Part 4 (2/2)
YOU'RE HERE BECAUSE WE'RE HERE * * * * * *
AND THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING!
WE ARE PROUD TO LABOR FOR OUR COUNTRY
And the people! Oh, my stars! They lined the streets for thirty blocks, packed in solid from the store fronts to the curb. And the way they cheered! It made s.h.i.+vers of ecstasy chase up and down my spine, while the tears came to my eyes and a big lump formed in my throat. If you've never heard thousands of people cheering at you, you can't imagine how it feels.
One time when the procession halted at a cross street I saw a fat old man, who I'm sure was a dignified banker, balancing himself on a fireplug so he could see better, and waving his hat like crazy. He finally got so enthusiastic that he fell off the fireplug and landed on his hands and knees in the gutter, where some Boy Scouts picked him up and dusted him off, still feebly waving his hat.
Our line of march eventually brought us out at Lincoln Square, where the presentation of the flag was to take place. We stood in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial monument, and who do you suppose presented the flag? Me again. In the name of all the Camp Fire Girls of the city, I ceremoniously presented it to the Mayor, who accepted it with a flowery speech that beat mine all hollow. Besides presenting the flag I was to help raise it. The pole was there already; it had seen many flag raisings in its long career and many flags had flapped themselves to shreds on its top. The thing I had to do was fasten our flag to the ropes and pull her up. In this I was to be a.s.sisted by a soldier brother of one of the girls who was home on furlough. He was to be standing there at the pole waiting for us, but when the time came he wasn't there. Where he was I hadn't the slightest idea; nor did I have any time to spend wondering. Mrs. Lewis had set her heart on having a man in soldier's uniform help raise the flag; it added so much to the spirit of the occasion. Just at this moment I saw a man in army uniform standing in the crowd at the foot of the monument, very close to me. Without a moment's hesitation I beckoned him imperatively to me. He came and I thrust the rope into his hands, whispering directions as to what he was to do. It all went without a hitch and the crowd never knew that he wasn't the soldier we had planned to have right from the start. We pulled evenly together and the flag slowly unfolded over our heads and went fluttering to the top, while the band crashed out the ”Star Spangled Banner.” It was glorious! If I had been thrilled through before, I was shaken to my very foundations now. I felt queer and dizzy, and felt myself making funny little gaspy noises in my throat. There was a great cheer from the crowd and the ceremonies were over. The parade marched on to the Armory, where we were to listen to an address by Major Blanchard of the --th Engineers.
The girls had all filed in and found seats when Mrs. Lewis, who was to introduce Major Blanchard, came over to me where I was standing near the stage and said in a tragic tone, ”Major Blanchard couldn't come; I've had a telegram. What on earth are we going to do? He was going to tell stories about camp life; the girls will be _so_ disappointed not to hear him.”
I rubbed my forehead, unable to think of anything that would meet the emergency. An ordinary speaker wouldn't fill the bill at all, I knew, when the girls all had their appet.i.tes whetted for a Major.
”We might ask the band to give a concert, and all of us sing patriotic songs,” I ventured finally.
”I don't see anything else to do,” said Mrs. Lewis, ”but I'm _so_ disappointed not to have the Major here. The girls are all crazy to hear about the camp.”
Just then I caught sight of a uniform outside of the open entrance way.
”Wait a minute,” I said, ”there's the soldier who helped us raise the flag, standing outside the door. Maybe he'll come in and talk to the girls in place of the Major.” I hurried out and b.u.t.tonholed the soldier.
He declined at first, but I wouldn't take no for an answer. I literally pulled him in and chased him up the aisle to the stage.
”But I can't make a speech,” he said in an agonized whisper, as we reached the steps of the stage, trying to pull back.
”Don't try to,” I answered cheerfully. ”Speeches are horrid bores, anyway. Just tell them exactly what you do in camp; that's what they're crazy to hear about.”
Mrs. Lewis didn't tell the audience that the speaker was one I had kidnapped in a moment of desperation. She introduced him as a friend of the Major's, who had come to speak in his place. The applause when she introduced him was just as hearty as if he had been the Major himself.
The fact that he was a soldier was enough for the girls.
And he brought down the house! He wasn't an educated man, but he was very witty, and had the gift of telling things so they seemed real. He told little intimate details of camp life from the standpoint of the private as the Major never could have told them. He had us alternately laughing and crying over the little comedies and tragedies of barracks life. He imitated the voices and gestures of his comrades and mimicked the officers until you could see them as plainly as if they stood on the stage. He talked for an hour instead of the half hour the Major was scheduled to speak and when he stopped the air was full of clamorings for more. Private Kittredge had made more of a hit than Major Blanchard could have done.
I never saw a person look so astonished or so pleased as he did at the ovation which followed his speech. He stood there a moment, looking down at the audience with a wistful smile, then he got fiery red and almost ran off the stage.
”I don't know whether to be glad or sorry the Major's not coming,”
whispered Mrs. Lewis to me under cover of the applause. ”The Major's a very fine speaker, but he wouldn't have made such a _human_ speech. You certainly have a knack of picking out able people, Miss Brewster! You chose just the right girls for each part in the pageant.”
I didn't acknowledge this compliment as I should have, because I was wondering why our soldier man had looked that way when we applauded him.
He would have slipped out of the side door when he came off the stage, but I stopped him and made him wait for the rest of the program. A national fraternity was holding a convention in town that week and members from all the great colleges were in attendance. As it happened, our Major is a member of that fraternity, and, as a mark of esteem for the Camp Fire Girls, he asked the fraternity glee club to sing for us at the close of our patriotic demonstration.
The singers came frolicking in from some banquet they had been attending, in a very frisky mood, and sang one funny song after another until our sides ached from laughing. I stole a glance now and then at Private Kittredge, beside me, but he never noticed. He was drinking in the antics of those carefree college boys with envious, wistful eyes. At the end of their concert the singers turned and faced the great flag that hung down at the back of the stage and sang an old college song that we had heard sung before, but which had suddenly taken on a new, deep meaning. With their very souls in their voices they sang it:
”Red is for Harvard in that grand old flag, Columbia can have her white and blue; And dear old Yale will never fail To stand by her color true; Penn and Cornell amid the shot and sh.e.l.l Were fighting for that torn and tattered rag, And our college cheer will be 'My Country, 'tis of Thee,'
And Old Glory will be our college flag!”
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