Helen of the Old House

by Harold Bell Wright

Jake Vodell shrugged his heavy shoulders. "Very well—I will go now. You will see that in the end the working people will know who are for their interests and who are against them, and we will know, too, how to reward our friends and punish our enemies. I am sorry. I have given you to-day your last chance. You have a pretty little place here, heh?"

There was a look in his dark face, as he gazed about appraisingly, that made Captain Charlie go a step toward him. "You have given us our last chance? Is this a sample of the freedom that you offer so eloquently to the people? Instead of the imperialist McIver we are to have the imperialist Vodell, are we? Between the two of you I prefer McIver. He is at least sane enough to be constructive in his imperialism. My father and I have lived here all our lives, as most of our neighbors have. The majority of the workmen in this community own their homes just as we do. We are a part of the life of this city. What have you at stake? Where is your home and family? What is your nationality? What is your record of useful industry? Before you talk about giving a last chance to workmen like my father you will need to produce the credentials of your authority. We have your number, Jake Vodell. You may as well go back to the land where you belong, if you belong anywhere on earth. You will never hang your colors in the union Mill workers' hall. We have a flag there now that suits us. The chance you offer, last or first, is too darned big a chance for any sane American workman to monkey with."

Jake Vodell answered harshly as he turned to go. "At least I know now for sure who it is that makes the Mill workers such traitors to their class." He looked at Pete. "Your son has made his position very clear. We shall see now how bravely the noble Captain will hold his ground. As for you, well—always the old father can pray to his God for his son. It is so, heh?"

Quickly the man passed through the white gate and disappeared down the street toward the Flats.

"I am afraid that fellow means trouble, son," said Pete, slowly.

"Trouble," echoed Captain Charlie, "Jake Vodell has never meant anything but trouble."

* * * * *

Adam Ward did not join his family when they returned from church. A nervous headache kept him in his room.

In the afternoon John went for a long drive into the country. He felt that he must be alone—that he must think things out, for both Mary and himself.

As he looked back on it all now, it seemed to him that he had always loved this girl companion of his old-house days. In his boyhood he had accepted her as a part of his daily life just as he had accepted his sister. Those years of his schooling had been careless, thoughtless years, and followed, as they were, by his war experience, they seemed now to have had so small a part in the whole that they scarcely counted at all. His renewed comradeship with Charlie in the army had renewed also, through the letters that Charlie always shared with him, his consciousness of Mary. In the months just passed his love had ripened and become a definite thing, fixed and certain in his own mind and heart as the fact of life itself. He had no more thought of accepting as final Mary's answer than he had of turning the management of the Mill over to Jake Vodell or to Sam Whaley. But still there were things that he must think out.