Helen of the Old House Part 4

"Huh--I guess I'd know better'n that," retorted the boy. "Come on, Mag, we gotter go."

"You will come to see me again, won't you?" asked the Interpreter, as the children stood on the threshold. "You have legs, you know, that can easily bring you."

"Yer bet we'll come," said Bobby, "won't we, Mag?"

The little girl, looking back at the man in the wheel chair, smiled.

For some time after the children had gone the Interpreter sat very still. His dark eyes were fixed upon the Mill with its tall, grim stacks and the columns of smoke that twisted upward to form that overshadowing cloud. The voices of the children, as they started down the stairway to the dusty road and to their wretched home in the Flats, came to him m.u.f.fled and indistinct from under the cliff.

Perhaps the man in the wheel chair was thinking of the days when Maggie's princess lady was a little girl and lived in the old house next door to Mary and Charlie Martin. Perhaps his mind still dwelt on the fairy story and the princess who found her jewel of happiness. It may have been that he was listening to the droning, moaning voice of the Mill, as one listens to the distant roar of the surf on a dangerous coast.

With a weary movement he took the unfinished basket from the table and began to work. But it was not his basket making that caused the weariness of the Interpreter--it was not his work that put the light of sorrow in his dark eyes.

As Bobby and Maggie went leisurely down the zigzag steps, proud of the tremendous success of their adventure, the boy paused several times to execute an inspirational "stunt" that would in some degree express his triumphant emotions.

"Gee!" he exulted. "Wait 'til I see Skinny and Chuck an' the rest of the gang! Gee, won't I tell 'em! Just yer wait. I'll knock 'em dead.

Gee!"

On the bottom step they deliberately seated themselves as if they had suddenly found the duty of leaving the charmed vicinity of that hut on the cliff above impossible.

Suddenly, from around the curve in the road followed by a whirling cloud of dust, came an automobile. It was a big car, very imposing with its s.h.i.+ny black body, its gleaming metal, and its liveried chauffeur.

The children gazed in open-mouthed wonder. The car drew nearer, and they saw, behind the dignified personality at the wheel, a lady who might well have been the beautiful princess of the Interpreter's fairy tale.

Little Maggie caught her brother's arm. "Bobby! It's--it's _her_--it's the princess lady herself."

"Gee!" gasped the boy. "She's a slowin' down--what d'yer--"

The automobile stopped not thirty feet from where the children sat on the lower step of the old stairway. Springing to the ground, the chauffeur, with the dignity of a prime minister, opened the door.

But the princess lady sat motionless in her car. With an expression of questioning disapproval she looked at the Interpreter's friends on that lower step of the Interpreter's stairway.

CHAPTER II

LITTLE MAGGIE'S PRINCESS LADY

By nine out of ten of the Millsburgh people, the Interpreter would be described as a strange character. But the judge once said to the cigar-store philosopher, when that worthy had so spoken of the old basket maker, "Sir, the Interpreter is more than a character; he is a conviction, a conscience, an inst.i.tution."

It was about the time when the patents on the new process were issued that the Interpreter--or Wallace Gordon, as he was then known--appeared from no one knows where, and went to work in the Mill. Because of the stranger's distinguished appearance, his evident culture, and his slightly foreign air, there were many who sought curiously to learn his history. But Wallace Gordon's history remained as it, indeed, remains still, an unopened book. Within a few months his ability to speak several of the various languages spoken by the immigrants who were drawn to the manufacturing city caused his fellow workers to call him the Interpreter.

Working at the same bench in the Mill with Adam Ward and Peter Martin, the Interpreter naturally saw much of the two families that, in those days, lived such close neighbors. Sober, hard working, modest in his needs, he acquired, during his first year in the Mill, that little plot of ground on the edge of the cliff, and built the tiny hut with its zigzag stairway. But often on a Sunday or a holiday, or for an hour of the long evenings after work, this man who was so alone in the world would seek companions.h.i.+p in the homes of his two workmen friends. The four children, who were so much together that their mothers used to say laughingly they could scarcely tell which were Wards and which were Martins, claimed the Interpreter as their own. With his never-failing fund of stories, his ultimate acquaintance with the fairies, his ready understanding of their childish interests, and his joyous comrades.h.i.+p in their sports, he won his own peculiar place in their hearts.

It was during the second year of his residence in Millsburgh that he adopted the deaf and dumb orphan boy, Billy Rand.

That such a workman should become a leader among his fellow workers was inevitable. More and more his advice and counsel were sought by those who toiled under the black cloud that rolled up in ever-increasing volumes from the roaring furnaces.

The accident which so nearly cost him his life occurred soon after the new process had taken Adam from his bench to a desk in the office of the Mill. Helen and John were away at school. At the hospital they asked him about his people. He smiled grimly and shook his head. When the surgeons were finally through with him, and it was known that he would live but could never stand on his feet again, he was still silent as to his family and his life before he came to the Mill. So they carried him around by the road on the hillside to his little hut on the top of the cliff where, with Billy Rand to help him, he made baskets and lived with his books, which he purchased as he could from time to time during the more profitable periods of his industry.

