Part 12 (1/2)

”Just what notions do you mean, Adam? Is it John's friends.h.i.+p with Charlie Martin that you fear?”

”His friends.h.i.+p with young Martin is only part of it. I am afraid of his att.i.tude toward the whole industrial situation. Haven't you heard his wild, impracticable and dangerous theories of applying, as he says, the ideals of patriotism, and love of country, and duty to humanity, and sacrifice, and heroism, and G.o.d knows what other nonsense, to the work of the world? You know as well as I do how he talks about the comrades.h.i.+p of the mills and factories and workshops being like the comrades.h.i.+p of the trenches and camps and battlefields. His notions of the relation between an employer and his employees would be funny if they were not so dangerous. Look at his sympathy with the unions! And yet I have shown him on my books where this union business has cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars! Comrades.h.i.+p! Loyalty! I tell you I know what I'm talking about from experience. The only way to handle the working cla.s.s is to keep them where they belong. Give them the least chance to think you are easy and they are on your neck. If I had my way I'd hold them to their jobs at the muzzle of a machine gun. McIver has the right idea. He is getting himself in shape right now for the biggest fight with labor that he has ever had. Everybody knows that agitator Jake Vodell is here to make trouble. The laboring cla.s.ses have had a long spell of good times now and they're ripe for anything. All they need is a start and this anarchist is here to start them. And John, instead of lining up with McIver and getting ready to fight them to a finish, is spending his time hobn.o.bbing with Charlie Martin and listening to that old fool Interpreter.”

”Come, dear,” she said, soothingly. ”Come and sit down here with me.

Don't let's worry about what may happen.”

He obeyed her with the manner of a fretful child. And presently, as she talked, the cloud lifted from his gray, haggard face, and he grew calm.

Soon, when she made some smiling remark, he even smiled back at her with the affectionate companions.h.i.+p of their years.

”You will try not to worry about things so much, won't you, Adam?” she said, at last. ”For my sake, won't you?”

”But I tell you, Alice, there is serious trouble ahead.”

”Perhaps that is all the more reason why you should retire now,” she urged. He stirred uneasily, but she continued, ”Just suppose the worst that could possibly happen should happen, suppose you even had to give up the Mill to Pete Martin and the men, suppose you lost the new process and everything, and we were obliged to give up our home here and go back to live in the old house--it would still be better than losing you, dear. Don't you know that to have you well and strong would be more to Helen and John and to me than anything else could possibly be?”

Mrs. Ward knew, as the words left her lips, that she had said the wrong thing. She had heard him rave about his owners.h.i.+p of the new process too many times not to know--while any mention of his old workman friend Peter Martin always threw him into a rage. But in her anxiety the forbidden words had escaped her.

She drew back with a little gasp of fear at the swift change that came over his face. As if she had touched a hidden spring in his being the man's countenance was darkened by furious hatred and desperate fear.

His trembling lips were ashen; the muscles of his face twitched and worked; his eyes blazed with a vicious anger beyond all control.

Springing to his feet, he faced her with a snarling exclamation, and in a voice shaking with pa.s.sion, cried, ”Pete Martin! What is he? Who is he? Everything he has in the world he owes to me. Haven't I kept him in work all these years? Haven't I paid him every cent of his wages? Look at his home. Not many working men have been able to own a place like that. What would he have done without the money I have given him every pay day? I could have turned him out long ago--kicked him out of a job without a cent. He's had all that's coming to him--every penny. _I_ built up the Mill. That new process is mine--it's patented in my name.

I have had the best lawyers I could hire to protect it on every possible point. If it hadn't been for my business brain there wouldn't be any new process. What could Pete Martin have done with it--the fool has no more business sense than a baby. I introduced it--I exploited it--I built it up and made it worth what it is, and there isn't a court in the world that wouldn't say I have a legal right to it.”

In vain Mrs. Ward tried to soothe him with rea.s.suring words, pleading with him to be calm.

”I know they're after me,” he raved. ”They have tried all sorts of tricks. There is always some sneaking spy watching for a chance to get me, but I'll fix them. I built the business up and I can tear it down.

Let them try to take anything away from me if they dare. I'll burn the Mill and the whole town before I'll give up one cent of my legal rights to Pete Martin or any of his tribe.”

Forgetting his companion, the man suddenly started off across the grounds, waving his arms and shaking his fists in wild gestures as he continued his tirade against his old fellow workman. Mrs. Ward knew from experience the uselessness of trying to interfere until he had exhausted himself.

As Helen was returning to the house after her talk with the children, she saw her mother coming slowly from that part of the grounds where the young woman had watched her father. It was evident, even at a distance, that Mrs. Ward was greatly distressed. When the young woman reached her mother's side, Mrs. Ward said, simply, ”Your father, dear--he is terribly upset. Go to him, Helen, you can always do more for him than any one else--he needs you.”

It was not an easy task for Helen Ward to face her father just then. As she went in search of him she tried to put from her mind all that she had seen and to remember only that he was ill. She found him in the most distant and lonely part of the grounds, sitting with his face buried in his hands--a figure of hopeless despair.

While still some distance away, she forced herself to call cheerily, ”h.e.l.lo, father.”

As he raised his head, she turned to pick a few flowers from a near-by bed. When he had had a moment to regain, in a measure, his self-control, she went toward him, arranging her blossoms with careful attention.

Adam Ward watched his daughter as she drew near, much as a condemned man might have watched through the grating of a prison window.

”What is it, father?” she asked, gently, when she had come close to his side. ”Another one of your dreadful nervous headaches?”

He put a shaking hand to his brow. ”Yes,” he said wearily.

”I am so sorry,” she returned, sitting down beside him. ”You have been thinking too hard again, haven't you?”

”Yes, I guess I have been thinking too hard.”