting at," said Charlie.

"It's about time that you woke up," retorted John.

"You mean," continued Charlie, carefully, "that just as the unity of
the army was in the different ranks that focused the individual soldier
rays upon one common purpose, so the true equality of our industries is
possible only through the difference in rank, such as--well, such as
yours and mine--manager and workman or employer and employee."

"Now you're getting wise," cried John. "Really at times you show signs
of almost human intelligence."

Charlie returned, doubtfully, "How do you suppose Sam Whaley and a few
others I could name in our union would take to this equality stuff of
yours?"

"And how do you suppose McIver and others like him would take to it?"
retorted John. "All the men in your union are not Sam Whaleys by a long
shot, neither are all employers like McIver. As I remember, you had to
discipline a man now and then in Company K. And you have heard of
officers being cashiered, haven't you?"

"That's all right," returned the captain, "but how will the rank and
file of our industrial army as a whole ever get it?"

For some time John Ward did not reply to this, but sat brooding over
the question, while his former superior officer waited expectantly.

Then the manager said, earnestly, "Charlie, what was it that drew over
four million American citizens of almost every known parentage from
every walk of life, and made them an army with one purpose? And what
was it that inspired one hundred million more to back them?

"I'll tell you what it was," he continued, when his companion did not
answer, "it was the Big Idea.

"Oh, yes, I know there were all kinds of graft and incompetency and
jealousy and mutiny and outrages. And there were traitors and
profiteers and slackers of every sort. But the Big Idea that focused
the strength of the nation as a whole, Charlie, was so much bigger than
any individual or group that it absorbed all. It took possession of us
all--inspired us all--dominated and drove us all, into every
conceivable effort and sacrifice, until it made heroism a common thing.
And this Big Idea was so big that it not only absorbed disloyalty and
selfishness as a great living river takes in a few drops of poison, but
it assimilated, as well, every brand of class and caste. It made no
distinction between officer and private, it ruled General Pershing and
Private Jones alike. It recognized no difference between educated and
uneducated and sent university professors and bootblacks over the top
side by side. And this Big Idea that so focused the individual rays of
our nation against German imperialism was nothing more or less than
_the idea of the oneness of all humanity._ It may be lost in a scramble
for the spoils of victory, it is true, but it was the Big Idea that won
the victory just the same."

John Ward was on his feet now, pacing back and forth. His face was
flushed and eager, his eyes were glowing, as he himself was possessed
of the Big Idea which he strove to put into words.

And Captain Charlie's pipe was forgotten as he watched his friend and
listened. This John Ward was a John Ward that few people in Millsburgh
knew. But Captain Charlie knew him. Captain Charlie had seen him tested
in all the ways that war tests men. In cold and hunger and the
unspeakable discomforts of mud and filth and vermin--in the waiting
darkness when an impatient whisper or a careless move to ease
overstrained nerves meant a deluge of fire and death--in the wild
frenzy of actual conflict--in the madness of victory--in the delirium
of defeat--in the dreary marking time--in the tense readiness for the
charge--in those many moments when death was near enough to strip the
outward husks from these two men and leave their naked souls face to
face--Captain Charlie had learned to know John Ward.

"Do you remember what the Interpreter said to us the first time we went
to see him after we got home?" demanded John.

Charlie nodded. "He said for us not to make the mistake of thinking
that the war was over just because the Armistice was signed and we were
at home in Millsburgh again. I'm afraid a good many people, though, are
making just that mistake."

"I didn't understand what our old friend meant then, Charlie,"
continued John, "but I know now. He meant that the same old fight
between the spirit of imperialism that seeks the selfish dominion of an
individual or class and the spirit of democracy that upholds the
oneness of all for all, is still on, right here at home. The President
said that the war was to make the world safe for democracy, and there
are some wild enthusiasts who say that we Americans won it."

"That 'we won the war' stuff is all bunk," interrupted Charlie, in a
tone of disgust.

"'Bunk' is right," agreed John. "The old A.E.F. did have a hand,
though, in putting a crimp in the Kaiser's little plan for acquiring
title to the whole human race for himself and family. But if the
American people don't wake up to the fact that the same identical
principles of human right and human liberty that sent us to France are
involved in our industrial controversies here at home, we might as well
have saved ourselves the trouble of going over there at all."

"That is all true enough," agreed Captain Charlie, "but what is going
to wake us up? What is going to send us as a nation against the Kaiser
Bills of capital and the Kaiser Bills of labor, or, if you like it
better, the imperialistic employers and the equally imperialistic
employees?"

John Ward fairly shouted his answer, "The Big Idea, my boy--the same
Big Idea that sent us to war against imperialism over there will wake
us up to drive the spirit of imperialism out of our American industries
here at home."

Charlie shook his head doubtfully. "It was different during the World
War, John. Then the Big Idea was held up before the people to the
exclusion of everything else. When we think of the speeches and parades
and rallies and sermons and books and newspapers and pictures and songs
that were used in the appeal to our patriotism and our common humanity,
it was no wonder that we all felt the pull of it all. But no one now is
saying anything about the Big Idea, except for an occasional paragraph
here and there. And certainly no one is making much noise about
applying it in our industries."

"Yes, I know we can't expect any such hurrah as we had when men were
needed to die for the cause in a foreign land. You go to France and get
shot for humanity and you are a hero. Stay at home and sweat for the
same cause and you are a nobody. From the publicity point of view"
there seems to be a lot of difference between a starving baby in
Belgium and a starving kid in our Millsburgh Flats. But just the same
it is the Big Idea that will save us from the dangers that are
threatening our industries and, through our industries, menacing the
very life of out nation."

"But how will the people get it, John?"

