For a little while after this the three sat in silence. At last Peter Martin rose heavily to his feet. "Come, Charlie, it is time we were on our way to the meeting; we mustn't be late, you know."
When her father and brother were gone to the meeting of the Mill workers' union, Mary Martin locked the door of the cottage and walked swiftly away.
It was not far to the Interpreter's hut, and presently the young woman was climbing the old zigzag stairway to the little house on the edge of the cliff above. There was no light but the light of the stars—the faint breath of the night breeze scarcely stirred the leaves of the bushes or moved the tall weeds that grew on the hillside. At the top of the stairs Mary paused to look at the many lights of the Flats, the Mill, the business houses, the streets and the homes, that shone in the shadowy world below.
She was about to move toward the door of the hut when the sound of voices coming from the balcony-porch halted her. The Interpreter was speaking. She could not distinguish his words, but the deep tones of the old basket maker's voice were not to be mistaken. Then the young woman heard some one reply, and the laughing voice that answered the Interpreter was as familiar to Mary Martin as the laugh of her own brother. The evening visitor to the little hut on the cliff was the son of Adam Ward.
Very softly Mary Martin stole back down the zigzag steps to the road below. Slowly she went back through the deep shadows of the night to her little home, with its garden of old-fashioned flowers, next door to the deserted house where John Ward was born.
Late that night, while John was still at the Interpreter's hut, Adam Ward crept alone like some hunted thing about the beautiful grounds of his great estate. Like a haunted soul of wretchedness, the Mill owner had left his bed to escape the horror of his dreams and to find, if possible, a little rest from his torturing fears in the calm solitude of the night.
* * * * *
When Pete Martin, with Captain Charlie and their many industrial comrades, had returned to their homes after the meeting of their union, five men gathered in that dirty, poorly lighted room in the rear of Dago Bill's pool hall.
The five men had entered the place one at a time. They spoke together in low, guarded tones of John Ward and his management of the Mill, of Pete Martin and Captain Charlie, of the Interpreter and McIver.
And three of those five men had come to that secret place at Jake
Vodell's call, directly from the meeting of the Mill workers' union.
CHAPTER XI
COMRADES
Mary was in the flower garden that Sunday forenoon when John Ward stopped his big roadster in front of the Martin cottage.
It was not at all unusual for the one-time private, John, to call that way for his former superior officer. Nearly every Sunday when the weather was fine the comrades would go for a long ride in John's car somewhere into the country. And always they carried a lunch prepared by Captain Charlie's sister.
Sometimes there might have been a touch of envy in Mary's generous heart, as she watched the automobile with her brother and his friend glide away up the green arched street. After all, Mary was young and loved the country, and John Ward's roadster was a wonderful machine, and the boy who had lived in the old house next door had been, in her girlhood days, a most delightful comrade and playfellow.
The young woman could no more remember her first meeting with John or his sister Helen than she could recall the exact beginning of her acquaintance with Charlie. From her cradle days she had known the neighbor children as well as she had known her own brother. Then the inevitable separation of the playmates had come with Adam Ward's increasing material prosperity. The school and college days of John and Helen and the removal of the family from the old house to the new home on the hill had brought to them new friends and new interests—friends and interests that knew nothing of Pete Martin's son and daughter. But in Mary's heart, because it was a woman's heart, the memories of the old house lived. The old house itself, indeed, served to keep those memories alive.
John did not see her at first, but called a cheery greeting to her father, who with his pipe and paper was sitting under the tree on the lawn side of the walk.
Mary drew a little back among the flowers and quietly went on with her work.
"Is Charlie here, Uncle Pete?" asked John, as he came through the gate.
"He's in the house, I think, John, or out in the back yard, maybe," answered the old workman. And, then, in his quiet kindly way, Peter Martin spoke a few words to Adam Ward's son about the change in the management of the Mill—wishing John success, expressing his own gratification and confidence, and assuring him of the hearty good will that prevailed, generally, among the employees.