As the years pa.s.sed and the Mill, under Adam Ward's hand, grew in importance, Millsburgh experienced the usual trials of such industrial centers. Periodic labor wars alternated with times of industrial peace.

Months of prosperity were followed by months of "hard times," and want was in turn succeeded by plenty. When the community was at work the more intelligent and thrifty among those who toiled with their hands and the more conservative of those who labored in business were able to put by in store enough to tide them over the next period of idleness and consequent business depression.

From his hut on the cliff the Interpreter watched it all with never-failing interest and sympathy. Indeed, although he never left his work of basket making, the Interpreter was a part of it all. For more and more the workers from the Mill, the shops and the factories, and the workers from the offices and stores came to counsel with this white-haired man in the wheel chair.

The school years of John and Helen, the new home on the hill, and all the changes brought by Adam Ward's material prosperity separated the two families that had once been so intimate. But, in spite of the wall that the Mill owner had built between himself and his old workmen comrades, the children of Adam Ward and the children of Peter Martin still held the Interpreter in their hearts. To the man condemned to his wheel chair and his basket making, little Maggie's princess lady was still the Helen of the old house.

Sam Whaley's children sitting on the lower step of the zigzag stairway that afternoon had no thought for the Interpreter's Helen of the old house. Bobby's rapt attention was held by that imposing figure in uniform. Work in the Mill when he became a man! Not much! Not as long as there were automobiles like that to drive and clothes like those to wear while driving them! Little Maggie's pathetically serious eyes saw only the beautiful princess of the Interpreter's story--the princess who lived in a wonderful palace and who because her heart was so kind was told by the fairy how to find the jewel of happiness. Only this princess lady did not look as though she had found her jewel of happiness yet. But she would find it--the fairies would be sure to help her because her heart was kind. How could any princess lady--so beautiful, with such lovely clothes, and such a grand automobile, and such a wonderful servant--how could any princess lady like that help having a kind heart!

"Tom, send those dirty, impossible children away!"

The man touched his cap and turned to obey.

Poor little Maggie could not believe. It was not what the lady said; it was the tone of her voice, the expression of her face, that hurt so.

The princess lady must be very unhappy, indeed, to look and speak like that. And the tiny wisp of humanity, with her thin, stooping shoulders and her tired little face--dirty, half clothed and poorly fed--felt very sorry because the beautiful lady in the automobile was not happy.

But Bobby's emotions were of quite a different sort. Sam Whaley would have been proud of his son had he seen the boy at that moment.

Springing to his feet, the lad snarled with all the menacing hate he could muster, "Drive us away, will yer! I'd just like to see yer try it on. These here are the Interpreter's steps. If the Interpreter lets us come to see him, an' gives us cookies, an' tells us stories, I guess we've got a right to set on his steps if we want to."

"Go on wid ye--git out o' here," said the man in livery. But Bobby's sharp eyes saw what the lady in the automobile could not see--a faint smile accompanied the chauffeur's attempt to obey his orders.

"Go on yerself," retorted the urchin, defiantly, "I'll go when I git good an' ready. Ain't no darned rich folks what thinks they's so grand--with all their autermobiles, an' swell drivers, 'n' things--can tell _me_ what to do. I know her--she's old Adam Ward's daughter, she is. An' she lives by grindin' the life out of us poor workin' folks, that's what she does; 'cause my dad and Jake Vodell they say so. Yer touch me an' yer'll see what'll happen to yer, when I tell Jake Vodell."

Unseen by his mistress, the smile on the servant's face grew more p.r.o.nounced; and the small defender of the rights of the poor saw one of the man's blue Irish eyes close slowly in a deliberate wink of good fellows.h.i.+p. In a voice too low to be heard distinctly in the automobile behind him, he said, "Yer all right, kid, but fer the love o' G.o.d beat it before I have to lay hands on ye." Then, louder, he added gruffly, "Get along wid ye or do ye want me to help ye?"

Bobby retreated in good order to a position of safety a little way down the road where his sister was waiting for him.

With decorous gravity the imposing chauffeur went back to his place at the door of the automobile.

"Gee!" exclaimed Bobby. "What do yer know about that! Old Adam Ward's swell daughter a-goin' up to see the Interpreter. Gee!"

On the lower step of the zigzag stairway, with her hand on the railing, the young woman paused suddenly and turned about. To the watching children she must have looked very much indeed like the beautiful princess of the Interpreter's fairy tale.

"Tom--" She hesitated and looked doubtfully toward the children.

"Yes, Miss."

"What was it that boy said about his rights?"

"He said, Miss, as how they had just been to visit the Interpreter an'

the old man give 'em cookies, and so they thought they was privileged to sit on his steps."