From his wheel chair the Interpreter watched the children at the porch
railing. "Of course you would see your home," he said, gravely. "The
Mill first, and then the place where you live. Nearly every one sees
those things first. Now tell what else you see."
"I see, I see--" The boy hesitated. There was so much to be seen from
the Interpreter's balcony porch.
The little girl's thin voice piped up with shrill eagerness, "Look at
the pretty yeller fields an' the green trees away over there across the
river, Bobby. Gee, but wouldn't yer just love to be over there
an'--an'--roll 'round in the grass, an' pick flowers, an' everything?"
"Huh," retorted Bobby. "Look-ee, that there's McIver's factory up the
river there. It's 'most as big as the Mill. An' see all the stores an'
barber shops an' things downtown--an' look-ee, there's the courthouse
where the jail is an'--"
Maggie chimed in with, "An' all the steeples of the churches--an'
everythin'."
"An' right down there," continued the boy, pointing more toward the
east where, at the edge of the Flats, the ground begins to rise toward
the higher slope of the hills, "in that there bunch of trees is where
Pete Martin lives, an' Mary an' Captain Charlie. Look-ee, Mag, yer can
see the little white house a-showin' through the green leaves."
"You know the Martins, do you?" asked the Interpreter.
"You bet we do," returned Bobby, without taking his gaze from the scene
before him, while Maggie confirmed her brother's words by turning to
look shyly at her new-found friend. "Pete and Charlie they work in the
Mill. Charlie he was a captain in the war. He's one of the head guys in
our union now. Mary she used to give us stuff to eat when dad was
a-strikin' the last time."
"An' look-ee," continued the boy, "right there next to the Martins' yer
can see the old house where Adam Ward used to live before the Mill made
him rich an' he moved to his big place up on the hill. I know 'cause I
heard dad an' another man talkin' 'bout it onct. Ain't nobody lives in
the old house now. She's all tumbled down with windows broke an'
everything. I wonder--" He paused to search the hillside to the east.
"Yep," he shouted, pointing, "there she is--there's the castle--there's
where old Adam an' his folks lives now. Some place to live I'd say.
Gee, but wouldn't I like to put a chunk o' danermite er somethin' under
there! I'd blow the whole darned thing into nothin' at all an that old
devil Adam with it. I'd--"
Little Maggie caught her warlike brother's arm. "But, Bobby--Bobby, yer
wouldn't dast to do that, yer know yer wouldn't!"
"Huh," returned the boy, scornfully. "I'd show yer if I had a chanct."
"But, Bobby, yer'd maybe kill the beautiful princess lady if yer was to
blow up the castle an' every-thin'."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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