Presently, as the two men talked together, Mary went to express her pleasure in the promotion of her old playmate to a position of such responsibility and honor in the industrial world. And John Ward, when he saw her coming toward him with an armful of flowers, must at least have noticed the charming picture she made against that background of the garden, with its bright-colored blossoms in the flood of morning sunlight.
Certainly the days of their childhood companionship must have stirred in his memory, for he said, presently, "Do you know, Mary, you make me think of mother and the way she used to go among her flowers every Sunday morning when we lived in the old house there." He looked thoughtfully toward the neighboring place.
"How is your mother these days, John?" asked Mary's father.
"She is well, thank you, Uncle Pete," returned John. "Except of course," he added, soberly, "she worries a good deal about father's ill health."
"Your father will surely be much better, now that he is relieved from all his business care," said Mary.
"We are all hoping so," returned John.
There was an awkward moment of silence.
As if the mention of his father's condition had in some way suggested the thought, or, perhaps, because he wished to change the subject, John said, "The old house looks pretty bad, doesn't it? It is a shame that we have permitted it to go to ruin that way."
Neither Peter Martin nor his daughter made reply to this. There was really nothing they could say.
John was about to speak again when Captain Charlie, coming from the house with their lunch basket in his hand, announced that he was ready, and the two men started on their way.
Standing at the gate, Mary waved good-by as her brother turned to look back. Even when the automobile had finally passed from sight she stood there, still looking in the direction it had gone.
Peter Martin watched his daughter thoughtfully.
Without speaking, Mary went slowly into the house.
Her father sat for some minutes looking toward the door through which she had passed. At last with deliberate care he refilled his pipe. But the old workman did not, for an hour or more, resume the reading of his Sunday morning paper.
Beyond a few casual words, the two friends in the automobile seemed occupied, each with his own thoughts. Neither asked, "Where shall we go?" or offered any suggestion for the day's outing. As if it were understood between them, John turned toward the hill country and sent the powerful machine up the long, winding grade, as if on a very definite mission. An hour's driving along the ridges and the hillsides, and they turned from the main thoroughfare into a narrow lane between two thinly wooded pastures. A mile of this seldom traveled road and John stopped his car beside the way. Here they left the automobile, and, taking the lunch basket, climbed the fence and made their way up the steep side of the hill to a clump of trees that overlooked the many miles of winding river and broad valley and shaded hills. The place was a favorite spot to which they often came for those hours of comradeship that are so necessary to all well-grounded and enduring friendships.
"Well, Mister Ward," said Captain Charlie, when they were comfortably seated and their pipes were going well, "how does it feel to be one of the cruel capitalist class a-grindin' the faces off us poor?"
The workman spoke lightly, but there was something in his voice that made John look at him sharply. It was a little as though Captain Charlie were nerving himself to say good-by to his old comrade.
The new general manager smiled, but it was a rather serious smile. "Do you remember how you felt when you received your captain's commission?" he asked.
"I do that," returned Charlie. "I felt that I had been handed a mighty big job and was scared stiff for fear I wouldn't be able to make good at it."
"Exactly," returned John. "And I'll never forget how I felt when they stepped you up the first time and left me out. And when you had climbed on up and Captain Wheeler was killed and you received your commission, with me still stuck in the ranks—well—I never told you before but I'll say now that I was the lonesomest, grouchiest, sorest man in the whole A.E.F. It seemed to me about then that being a private was the meanest, lowest, most no-account job on earth, and I was darned near deserting and letting the Germans win the war and be hanged. I thought it would serve the Allies right if I was to let 'em get licked good and plenty just for failing to appreciate me."
Captain Charlie laughed.
