Helen of the Old House

by Harold Bell Wright

It was not so much the Interpreter's words—it was rather the spirit in which they were spoken that moved her so deeply. By her own heart she was judged. "For every idle hand," he had said. Her hands were idle hands. Her old white-haired friend in his wheel chair was doing her work. His crippled body drooped with weariness over his task because she did nothing. His face was lined with care because she was careless of the need that burdened him. His eyes were filled with sadness and pain because she was indifferent—because she did not know—had not cared to know.

* * * * *

The sun was almost down that afternoon when Bobby Whaley came out of the wretched house that was his home to stand on the front doorstep. The dingy, unpainted buildings of the Flats—the untidy hovels and shanties—the dilapidated fences and broken sidewalks—unlovely at best, in the long shadows of the failing day, were sinister with the gloom of poverty.

High above the Mill the twisting columns of smoke from the tall stacks caught the last of the sunlight and formed slow, changing cloud-shapes—rolling hills of brightness with soft, shadowy valleys and cañons of mysterious depths between—towering domes and crags and castled heights—grim, foreboding, beautiful.

The boy who stood on the steps, looking so listlessly about, was not the daring adventurer who had so boldly led his sister up the zigzag steps to the Interpreter's hut. He was not the Bobby who had ridden in such triumph beside the princess lady so far into the unknown country. His freckled face was thin and pinched. The skin was drawn tight over the high cheek bones and the eyes were wide and staring. His young body that had been so sturdy was gaunt and skeletonlike. The dirty rags that clothed him were scarcely enough to hide his nakedness. The keen autumn air that had put the flush of good red blood into the cheeks of the golfers at the country club that afternoon whirled about his bare feet and legs with stinging cruelty. His thin lips and wasted limbs were blue with cold. Turning slowly, he seemed about to reenter the house, but when his hand touched the latch he paused and once more uncertainly faced toward the street. There was no help for him in his home. He knew no other place to go for food or shelter.

As the boy again looked hopelessly about the wretched neighborhood, he saw a woman coming down the street. He could tell, even at that distance, that the lady was a stranger to the Flats. Her dress, simple as it was, and her veil marked her as a resident of some district more prosperous than that grimy community in the shadow of the Mill.

A flash of momentary interest lighted the hungry eyes of the lad. But, no, it could not be one of the charity workers—the charity ladies always came earlier in the day and always in automobiles.

Then he saw the stranger stop and speak to a boy in front of a house two doors away. The neighbor boy pointed toward Bobby and the lady came on, walking quickly as if she were a little frightened at being alone amid such surroundings.

At the gap where once had been a gate in the dilapidated fence, she turned in toward the house and the wondering boy on the front step. She was within a few feet of the lad when she stopped suddenly with a low exclamation.

Bobby thought that she had discovered her mistake in coming to the wrong place. But the next moment she was coming closer, and he heard, "Bobby, is that really you! You poor child, have you been ill?"