Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Interpreter spoke deliberately with his eyes fixed upon the dark face of the agitator. "Vodell, I have told you twice that your campaign in Millsburgh was a failure. Your coming to this community was a mistake. Your refusal to recognize the power of the thing that made your defeat certain was a mistake. You have now made your third and final mistake." "A mistake! Hah that is what you think.
The storm broke at McIver's factory. It was as Jake Vodell had told the Interpreter it would be "easy to find a grievance." McIver declared that before he would yield to the demands of his workmen, his factory should stand idle until the buildings rotted to the ground. The agitator answered that before his men would yield they would make Millsburgh as a city of the dead.
No well informed resident of Millsburgh, when referring to the principal industry of his little manufacturing city, ever says "the mills" it is always "the Mill." The reason for this common habit of mind is that one mill so overshadows all others, and so dominates the industrial and civic life of this community, that in the people's thought it stands for all.
The Martin cottage was built in the days before the success of Adam Ward and his new process had brought to Millsburgh the two extremes of the Flats and the hillside estates. The little home was equally removed from the wretched dwellings of Sam Whaley and his neighbors, on the one hand, and from the imposing residences of Adam Ward and his circle, on the other.
She tried bravely to smile in response to the gladness in her old friend's greeting. "I had planned to stay another month," she said, "but I " She paused as if for some reason she found it hard to explain why she had returned to Millsburgh so long before the end of the summer season.
"Do you remember what the Interpreter said to us the first time we went to see him after we got home?" demanded John. Charlie nodded. "He said for us not to make the mistake of thinking that the war was over just because the Armistice was signed and we were at home in Millsburgh again. I'm afraid a good many people, though, are making just that mistake."
Vodell himself smokes your brand. Have one on me chief." In spite of that smile of mingled admiration, contempt and envy, with which the people always accompanied any mention of Adam Ward, Millsburgh took no little pride in the dominant Mill owner's achievements.
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."
But the slate-colored dust from the unpaved streets of that section of Millsburgh known locally as the "Flats" covered the wretched houses, the dilapidated fences, the hovels and shanties, and everything animate or inanimate with a thick coating of dingy gray powder.
The cloud that had appeared on the Millsburgh horizon with the coming of Jake Vodell had steadily assumed more threatening proportions until now it hung dark with gloomy menace above the work and the homes of the people.
Word Of The Day