"Oh, yes, you can laugh," said the new general manager of the Mill. "It's darned funny now, but I can tell you that there wasn't much humor in it for me then. We had lived too close together from that first moment when we found ourselves in the same company for me to feel comfortable as a common buck private, watchin' you strut around in the gentleman officer class, and not daring even to tell you to go to—"
"You poor old fool," said Charlie, affectionately. "You knew my promotion was all an accident."
"Exactly," returned John dryly. "We've settled all that a hundred times."
"And you ought to have known," continued Captain Charlie, warmly, "that my feeling toward you would have been no different if they had made me a general."
"Sure, I ought to have known," retorted John, with an air of triumph.
And then it appeared that John Ward had a very definite purpose in thus turning his comrade's mind to their army life in France. "And you should have sense enough to understand that my promotion in the Mill is not going to make any difference in our friendship. Your promotion was the result of an accident, Charlie, exactly as my position in the Mill to-day is the result of an accident. Your superior officer happened to see you. I happen to be the son of Adam Ward. If I should have known then that your rank would make no difference in your feeling toward me, you have got to understand now that my position can make no difference in my feeling toward you."
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 he 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 our 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.
The door of the house opened and McIver came down the steps to his automobile. For a moment Helen stood framed against the bright light of the interior, then the car rolled away. The door was closed.
John recalled what his father had said. Would his sister finally accept McIver? For a long time the factory owner had been pressing his suit. Would she marry him at last? A combination of the Ward Mill and the McIver factory would be a mighty power in the manufacturing world. He dismissed the thought. He wished that Helen were more like Mary. His sister was a wonderful woman in his eyes—he was proud of her; but again his mind went back to the workman's home and to his happy evening there. His own home was so different. His mother! What a splendid old man Uncle Peter was!
John Ward's musings were suddenly disturbed by a faint sound. Turning his head, he saw the form of a man, dark and shadowy in the faint light of the stars, moving toward the house. John held his place silently, alert and ready. Cautiously the dark form crept forward with frequent pauses as if to look about. Then, as the figure stood for a moment silhouetted against a lighted window of the house, John recognized his father.
At the involuntary exclamation which escaped the younger man Adam whirled as if to run.
John spoke, quietly, "That you, father?"
The man came quickly to his son. With an odd nervous laugh, he said, "Lord, boy, but you startled me! What are you doing out here at this time of the night?"
"Just enjoying a quiet smoke and looking at the stars," John answered, easily.
It was evident that Adam Ward was intensely excited. His voice shook with nervous agitation and he looked over his shoulder and peered into the surrounding darkness as if dreading some lurking danger.
"I couldn't sleep," he muttered, in a low cautious tone. "Dreams—nothing in them of course—all foolishness—nerves are all shot to pieces."
He dropped down on the seat beside his son, then sprang to his feet again. "Did you hear that?" he whispered, and stooping low, he tried to see into the shadows of the shrubbery behind John.
The younger man spoke soothingly. "There is nothing here, father, sit down and take it easy."
"You don't know what you're talking about," retorted Adam Ward. "I tell you they are after me—there's no telling what they will do—poison—a gun—infernal machines through the mail—bomb. No one has any sympathy with me, not even my family. All these years I have worked for what I have and now nobody cares. All they want is what they can get out of me. And you—you'll find out! I saw your car in front of Martin's again this evening. You'd better keep away from there. Peter Martin is dangerous. He would take everything I have away from me if he could."
John tried in vain to calm his father, but in a voice harsh with passion he continued, and as he spoke, he moved his hands and arms constantly with excited and vehement gestures.
"That process is mine, I tell you. The best lawyers I could get have fixed up the patents. Pete Martin is an old fool. I'll see him in his grave before—" he checked himself as if fearing his own anger would betray him. As he paced up and he muttered to himself, "I built up the business and I can tear it down. I'll blow up the Mill. I—" his voice trailed off into hoarse unintelligible sounds.
John Ward could not speak. He believed that his father's strange fears for the loss of his property were due to nothing more than his nervous trouble. Peter Martin's name, which Adam in his most excited moments nearly always mentioned in this manner, meant nothing more to John than the old workman's well-known leadership in the Mill workers' union.
