Helen of the Old House

by Harold Bell Wright

CHAPTER IX

THE MILL

It was pay day at the Mill.

No one, unless he, at some period in his life, has been absolutely dependent upon the wages of his daily toil, can appreciate a pay day. To experience properly the thrill of a pay day one must have no other source of income. The pay check must be the only barrier between one and actual hunger. Bobby and Maggie Whaley knew the full meaning of pay day. Their mother measured life itself by that event.

Throughout the great industrial hive that morning there was an electrical thrill of anticipation. Smiles were more frequent; jests were passed with greater zest; men moved with a freer step, a more joyous swing. The very machinery seemed in some incomprehensible way to be animated with the spirit of the workmen, while the droning, humming, roaring voice of the Mill was unquestionably keyed to a happier note. In the offices among the bookkeepers, clerks, stenographers and the department heads, the same brightening of the atmosphere was noticeable. Nor was the spirit of the event confined to the Mill itself; throughout the entire city—in the stores and banks, the post office, the places of amusement, in the homes on the hillside and in the Flats—pay day at the Mill was the day of days.

It was an hour, perhaps, after the whistle had started the big plant for the afternoon.

John Ward was deep in the consideration of some business of moment with the superintendent, George Parsons—a sturdy, square-jawed, steady-eyed, middle-aged man, who had come up from the ranks by the sheer force of his natural ability.

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There is nothing at all unusual about John Ward. He is simply a good specimen of the more intelligent class of our young American manhood, with, it might be, a more than average mind for business, which he had inherited from his father. He is, in short, a fair type of the healthy, clean-living, straight-thinking, broad-gauged, big-hearted young citizen such as one may find by the hundreds of thousands in the many fields of our national activities. In our arts and industries, in our banks and commercial houses, in our factories and newspapers, on our farms and in our professions, in our educational institutions, among our writers and scientists, in our great transportation organizations, and in the business of our government, our John Wards are to be found, ready to take the places left to them by the passing of their fathers.

Since his return from the war, the young man had devoted himself with the enthusiasm of a great purpose to a practical study of his father's big industrial plant. Adam still held the general management, but his son knew that the time must come when the responsibility of that position would fall to him.