Chapter 17

HELEN AND THE STRIKE LEADER'S WIFE.

But what had become of Helen Nash?

It was a very determined little woman who stole out of the Stanlock residence, with the contents of the last threatening letter fresh in her memory, after the return of the members of Flamingo Camp Fire from their Sunday afternoon drive. She walked briskly four blocks east and boarded a street car.

A twenty-minutes' ride took her into the heart of the mining tenement district. Reference to an address memorandum on a slip of paper that she carried in her handbag and a question to the conductor determined where she should get off.

Heaver street, the conductor told her, was three blocks east. With no evidence of a slackening of resolution, she proceeded as directed and was soon searching a long row of cottages, built along almost identical lines, for number 632.

Reaching this number, she ascended a flight of seven or eight steps and gave a quick turn to the old-fashioned fifteen-or-twenty-cent trip-action door bell. A pale-faced, care-worn woman of about 30 years, who might have been mistaken for 40, answered the ring. At sight of the caller she exclaimed in a voice that echoed years of toil and suffering:

"Helen!"

"Nell," was the greeting returned by the caller.

The woman stepped aside, and Helen stepped into a hall, whose sole furnishing consisted of a rag rug on the floor and a cheap hall-tree with a cracked mirror. Evidently it was the chief wardrobe of the house, for upon the twenty or more nails driven into the walls in fairly regular order were articles of both men's and women's wear, most of them bearing evidence of contact with hard labor. From the hall, Helen was conducted into the "front room," the only name it was ever known by, which communicated with the dining room through a cased opening without portieres. These two rooms were about as barely furnished as possible under a minimum of necessary articles and quality. A threadbare ingrain carpet covered the floor of the front room. A few rag rugs hid probably some of the worst gaps in the matching of the yellow-pine floor of the dining room.

As for human life in this house of pinch and poverty, it was hardly vigorous enough to attract attention ahead of the furnishings. Clinging to the faded skirts of their mother were three hungry-eyed anaemic children, a girl and two boys.

"How are you, Nell?" inquired Helen, giving the woman a kiss that seemed almost to frighten her. "It's been two years since I've seen you."

"I'm not very well, Helen," the other replied, wearily. "I've about given up all hope of ever seeing any better days. But what brings you here? I didn't expect ever to see you again."

"Now, Nell, don't talk that way," Helen protested. "You know--or maybe you don't know it--that I would do anything in the world to help you out of this unhappy condition, but Dave's way of looking at things makes it impossible. If you had any vitality I would urge you to leave him and earn your own living."

"But I haven't any left, Helen," said the discouraged woman; "and I don't believe I'll ever recover any. I've rested hope after hope on Dave's assurances of his ability to make a success in life. Really he is a queer genius, and I don't use the word genius entirely with disrespect. In some ways he's clever, very clever, but in other ways he is the most impossible man you ever knew. I believe he is thoroughly honest, but he has no idea of the value of money or what it means to his family. I believe he is by far the strongest leader among the men, but it does neither him nor his family any good. Many a labor leader would make such power and position a source of revenue for himself, but not Dave. Instead, half of his earnings, when he works, are devoted to the labor cause."

"How does he get such a hold on the miners?" Helen inquired.

"By talk, just talk, and really, I must admit he is the cleverest speaker I ever heard. I've seen an audience of a thousand working men and women stand on their tiptoes and cheer him as if they would burst their lungs. I was proud of him on such occasions, but when we got home to our stale bread and soup I could not help wondering if it was not all a dream and I had not just waked up to the reality of things."

"When will he be home?"

"I wish I could tell you," the woman said, helplessly. "He may be here in five minutes and he may not come before 12 or 1 o'clock tonight."

"Right here is where the holiday charity work of the Flamingo Camp Fire begins," she told herself. Then aloud she added:

"I haven't had much to eat since morning, couldn't eat much this noon in my condition of mind, and I'm hungry; what have you in the house for a Sunday evening lunch, Nell?"

"Not much, Helen," was the reply. "Only a half a loaf of rye bread and some corn molasses. The children used to be very fond of that, but they've had it so often since the strike began, that they're almost sick of it."

"Is there any store open near here where I can go and buy something?"

"There's a bakery and delicatessen over on the street where the car line runs. It's probably open now."

"Will I find a drug store over there, too? I want to use the telephone."

"Yes, you'll find a drug store on that street, a block north."

"I'll go at once and you set the table while I'm gone. We'll have a feast that will delight the hearts and stomachs of these little ones."

"God bless you, Helen," were the last words that fell on her ears as she went out.

"I must call up Marion and tell her where I am," she mused as she hastened toward the drug store. "I would have told her where I was going before I left, but I was afraid she wouldn't let me go. Besides, I don't feel like telling her everything yet."

A few minutes later she was in the drug store applying for permission to use the telephone.

"The phone is out of order," the druggist replied.

"Oh," Helen exclaimed in disappointment. "Where is there another in the neighborhood?"

"There is none within half a mile that I know of, except in the saloons," was the reply.

"I can't go there," the girl said desperately. "And I must have a telephone soon. Won't yours be fixed before long?"

"I hope so," said the druggist. "I've sent in a call for a repair man. Can't you come back in an hour or two?"

"Yes, I think so," Helen said, turning to go. "I do hope it is repaired then, because it's very important."

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