Suddenly Adam turned again to his son, and coming close asked in a whisper, "John—I—is there really a hell, John? I mean such as the preachers used to tell about. Does a man go from this life to the horrors of eternal punishment? Does he, son?"
"Why, father, I—" John started to reply, but Adam interrupted him with, "Never mind; you wouldn't know any more than any one else about it. The preachers ought to know, though. Seems like there must be some way of finding out. I dreamed—"
As if he had forgotten the presence of his son, he suddenly started away toward the house.
Not until John Ward had assured himself that his father was safely in his room and apparently sleeping at last, did he go to his own apartment.
But the new manager of the Mill did not at once retire. He did not even turn on the lights. For a long time he stood at the darkened window, looking out into the night. "What was it?" he asked himself again and again. "What was it his father feared?"
In the distance he could see a tiny spot of light shining high against the shadowy hillside above the darkness of the Flats. It was a lighted window in the Interpreter's hut.
* * * * *
As they sat in the night on the balcony porch, Jake Vodell said harshly to the old basket maker, "You shall tell me about this Adam Ward, comrade. I hear many things. From what you say of your friendship with him in the years when he was a workman in the Mill and from your friendship with his son and daughter you must know better than any one else. Is it true that it was his new patented process that made him so rich?"
"The new process was undoubtedly the foundation of his success," answered the Interpreter, "but it was the man's peculiar genius that enabled him to recognize the real value of the process and to foresee how it would revolutionize the industry. And it was his ability as an organizer and manager, together with his capacity for hard work, that enabled him to realize his vision. It is easily probable that not one of his fellow workmen could have developed and made use of the discovery as he has."
Jake Vodell's black brows were raised with quickened interest. "This new process was a discovery then? It was not the result of research and experiment?"
The Interpreter seemed to answer reluctantly. "It was an accidental discovery, as many such things are."
The agitator must have noticed that the old basket maker did not wish to talk of Adam Ward's patented process, but he continued his questions.
"Peter Martin was working in the Mill at the time of this wonderful discovery, was he?"
"Yes."
"Oh! and Peter and Adam were friends, too?"
"Yes."
The Interpreter's guest shrugged his shoulders and scowled his righteous indignation. "And all these years that Adam Ward has been building up this Mill that grinds the bodies and souls of his fellow men into riches for himself and makes from the life blood of his employees the dollars that his son and daughter spend in wicked luxury—all these years his old friend Peter Martin has toiled for him exactly as the rest of his slaves have toiled. Bah! And still the priests and preachers make the people believe there is a God of Justice."
The Interpreter replied, slowly, "It may be after all, sir, that Peter
Martin is richer than Adam Ward."
"How richer?" demanded the other. "When he lives in a poor little house, with no servants, no automobiles, no luxuries of any kind, and must work every day in the Mill with his son, while his daughter Mary slaves at the housekeeping for her father and brother! Look at Adam Ward and his great castle of a home—look at his possessions—at the fortune he will leave his children. Bah! Mr. Interpreter, do not talk to me such foolishness."
"Is it foolishness to count happiness as wealth?" asked the
Interpreter.
"Happiness?" growled the other. "Is there such a thing? What does the laboring man know of happiness?"
And the Interpreter answered, "Peter Martin, in the honorable peace and contentment of his useful years, and in the love of his family and friends, is the happiest man I have ever known. While Adam Ward—"
Jake Vodell sprang to his feet as if the Interpreter's words exhausted his patience, while he spoke as one moved by a spirit of contemptuous intolerance. "You talk like a sentimental old woman. How is it possible that there should be happiness and contentment anywhere when all is injustice and slavery under this abominable capitalist system? First we shall have liberty—freedom—equality—then perhaps we may begin to talk of happiness. Is Sam Whaley and his friends who live down there in their miserable hovels—is Sam Whaley happy?"
