When
the surgeons were finally through with him, and it was known that he
would live but could never stand on his feet again, he was still silent
as to his family and his life before he came to the Mill. So they
carried him around by the road on the hillside to his little hut on the
top of the cliff where, with Billy Rand to help him, he made baskets
and lived with his books, which he purchased as he could from time to
time during the more profitable periods of his industry.
As the years passed and the Mill, under Adam Ward's hand, grew in
importance, Millsburgh experienced the usual trials of such industrial
centers. Periodic labor wars alternated with times of industrial peace.
Months of prosperity were followed by months of "hard times," and want
was in turn succeeded by plenty. When the community was at work the
more intelligent and thrifty among those who toiled with their hands
and the more conservative of those who labored in business were able to
put by in store enough to tide them over the next period of idleness
and consequent business depression.
From his hut on the cliff the Interpreter watched it all with
never-failing interest and sympathy. Indeed, although he never left his
work of basket making, the Interpreter was a part of it all.
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