"I don't know how it will come; but, somehow, the appeal must be made
to the loyal citizens of this nation in behalf of the humanity that is
dependent for life itself upon our industries, exactly as the appeal
was made in behalf of the humanity that looked to us for help in time
of war. We must, as a nation, learn, somehow, to feel our work as we
felt our war. The same ideals of patriotism and sacrifice and heroism
that were so exalted in the war must be held up in our everyday work.
We must learn to see our individual jobs in the industrial
organizations of our country as we saw our places in the nation's army.
As a people we must grasp the mighty fact that humanity is the issue of
our mills and shops and factories and mines, exactly as it was the
issue of our campaigns in France. America, Charlie, has not only to
face in her industries the same spirit of imperialism that we fought in
France, but she has to contend with the same breed of disloyal
grafters, profiteers and slackers that would have betrayed us during
the war. And these traitors to our industries must be branded wherever
they are found--among the business forces or in the ranks of labor, in
our schools and churches or on our farms.

"The individual's attitude toward the industries of this nation must be
a test of his loyal citizenship just as a man's attitude toward our
army was a test. And Americans dare not continue to ignore the danger
that lies in the work of those emissaries who are seeking to weaken the
loyalty of our workmen and who by breeding class hatred and strife in
our industries are trying to bring about the downfall of our government
and replace the stars and stripes with the flag that is as foreign to
our American independence as the flag of the German Kaiser himself."

Captain Charlie said, slowly, "That is all true, John, but at the same
time you and I know that there is no finer body of loyal citizens
anywhere in the world than the great army of our American workmen. And
we know, too, that the great army of our American business men are just
as fine and true and loyal."

"Exactly," cried John, "but if these loyal American citizens who work
with their hands in the Mill and these loyal citizens who work in the
office of the Mill don't hold together, in the same spirit of
comradeship that united them in the war, to defend our industries
against both the imperialism of capital and the equally dangerous
imperialism of labor, we may as well run up a new flag at Washington
and be done with it."

"You are right, of course, John," said Captain Charlie, "but how?"

"You and I may not know how," retorted the other, "any more than we
knew how the war was going to be won when we enlisted. But we do know
our little parts right here in Millsburgh clear enough. As I see it, it
is up to us to carry the torch of Flanders fields into the field of our
industries right here in our own home town."

He paced to and fro without speaking for a little while, the other
watching him, waited.

"Of course," said John at last, "a lot of people will call us fanatics
and cranks and idealists for saying that the Big Idea, of the war must
dominate us in our industrial life. And, of course, it is going to be a
darned sight harder in some ways to stand for the principles of our
comradeship here at home than it was over there. 'Don't go out into No
Man's Land to-night, Captain Charlie, it is so dirty and dark and wet
and cold and dangerous; let Private John go.' But the darned fool,
Captain Charlie, went into the cold and the wet and the danger because
he and Private John were comrades in the oneness of the Big Idea."

His voice grew a little bitter as he finished. "Don't go into that
awful Mill, Captain John, it is so dirty and dangerous and you will get
so tired; let Private Charlie do the work while you stay at home and
play tennis or bridge or attend to the social duties of your superior
class."

With ringing earnestness Charlie Martin added, "But the darned fool
fanatic and idealist Captain John will go just the same because he and
Private Charlie are comrades in the oneness of the Big Idea of the Mill
here at home."

For a few moments John stood looking into the distance as one who sees
a vision, then he said, slowly, "And the Big Idea will win again, old
man, as it has always won; and the traitors and slackers and yellow
dogs will be saved with the rest, I suppose, just as they always have
been saved from themselves."

He turned to see his comrade standing at attention. Gravely Captain
Charlie saluted.

* * * * *

Perhaps Jake Vodell was right in believing that the friendship of John
Ward and Charlie Martin was dangerous to his cause in Millsburgh.

The Vodells, who with their insidious propaganda, menace America
through her industrial troubles, will be powerless, indeed, when
American employers and employees can think in terms of industrial
comradeship.




CHAPTER XII

TWO SIDES OF A QUESTION


That evening the new manager of the Mill stayed for supper at the
Martin cottage. It was the first time since he had left the old house
next door for his school in a distant city that he had eaten a meal
with these friends of his boyhood.

Perhaps because their minds were so filled with things they could not
speak, their talk was a little restrained. Captain Charlie attempted a
jest or two; John did his best, and Mary helped them all she could. The
old workman, save for a kindly word now and then to make the son of
Adam Ward feel at home, was silent.

But when the supper was over and the twilight was come and they had
carried their chairs out on the lawn where, in their boy and girl days
they had romped away so many twilight hours, the weight of the present
was lifted. While Peter Martin smoked his pipe and listened, the three
made merry over the adventures of their childhood, until the old house
next door, so deserted and forlorn, must have felt that the days so
long past were come again.

It was rather late when John finally said goodnight. As he drove
homeward he told himself many times that it had been one of the
happiest evenings he had ever spent. He wondered why.

The big house on the hill, as he approached the iron gates, seemed
strangely grim and forbidding. The soft darkness of the starlit night
invited him to stay out of doors. Reluctantly, half in mind to turn
back, he drove slowly up the long driveway. The sight of McIver's big
car waiting decided him. He did not wish to meet the factory owner that
evening. He would wait a while before going indoors. Finding a
comfortable lawn chair not far from the front of the house, he filled
his pipe.

As he sat there, many things unbidden and apparently without purpose
passed in leisurely succession through his mind. Bits of boyhood
experiences, long forgotten and called up now, no doubt, by his evening
at the cottage that had once been as much his home as the old house
itself. How inseparable the four children had been! Fragments of his
army life--what an awakening it had all been for him! The coming
struggle with the followers of Jake Vodell--his new responsibilities.
He had feared that his comradeship with Charlie might be
weakened--well, that was settled now. He was glad they had had their
talk.

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