"Sam Whaley has had exactly the same opportunity for happiness that Peter Martin has had," answered the Interpreter. "Opportunity, yes," snarled the other. "Opportunity to cringe and whine and beg his master for a chance to live like a dog in a kennel, while he slaves to make his owners rich. Do you know what this man McIver says? I will tell you, Mr. Interpreter—you who prattle about a working man's happiness. McIver says that the laboring classes should be driven to their work with bayonets—that if his factory employees strike they will be forced to submission by the starvation of their women and children. Happiness! You shall see what we will do to this man McIver before we talk of happiness. And you shall see what will happen to this castle of Adam Ward's and to this Mill that he says is his."
"I think I should tell you, sir," said the Interpreter, calmly, "that in your Millsburgh campaign, at least, you are already defeated."
"Defeated! Hah! That is good! And who do you say has defeated me, before I have commenced even to fight, heh?"
"You are defeated by Adam Ward's retirement from business," came the strange reply.
BOOK II
THE TWO HELENS
"O Guns, fall silent till the dead men hear Above their heads the legions pressing on:
* * * * *
Bid them be patient, and some day, anon,
They shall feel earth enwrapt in silence deep;
Shall greet, in wonderment, the quiet dawn,
And in content may turn them to their sleep."
CHAPTER XIII
THE AWAKENING
Immediately following that day when she had watched her father from the arbor and had talked with Bobby and Maggie Whaley on the old road, Helen Ward had thrown herself into the social activities of her circle as if determined to find, in those interests, a cure for her discontent and unhappiness.
Several times she called for a few minutes at the little hut on the cliff. But she did not again talk of herself or of her father to the old basket maker as she had talked that day when she first met the children from the Flats. Two or three times she saw the children. But she passed them quickly by with scarcely a nod of greeting. And yet, the daughter of Adam Ward felt with increasing certainty that she could never be content with the busy nothingness which absorbed the lives of so many of her friends. Her father, since his retirement, seemed a little better. But she could not put out of her mind the memory of what she had seen. For her, the dreadful presence of the hidden thing always attended him. Because she could not banish the feeling and because there was nothing she could do, she sought relief by escaping from the house as often as possible on the plea of social duties.
There were times when the young woman thought that her mother knew. At times she fancied that her brother half guessed the secret that so overshadowed their home. But Mrs. Ward and her children alike shrank from anything approaching frankness in mentioning the Mill owner's condition. And so they went on, feeling the hidden thing, dreading they knew not what—deceiving themselves and each other with hopes that in their hearts they knew were false.
The mother, brave, loyal soul, seeing her daughter's unhappiness and wishing to protect her from the thing that had so saddened her own life, encouraged Helen to find what relief she could in the pleasures that kept her so many hours from home. John, occupied by the exacting duties of his new position, needed apparently nothing more. Indeed, to Helen, her brother's attitude toward his work, his views of life and his increasing neglect of what she called the obligations of their position in Millsburgh, were more and more puzzling. She had thought that with John's advancement to the general managership of the Mill his peculiar ideas would be modified. But his promotion seemed to have made no sign of a change in his conception of the relationship between employer and employee, or in his attitude toward the unions or toward the industrial situation as a whole.
Of one thing Helen was certain—her brother had found that which she, in her own life, was somehow missing. And so the young woman observed her brother with increasing interest and a growing feeling that approached envy. At every opportunity she led him to talk of his work or rather of his attitude toward his work, and encouraged him to express the convictions that had so changed his own life and that were so foreign to the tenets of Helen and her class. And always their talks ended with John's advice: "Go ask the Interpreter; he knows; he will make it so much clearer than I can."
