STRAWS POINT
"And are you going to write up the whole thing?" he inquired, during a
little commotion caused by one of the large flags slipping from its
stand and threatening to obscure the speaker.
"You mean make a society column report of it?"
"Yes."
"No. I'm a sort of special feature writer on the _Herald_, and I am to
get only this speech of Major Coleman's to put in my Sunday page."
The lecture had commenced in good earnest by this time, and I was
scribbling away in shorthand as I talked.
"Not one among us is insensible to the visions of patriotic pride and
affection which the very name of 'Old Glory' conjures up within us,
but at the same time we may do well to review, quite dispassionately,
once in a while the wonderful chain of historical changes which came
about in evolving this flag to its present form.... For we all realize
that there is no perfect thing in this world which has not been an
evolution from some imperfect thing.... When Pope Gregory,
the"--Somethingth, I quite failed to catch his number--"granted to
Scotland the white cross of St. Andrew, and to England the red cross
of St. George, he faintly surmised what a tempest in a teapot he was
stirring up!"
He paused, and the man at my side got in a word, edgewise.
"All of it?" he asked, looking aghast at the pages of long-tailed dots
and dashes under my hand. I laughed.
"I'm paid to do it," I answered. "I don't disfigure my handwriting
this way for nothing."
"But--but--you must be very clever," he commented, so appalled at the
thought that he forgot he was talking to a stranger. I like that
faculty. I like a man who dares to be awkwardly sincere.
"Not clever--only very needy," I replied, turning over the page as I
saw the lecturer replace the white flag of St. Andrew into its stand
and take up the thread of his talk. "And I don't know that I need get
every word of the discourse. The women who read my page don't care a
rap about flags--but they do care to see a picture of Major Coleman
and his wife and their dog on the piazza of their winter home, just
out from Tampa!--I've got to have enough of this lecture to carry that
picture."
He nodded gravely.
"I see. But after you get this report?"
"I'm going back to the city," I answered. "I have to catch the five
o'clock car in."
"... The jealousy became so fierce between the two nations--the absurd
jealousy over which should first salute the flag of the other--St.
George claiming great superiority in the way of godliness over St.
Andrew, and St. Andrew, with the true Scotch spirit, stiffening his
neck to the breaking point, while waiting for St. George to take off
his hat to him, that when the story of this dissension reached the
ears of Pope Gregory, he--"
I never knew what he did until afterward, for at that moment I saw
Maitland Tait slip his watch out carefully, guarding the action with
an outspread left hand.
"I've an engagement at five, too," he said.
"... He determined to lose no time," was the next sentence I found
myself jotting down on paper, and wondering whether Major Coleman had
really said such a thing or whether it had been born in my mind of the
stress of the moment.... "He was a man of the most impulsive,
sometimes of the most erratic, actions."
"Of course!" my heart said between thumps. "I shouldn't like him if he
were not."
"I can make my excuses to Mrs. Walker at the same time you make
yours," the deep voice said, in a surprisingly soft tone.
"... For he saw in such a course protection and peace," Major Coleman
announced. "All the world suspected that his ultimate aim was union,
but--"
"An international alliance," my heart explained, as I jotted down the
words of the lecturer.
"Mayn't I take you back to town in my car?"
"... And all the world knew that he was a man absolutely untrammeled
by tradition," the white-flanneled one proclaimed.
"Thank you, that would be lovely, but I'm afraid Mrs. Walker won't
consent to your going so soon," I said between curlicues.
"I'm going, however," he answered. "I've an important engagement,
and--I'm not going to stay at this--this," he closed his lips firmly,
but the silence said "_cussed_," that dear, fierce, American
adjective. "I'm not going to stay at this party one minute after
you're gone. I don't like to talk to just any woman."
"... Yet I would have you understand that he was a temperamental man,"
was thundered in a warning tone from the speaker's stand. "He was
quick in judgment and action, but he was fine and sensitive in spirit.
I've never a doubt that he disliked and feared the occasion which
caused this precipitate action. He was quaking in his boots all the
time, but he was courageous. He decided to make brief work of
formalities and take a short cut to his heart's desire."
"What was it he did?" I asked of Mr. Tait, startled at the thought of
what I'd missed. "Do you know what this thing was that Pope Gregory
did?"
"No-o--listen a minute!" he suggested.
"... Can't you just imagine now that he was afraid of what people
might say--or do?" asked the major encouragingly. "It was absolutely
unprecedented in the annals of history--such a quick, rash and sudden
decision. If England and Scotland were going to be eternally bickering
over their flags, they should have _one_ flag! They should be united!
They should--"
"The _Union Jack_!" whispered the deep voice close at my side, while
the grave dark eyes lighted, as--as they should have lighted, or I'd
never have forgiven him. "He created the Union Jack, by George!"
And the speaker on the stand demonstrated the truth of this conclusion
by displaying a big British flag, which caught in its socket as he
attempted to lift it and occasioned another pause in the speech.
