Helen of the Old House Part 13

But Billy Rand saw him. A moment he looked at the man in the doorway inquiringly, as he would have regarded any one of the Interpreter's many visitors; then the deaf and dumb man's expression changed.

Glancing quickly at his still un.o.bserving companion, he caught up a hatchet that lay among the tools on the table and, with a movement that was not unlike the guarding action of a huge mastiff, rose to his feet.

His face was a picture of animal rage; his teeth were bared, his eyes gleamed, his every muscle was tense.

The man in the doorway was evidently no coward, but the smile vanished from his heavy face and his right hand went quickly inside his vest.

"What's the matter with you?" he said, sharply, as Billy started toward him with deliberate menace in his movement.

At the sound of the man's voice the Interpreter looked up. One glance and the old basket maker caught the wheels of his chair and with a quick, strong movement rolled himself between the two men--so close to Billy that he caught his defender by the arm. Facing his enraged companion, the Interpreter talked to him rapidly in their sign language and held out his hand for the hatchet. The silent Billy reluctantly surrendered the weapon and drew back to his place on the other side of the table, where he sat glaring at the stranger in angry watchfulness.

The man in the doorway laughed harshly. "They told me I would find a helpless old cripple up here," he said. "I think you are pretty well protected at that."

Regarding the stranger gravely, the Interpreter apologized for his companion. "You can see that Billy is not wholly responsible," he explained. "He is little more than a child mentally; his actions are often apparently governed wholly by that strange instinct which seems to guide the animals. He is very devoted to me."

"He seems to be in earnest all right," said the stranger. "He is a husky brute, too."

The Interpreter, regarding the man inquiringly, almost as if he were seeking in the personality of his visitor the reason for Billy's startling conduct, replied, simply, "He would have killed you."

With a shrug of his thick shoulders, the stranger uninvited came forward and helped himself to a chair, and, with the air of one introducing a person of some importance, said, "I am Vodell--Jake Vodell. You have heard of me, I think, heh?"

"Oh, yes. Indeed, I should say that every one has heard of you, Mr.

Vodell. Your work has given you even more than national prominence, I believe."

The man was at no pains to conceal his satisfaction. "I am known, yes."

"It is odd," said the Interpreter, "but your face seems familiar to me, as if I had met you before."

"You have heard me speak somewhere, maybe, heh?"

"No, it cannot be that. You have never been in Millsburgh before, have you?"

"No."

"It is strange," mused the old basket maker.

"It is the papers," returned Vodell with a shrug. "Many times the papers have my picture--you must have seen."

"Of course, that is it," exclaimed the Interpreter. "I remember now, distinctly. It was in connection with that terrible bomb outrage in--"

"Sir!" interrupted the other indignantly. "Outrage--what do you mean, outrage?"

"I was thinking of the innocent people who were killed or injured,"

returned the Interpreter, calmly. "I believe you were also prominent in those western strikes where so many women and children suffered, were you not?"

The labor agitator replied with the exact manner of a scientific lecturer. "It is unfortunate that innocent persons must sometimes be hurt in these affairs. But that is one of the penalties that society must pay for tolerating the conditions that make these industrial wars necessary."

"If I remember correctly, you were in the South, too, at the time that mill was destroyed."

"Oh, yes, they had me in jail there. But that was nothing. I have many such experiences. They are to me very commonplace. Wherever there are the poor laboring men who must fight for their rights, I go. The mines, shops, mills, factories--it is all the same to me. I go wherever I can serve the Cause. I have been in America now ten years, nearly eleven."

"You are not, then, a citizen of this country?"

Jake Vodell laughed contemptuously. "Oh, sure I am a citizen of this country--this great America of fools and cowards that talk all the time so big about freedom and equality, while the capitalist money hogs hold them in slavery and rob them of the property they create. I had to become a citizen when the war came, you see, or they would have sent me away. But for that I would make myself a citizen of some cannibal country first." The old basket maker's dark eyes blazed with quick fire and he lifted himself with sudden strength to a more erect position in his wheel chair. But when he spoke his deep voice was calm and steady. "You have been in our little city nearly a month, I understand."