But with all John's absorbing interest in his work and in the general industrial situation of Millsburgh, which under the growing influence of Jake Vodell was becoming every day more difficult and dangerous, the general manager could not escape the memories of that happy evening at the Martin cottage. The atmosphere of this workman's home was so different from the atmosphere of his own home in the big house on the hill. There was a peace, a contentment, a feeling of security in the little cottage that was sadly wanting in the more pretentious residence. Following, as it did, his father's retirement from the Mill with his own promotion to the rank of virtual ownership and his immediate talk with Captain Charlie, that evening had reëstablished for him, as it were, the relationship and charm of his boyhood days. It was as though, having been submitted to a final test, he was now admitted once more, without reserve, to the innermost circle of their friendship.
On his way to and from his office he nearly always, now, drove past the Martin cottage. The distance was greater, it is true, but John thought that the road was enough better to more than make up for that. Besides, he really did enjoy the drive down the tree-arched street and past the old house. It was all so rich in memories of his happy boyhood, and sometimes—nearly always, in fact—he would catch a glimpse of Mary among her flowers or on the porch or perhaps at the gate.
Occasionally this young manager of the Mill, with his strange ideas of industrial comradeship, found it necessary to spend an evening with these workmen who were leaders in the union that was held by his father and by McIver to be a menace to the employer class. It in no way detracted from the value of these consultations with Captain Charlie and his father that Mary was always present. In fact, Mary herself was in a position materially to help John Ward in his study of the industrial problems that were of such vital interest to him. No one knew better than did Pete Martin's daughter the actual living conditions of the class of laboring people who dwelt in the Flats. Certainly, as he watched the progress of Jake Vodell's missionary work among them, John could not ignore these Sam Whaleys of the industries as an important factor in his problem.
So it happened, curiously enough, that Helen herself was led to call at the little home next door to the old house where she had lived in those years of her happy girlhood.
* * * * *
Helen was downtown that afternoon on an unimportant shopping errand. She had left the store after making her purchases and was about to enter her automobile, when McIver, who chanced to be passing, stopped to greet her.
There was no doubting the genuineness of the man's pleasure in the incident, nor was Helen herself at all displeased at this break in what had been, so far, a rather dull day.
"And what brings you down here at this unreasonable hour?" he asked; "on Saturday, too? Don't you know that there is a tennis match on at the club?"
"I didn't seem to care for the tennis to-day somehow," she returned. "Mother wanted some things from Harrison's, so I came downtown to get them for her."
He caught a note in her voice that made him ask with grave concern,
"How is your father, Helen?"
She answered, quickly, "Oh, father is doing nicely, thank you." Then, with a cheerfulness that was a little forced, she asked in turn, "And why have you deserted the club yourself this afternoon?"
"Business," he returned. "There will be no more Saturday afternoons off for me for some time to come, I fear." Then he added, quickly, "But look here, Helen, there is no need of our losing the day altogether. Send your man on, and come with me for a little spin. The roadster is in the next block. I'll take you home in an hour and get on back to my office."
Helen hesitated.
"The ride will do you good."
"Sure you can spare the time?"
"Sure. It will do me good, too."
"And you're not asking me just to be nice—you really want me?"
"Don't you know by this time whether I want you or not?" he returned, in a tone that brought the color to her cheeks. "Please come!"
"All right," she agreed.
When they were seated in McIver's roadster, she added, "I really can't deny myself the thrilling triumph of taking a business man away from his work during office hours."
"You take my thoughts away from my work a great many times during office hours, Helen," he retorted, as the car moved away. "Must I wait much longer for my answer, dear?"
She replied, hurriedly, "Please, Jim, not that to-day. Let's not think about it even."
"All right," he returned, grimly. "I just want you to know, though, that I am waiting."
"I know, Jim—and—and you are perfectly wonderful but—Oh, can't we forget it just for an hour?"
As if giving himself to her mood, McIver's voice and manner changed. "Do you mind if we stop at the factory just a second? I want to leave some papers. Then we can go on up the river drive."
* * * * *
An hour later they were returning, and because it was the prettiest street in that part of Millsburgh, McIver chose the way that would take them past the old house.
