Helen of the Old House Part 32

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

The old basket maker continued, "Are you and your self-const.i.tuted leaders of the American working people, G.o.ds? Are you not as human as any McIver or Adam Ward of the very cla.s.s you condemn? Would you not be subject to the same temptations of power--the same human pa.s.sions?

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 pa.s.sion. "And you call yourself a friend of the laboring cla.s.s?"

"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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 a.s.sumed leaders.h.i.+p denies, you incite a cla.s.s hatred and breed an intolerance and envy that destroy the good feeling of comrades.h.i.+p and break down the n.o.ble 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 comrades.h.i.+p of their sons, John and Charlie, who will protect and carry on the work of their fathers. It is the equality of a common citizens.h.i.+p--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 ill.u.s.trate 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 comrades.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sumed superiority turn his strength to the destruction of our comrades.h.i.+p by which I also live.

Your teaching of cla.s.s loyalty and cla.s.s 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 comrades.h.i.+p 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 leaders.h.i.+p, 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 a.s.sume the responsibility for such a catastrophe.

Have you no G.o.d, 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 G.o.d. 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 cla.s.s."

"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 cla.s.s. 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 leaders.h.i.+p 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 cla.s.s. 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 comrades.h.i.+p 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 cla.s.s 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 gla.s.ses 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."