"Just about. I have been looking around, getting acquainted, studying the situation. One must be very careful to know the right men, you understand. It pays, I find, to go a little slow at first. We will go fast enough later." His thick lips parted in a meaning grin.

The Interpreter's hands gripped the wheels of his chair.

"Everybody tells me I should see you," the agitator continued.

"Everywhere it is the same. They all talk of the Interpreter. 'Go to the Interpreter,' they say. When they told me that this great Interpreter is an old white-headed fellow without any legs, I laughed and said, 'What can he do to help the laboring man? He is not good for anything but to sit in a wheel chair and make baskets all the day. I need _men_.' But they all answer the same thing, 'Go and see the Interpreter.' And so I am here."

When the Interpreter was silent, his guest demanded, harshly, "They are all right, heh? You are a friend to the workingman? Tell me, is it so?"

The old basket maker spoke with quiet dignity. "For twenty-five years Millsburgh has been my home, and the Millsburgh people have been my friends. You, sir, have been here less than a month; I have known you but a few minutes."

Jake Vodell laughed understandingly. "Oh-ho, so that is it? Maybe you like to see my credentials before we talk?"

The Interpreter held up a hand in protest. "Your reputation is sufficient, Mr. Vodell."

The man acknowledged the compliment--as he construed it--with a shrug and a pleased laugh. "And all that is said of you by the laboring cla.s.s in your little city is sufficient," he returned. "Even the men in McIver's factory tell me you are the best friend that labor has ever had in this place." He paused expectantly.

The man in the wheel chair bowed his head.

"And then," continued Jake Vodell, with a frown of displeasure, "when I come to see you, to ask some questions about things that I should know, what do I hear? The daughter of this old slave-driver and robber--this capitalist enemy of the laboring cla.s.s--Adam Ward, she comes also to see this Interpreter who is such a friend of the people."

The Interpreter laughed. "And Sam Whaley's children, they come too."

"Oh, yes, that is better. I know Sam Whaley. He is a good man who will be a great help to me. But I do not understand this woman business."

"I have known Miss Ward ever since she was born; I worked in the Mill at the same bench with her father and Peter Martin," said the man in the wheel chair, with quiet dignity.

"I see. It is not so bad sometimes to have a friend or two among these millionaires when there is no danger of it being misunderstood. But this man, who was once a workman and who deserted his cla.s.s--this traitor, her father--does he also call on you, Mr. Interpreter?"

"Once in a great while," answered the Interpreter.

Jake Vodell laughed knowingly. "When he wants something, heh?" Then, with an air of taking up the real business of his visit to the little hut on the cliff, he said, "Suppose now you tell me something about this son of Adam Ward. You have known him since he was a boy too--the same as the girl?"

"Yes," said the Interpreter, "I have known John Ward all his life."

Something in the old basket maker's voice made Jake Vodell look at him sharply and the agitator's black brows were scowling as he said, "So--you are friends with him, too, I guess, heh?"

"I am, sir; and so is Captain Charlie Martin, who is the head of our Mill workers' union, as you may have heard."

"Exactly. That is why I ask. So many of the poor fools who slave for this son of Adam Ward in the Mill say that he is such a fine man--so kind. Oh, wonderful! Bah! When was the wolf whelped that would be kind to a rabbit? You shall tell me now about the friends.h.i.+p between this wolf cub of the capitalist Mill owner and this poor rabbit, son of the workman Peter Martin who has all his life been a miserable slave in the Mill. They were in the army together, heh?"

"They enlisted in the same company when the first call came and were comrades all through the worst of the fighting in France."

"And before that, they were friends, heh?"

"They had been chums as boys, when the family lived in the old house next door to the Martins. But during the years that John was away in school and college Adam moved his family to the place on the hill where they live now. When John was graduated and came home to stay, he naturally found his friends in another circle. His intimacy with Pete Martin's boy was not renewed--until the war."