Helen of the Old House

by Harold Bell Wright

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 passed 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.