Helen of the Old House | Page 9

the cliff above impossible.
Suddenly, from around the curve in the road followed by a whirling cloud of dust, came an automobile. It was a big car, very imposing with its shiny black body, its gleaming metal, and its liveried chauffeur.
The children gazed in open-mouthed wonder. The car drew nearer, and they saw, behind the dignified personality at the wheel, a lady who might well have been the beautiful princess of the Interpreter's fairy tale.
Little Maggie caught her brother's arm. "Bobby! It's--it's _her_--it's the princess lady herself."
"Gee!" gasped the boy. "She's a slowin' down--what d'yer--"
The automobile stopped not thirty feet from where the children sat on the lower step of the old stairway. Springing to the ground, the chauffeur, with the dignity of a prime minister, opened the door.
But the princess lady sat motionless in her car. With an expression of questioning disapproval she looked at the Interpreter's friends on that lower step of the Interpreter's stairway.
CHAPTER II
LITTLE MAGGIE'S PRINCESS LADY
By nine out of ten of the Millsburgh people, the Interpreter would be described as a strange character. But the judge once said to the cigar-store philosopher, when that worthy had so spoken of the old basket maker, "Sir, the Interpreter is more than a character; he is a conviction, a conscience, an institution."
It was about the time when the patents on the new process were issued that the Interpreter--or Wallace Gordon, as he was then known--appeared from no one knows where, and went to work in the Mill. Because of the stranger's distinguished appearance, his evident culture, and his slightly foreign air, there were many who sought curiously to learn his history. But Wallace Gordon's history remained as it, indeed, remains still, an unopened book. Within a few months his ability to speak several of the various languages spoken by the immigrants who were drawn to the manufacturing city caused his fellow workers to call him the Interpreter.
Working at the same bench in the Mill with Adam Ward and Peter Martin, the Interpreter naturally saw much of the two families that, in those days, lived such close neighbors. Sober, hard working, modest in his needs, he acquired, during his first year in the Mill, that little plot of ground on the edge of the cliff, and built the tiny hut with its zigzag stairway. But often on a Sunday or a holiday, or for an hour of the long evenings after work, this man who was so alone in the world would seek companionship in the homes of his two workmen friends. The four children, who were so much together that their mothers used to say laughingly they could scarcely tell which were Wards and which were Martins, claimed the Interpreter as their own. With his never-failing fund of stories, his ultimate acquaintance with the fairies, his ready understanding of their childish interests, and his joyous comradeship in their sports, he won his own peculiar place in their hearts.
It was during the second year of his residence in Millsburgh that he adopted the deaf and dumb orphan boy, Billy Rand.
That such a workman should become a leader among his fellow workers was inevitable. More and more his advice and counsel were sought by those who toiled under the black cloud that rolled up in ever-increasing volumes from the roaring furnaces.
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