John Ward's machine was standing in front of the Martin cottage.
McIver saw it and looked quickly at his companion. There was no need to ask if Helen had recognized her brother's car.
The factory owner considered the new manager of the Mill a troublesome obstacle in his own plans for making war on the unions. He felt, too, that with John now in control of the business, his chances of bringing about the combination of the two industries were materially lessened. He had wondered, at times, if it was not her brother's influence that caused Helen to put off giving him her final answer to his suit.
When he saw that Helen had recognized John's car, he remarked, with an insinuating laugh, "Evidently I am not the only business man who can be lured from his office during working hours."
"Jim, how can you?" she protested. "You know John is there on business to see Charlie or his father."
"It is a full hour yet before quitting time at the Mill," he returned.
She had no reply to this, and the man continued with a touch of malicious satisfaction, "After all, Helen, John is human, you know, and old Pete Martin's daughter is a mighty attractive girl."
Helen Ward's cheeks were red, but she managed to control her voice, as she said, "Just what do you mean by that, Jim?"
"Is it possible that you really do not know?" he countered.
"I know that my brother, foolish as he may be about some things, would never think of paying serious attention to the daughter of one of his employees," she retorted, warmly.
"That is exactly the situation," he returned. "No one believes for a moment that the affair is serious on John's part."
The color was gone from Helen's face now. "I think you have said too much not to go on now, Jim. Do you mean that people are saying that John is amusing himself with Mary Martin?"
"Well," he returned, coolly, "what else can the people think when they see him going there so often; when they see the two together, wandering about the Flats; when they hear his car tearing down the street late in the evening; when they see her every morning at the gate watching for him to pass on his way to work? Your brother is not a saint, Helen. He is no different, in some ways, from other men. I always did feel that there was something back of all this comrade stuff between him and Charlie Martin. As for the girl, I don't think you need to worry about her. She probably understands it all right enough."
"Jim, you must not say such things to me about Mary! She is not at all that kind of girl. The whole thing is impossible."
"What do you know about Mary Martin?" he retorted. "I'll bet you have never even spoken to her since you moved from the old house."
Helen did not speak after this until they were passing the great stone columns at the entrance to the Ward estate, then she said, quietly, "Jim, do you always believe the worst possible things about every one?"
"That's an odd thing for you to ask," he returned, doubtfully, as they drove slowly up the long curving driveway. "Why?"
"Because," she answered, "it sometimes seems to me as if no one believed the best things about people these days. I know there is a world of wickedness among us, Jim, but are we all going wholly to the bad together?"
McIver laughed. "We are all alike in one thing, Helen. No matter what he professes, you will find that at the last every man holds to the good old law of 'look out for number one.' Business or pleasure, it's all the same. A man looks after his own interests first and takes what he wants, or can get, when and where and how he can."
"But, Jim, the war—"
He laughed cynically. "The war was pure selfishness from start to finish. We fed the fool public a lot of patriotic bunk, of course—we had to—we needed them. And the dear people fell for the sentimental hero business as they always do." With the last word he stopped the car in front of the house.
When Helen was on the ground she turned and faced him squarely. "Jim McIver, your words are an insult to my brother and to ninety-nine out of every hundred men who served under our flag, and you insult my intelligence if you expect me to accept them in earnest. If I thought for a minute that you were capable of really believing such abominable stuff I would never speak to you again. Good-by, Jim. Thank you so much for the ride."
Before the man could answer, she ran up the steps and disappeared through the front door.
But McIver's car was no more than past the entrance when Helen appeared again on the porch. For a moment she stood, as if debating some question in her mind. Then apparently, she reached a decision. Ten minutes later she was walking hurriedly down the hill road—the way Bobby and Maggie had fled that day when Adam Ward drove them from the iron fence that guarded his estate. It was scarcely a mile by this road to the old house and the Martin cottage.