"This enthusiasm makes me hungry," Maitland Tait observed, as the
audience courteously saluted the ancient emblem of hostility, and the
echoes of applause died away. "Since we're going to get no tea here,
can't we drive by some place up-town? There's a good-looking place in
Union Street--"
"But that would make you very late for your engagement, I'm afraid," I
demurred. "It will take some little time to drive in."
He looked at me wonderingly for a moment.
"My engagement? Oh, yes--but it can wait."
"Then, if it can, I'm afraid Mrs. Walker will not let you off. I
happen to know that--"
He cut short my argument by motioning me to pay attention to the
speaker, who at the moment had replaced the flag of Pope Gregory's
cunning, and was talking away at a great rate.
"... Yet, who can say that the hastiest actions do not often bring
about the best results? Certainly when a decision is made out of an
excessive desire to bring happiness to all parties concerned, its
immediate action can not fail to denote a wholesome heartiness which
should always be emulated.... Different from most men of his native
country, possessing a genuinely warm heart, a subtle mentality,
coupled with a conscience which impelled him always toward the right,
he was enabled, by this one impetuous act, to become a benefactor of
mankind! What he longed for was harmony--a harmonious union; and what
he has achieved has been the direct outcome of a great longing. He
created a union--wholesome, strengthening and permanent," I took down
in shorthand.
* * * * *
I have a confused impression--I suppose I should say post-impression,
for I didn't remember anything very clearly until afterward--that
Betsy Ross, Pope Gregory, the Somethingth, and Mrs. Hiram Walker were
all combining to tie my hands and feet together with thongs of red,
white and blue.
It seemed hours and hours before that lecture ended, then more hours
before the tall restless man and I could make our way through a sea of
massaged faces to a distant point where our hostess stood giving
directions to a white-coated servant.
She turned to me, with a fluttering little air of regret, when I
reached her side.
"Grace, surely you don't have to hurry off at this unchristian hour!"
she insisted. "My dear, you really should stay! Solinski has arranged
the loveliest spread, and I'm not going to keep the company waiting
forever to get to it, either!--The ices will be the surprise of the
season."
"I'm sorry," I began, but she interrupted me.
"Why _didn't_ your mother come?"
Already her vague regret over my own hasty departure had melted away,
and as she saw the tall man following me, evidently bent upon the same
mission as mine, she put her query in a perfunctory way to hide her
chagrin.
"Mother couldn't come, Mrs. Walker. There is only one D. A. R. pin in
the family, as you know--and I had to wear that."
Maitland Tait, looking over my shoulder, heard my explanation and
smiled.
"It is a great deprivation to miss the rest of your charming party,
Mrs. Walker," he began, but as he mentioned going, in a cool final
voice, our hostess emitted a little terrified shriek.
"What? Not you, too!"
His face was the picture of deep contrition.
"I _am_ sorry," he said, as only an Englishman can say it, and it
always sounds as if he were digging regret up out of his heart with a
shovel, "but I have an important engagement that really can not
wait--"
"And the General Seth O'Callen Chapter fairly holding its breath to
meet you!" she wailed, the despair in her voice so genuine that it was
impossible to keep back a smile. "That is our chapter composed
entirely of _young_ women, you know, and I'd given their regent my
word of honor that you'd be here to-day!"
"Which the Regent has entirely forgotten in the charm of that
delightful lecture we've just heard, I'm sure," he answered, his tones
regretfully mollifying. "If it were at all possible for me to get word
to the man--the men--"
The rest of the fabrication was cut short and drowned out by the
shriek of a trolley-car, grinding noisily round a curve of the track
at that instant. It was the five-o'clock car, and I had grown to
watch for its shriek as fearfully as ever Cinderella listened for the
stroke of twelve from the castle clock. For me there was never a
garden party without its trolley-car back to the city--its hateful,
five-o'clock car--its hurried, businesslike, hungry summons--while ice
in tea glasses tinkled to the echo.
From force of long habit now that grinding sound of the car-wheels
acted upon my nervous system like a fire alarm upon an engine
horse--and I started to run.
"Charming party--so sorry to have to rush off this way--hope next time
I'll not be so busy--yes, I'll tell mother!"
I gathered the folds of copy paper close, having forgotten to thrust
them away out of sight into my bag, and made a break for the front
gate. Then, as I reached the line of waiting motor-cars, I
remembered--and stopped still with a foolish little feeling.
Looking back I saw Mrs. Walker shaking hands in an injured fashion
with her troublesome lion--who, after the manner of lions, proved that
he could afford anxiety as well after being caught as before,--and
turning her back resolutely upon his departing glory.--The whole of
the General Seth O'Callen Chapter was before her, I knew she was
thinking bitterly.
"Thank goodness she won't see this!" I volunteered to myself, as the
tall gray figure came hastily down the line and caught up with me.
"She has troubles enough of her own, and--and she won't stop to wonder
over whether I went back to the city by trolley, motor, or chariot of
fire!"