CHAPTER II
LITTLE MAGGIE'S PRINCESS LADY
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."
It was about the time when the patents on the new process were issued
that the Interpreter--or Wallace Gordon, as he was then known--appeared
from no one knows where, and went to work in the Mill. Because of the
stranger's distinguished appearance, his evident culture, and his
slightly foreign air, there were many who sought curiously to learn his
history. But Wallace Gordon's history remained as it, indeed, remains
still, an unopened book. Within a few months his ability to speak
several of the various languages spoken by the immigrants who were
drawn to the manufacturing city caused his fellow workers to call him
the Interpreter.
Working at the same bench in the Mill with Adam Ward and Peter Martin,
the Interpreter naturally saw much of the two families that, in those
days, lived such close neighbors. Sober, hard working, modest in his
needs, he acquired, during his first year in the Mill, that little plot
of ground on the edge of the cliff, and built the tiny hut with its
zigzag stairway.
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