Helen of the Old House

air. The sunlight lay warm and bright on the garden where the ever industrious bees were filling their golden bags with the sweet wealth of the old-fashioned flowers. Bright-winged butt

reman and the other on the clock, and to count it a great joke when a job is spoiled or a breakdown causes trouble." All of which was a speech of unusual length for Pete Martin. Captain Charlie asked, thoughtfully, "And don't you think, father, that Adam looks on the work of the Mill in exactly that spirit of 'get the most for the least' without regard to the meaning and purpose of the work itself?""There's no reason to doubt it, son, that I can see," returned the old workman."I have often wondered," said Charlie, "how much the attitude of the employees toward their work is due to the attitude of their employers toward that same work."The old workman returned, heartily, "We'll be seeing a different feeling in the Mill under John, I am thinkin'--he's different.""I should say he is different," agreed Charlie, quickly. "John would rather work at his job for nothing than do anything else for ten times the salary he draws. But was Adam always as he is now?""About his work do you mean?""Yes."Adam Ward's old comrade answered, slowly, "I've often wondered that myself. I can't say for sure. As I look back now, I think sometimes that he used to have an interest in the work itself at first. Takin' his development of the new process and all--it almost seems that he must have had. And yet, there's some things that make me think that all the time it meant nothing to him but just what he could get out of it for himself.""Helen will be happy over the change, won't she?" remarked Mary."Helen!" ejaculated Captain Charlie, with more emphasis perhaps than the occasion demanded."She won't give it so much as a thought. Why should she? She can go on with her dinners and card parties and balls and country club affairs with the silk-hatted slackers of her set, just the same as if nothing had happened."Mary laughed. "Seems to me I have heard something like that before--'silk-hatted slackers'--it sounds familiar."Captain Charlie watched her suspiciously.The father laughed quietly."Oh, yes," she exclaimed, with an air of triumph. "It was Bobby Whaley who said it. I remember thinking at the time that it probably came to him from his father, who of course got it from Jake Vodell. Silk-hatted slackers--sounds like Jake, doesn't it, father?"Captain Charlie grinned sheepishly. "I know it was a rotten thing to say," he admitted. "Some of the best and bravest men in our army were silk-hatters at home. They were in the ranks, too, a lot of them--just like John Ward. And some of the worst cowards and shirkers and slackers that ever lived belonged to our ancient and noble order of the horny-handed sons of toil, that Jake Vodell orates about. But what gets me, is the way some of those fellows who were everything but slackers in France act, now that they are back home. Over there they were on the job with everything they had, to the last drop of their blood. But now that they are back in their own home country again, they have simply thrown up their hands and quit--that is, a lot of them have. They seem to think that the signing of the Armistice ended it all and that they can do nothing now for the rest of their lives. Who was it said, 'Peace hath her victories,' or something like that? Well, peace hath her defeats, too. I'll be hanged if I can understand how a man who has it in him to be a one hundred per cent American hero in war can be a Simon-pure slacker in times of peace."As he finished, Captain Charlie pushed his chair back from the table and, finding his pipe, proceeded to fill it with the grim determination of an old-time minuteman ramming home a charge in his Bunker Hill musket.Later the two men went out to enjoy their pipes on the lawn in the cool of the evening. They were discussing the industrial situation when Mary, having finished her household work for the night, joined them."I forgot to tell you," she said, "that Jake Vodell called to-day.""Again!" exclaimed Charlie."If Vodell wants to talk with us he'll have to come when we are at home," said Pete Martin, slowly, looking at his daughter.With a laugh, the young woman returned, "But I don't think that it was you or Charlie that he wanted to see this time, father.""What did he want?" demanded her brother quickly."He wanted me to go with him to a dance next Tuesday," she answered demurely."Huh," came in a tone of disgust from Charlie.The father asked, quietly, "And what did you say to him, Mary?""I told him that I went to dances only with my friends.""Good!" said Captain Charlie."And what then?" asked Pete."Then," she hesitated, "then he said something about my being careful that I