Now all was ready; the moment of fate was absolutely at hand; the
fife-and-drum corps led the way and the States followed; but what
actually happened Rebecca never knew; she lived through the hours in a
waking dream. Every little detail was a facet of light that reflected
sparkles, and among them all she was fairly dazzled. The brass band
played inspiring strains; the mayor spoke eloquently on great themes;
the people cheered; then the rope on which so much depended was put into
the children's hands, they applied superhuman strength to their task,
and the flag mounted, mounted, smoothly and slowly, and slowly unwound
and stretched itself until its splendid size and beauty were revealed
against the maples and pines and blue New England sky.
Then after cheers upon cheers and after a patriotic chorus by the church
choirs, the State of Maine mounted the platform, vaguely conscious
that she was to recite a poem, though for the life of her she could not
remember a single word.
“Speak up loud and clear, Rebecky,” whispered Uncle Sam in the front
row, but she could scarcely hear her own voice when, tremblingly, she
began her first line. After that she gathered strength and the poem
“said itself,” while the dream went on.
She saw Adam Ladd leaning against a tree; Aunt Jane and Aunt Miranda
palpitating with nervousness; Clara Belle Simpson gazing cross-eyed but
adoring from a seat on the side; and in the far, far distance, on the
very outskirts of the crowd, a tall man standing in a wagon--a tall,
loose-jointed man with red upturned mustaches, and a gaunt white horse
headed toward the Acreville road.
Loud applause greeted the state of Maine, the slender little white-clad
figure standing on the mossy boulder that had been used as the centre of
the platform. The sun came up from behind a great maple and shone full
on the star-spangled banner, making it more dazzling than ever, so that
its beauty drew all eyes upward.
Abner Simpson lifted his vagrant shifting gaze to its softy fluttering
folds and its splendid massing of colors, thinking:
“I don't know's anybody'd ought to steal a flag--the thunderin' idjuts
seem to set such store by it, and what is it, anyway? Nothin; but a
sheet o' buntin!”
Nothing but a sheet of bunting? He looked curiously at the rapt faces
of the mothers, their babies asleep in their arms; the parted lips and
shining eyes of the white-clad girls; at Cap'n Lord, who had been in
Libby prison, and Nat Strout, who had left an arm at Bull Run; at the
friendly, jostling crowd of farmers, happy, eager, absorbed, their
throats ready to burst with cheers. Then the breeze served, and he heard
Rebecca's clear voice saying:
“For it's your star, my star, all the stars together,
That make our country's flag so proud
To float in the bright fall weather!”
“Talk about stars! She's got a couple of 'em right in her head,” thought
Simpson.... “If I ever seen a young one like that lyin; on anybody's
doorstep I'd hook her quicker'n a wink, though I've got plenty to home,
the Lord knows! And I wouldn't swap her off neither.... Spunky little
creeter, too; settin' up in the wagon lookin' 'bout's big as a pint o'
cider, but keepin' right after the goods!... I vow I'm 'bout sick o' my
job! Never _with_ the crowd, allers _jest_ on the outside, 's if I
wa'n't as good's they be! If it paid well, mebbe I wouldn't mind, but
they're so thunderin' stingy round here, they don't leave anything
decent out for you to take from 'em, yet you're reskin' your liberty 'n'
reputation jest the same!... Countin' the poor pickin's 'n' the time I
lose in jail I might most's well be done with it 'n' work out by the
day, as the folks want me to; I'd make 'bout's much 'n' I don't know's
it would be any harder!”
He could see Rebecca stepping down from the platform, while his own
red-headed little girl stood up on her bench, waving her hat with one
hand, her handkerchief with the other, and stamping with both feet.
Now a man sitting beside the mayor rose from his chair and Abner heard
him call:
“Three cheers for the women who made the flag!”
“_Hip, hip, hurrah!_”
“Three cheers for the State of Maine!”
“_Hip, hip, hurrah!_”
“Three cheers for the girl that saved the flag from the hands of the
enemy!”
“_Hip, hip, hurrah! Hip, hip, hurrah!_”
It was the Edgewood minister, whose full, vibrant voice was of the sort
to move a crowd. His words rang out into the clear air and were carried
from lip to lip. Hands clapped, feet stamped, hats swung, while the loud
huzzahs might almost have wakened the echoes on old Mount Ossipee.
The tall, loose-jointed man sat down in the wagon suddenly and took up
the reins.
“They're gettin' a little mite personal, and I guess it's 'bout time for
you to be goin', Simpson!”
The tone was jocular, but the red mustaches drooped, and the
half-hearted cut he gave to start the white mare on her homeward journey
showed that he was not in his usual devil-may-care mood.
“Durn his skin!” he burst out in a vindictive undertone, as the mare
swung into her long gait. “It's a lie! I thought 'twas somebody's wash!
I hain't an enemy!”
While the crowd at the raising dispersed in happy family groups to their
picnics in the woods; while the Goddess of Liberty, Uncle Sam,
Columbia, and the proud States lunched grandly in the Grange hall with
distinguished guests and scarred veterans of two wars, the lonely
man drove, and drove, and drove through silent woods and dull, sleepy
villages, never alighting to replenish his wardrobe or his stock of
swapping material.
At dusk he reached a miserable tumble-down house on the edge of a pond.
The faithful wife with the sad mouth and the habitual look of anxiety in
her faded eyes came to the door at the sound of wheels and went doggedly
to the horse-shed to help him unharness.
“You didn't expect to see me back tonight, did ye?” he asked
satirically; “leastwise not with this same horse? Well, I'm here! You
needn't be scairt to look under the wagon seat, there hain't nothin'
there, not even my supper, so I hope you're suited for once! No, I guess
I hain't goin' to be an angel right away, neither. There wa'n't nothin'
but flags layin' roun' loose down Riverboro way, 'n' whatever they say,
I hain't sech a hound as to steal a flag!”
It was natural that young Riverboro should have red, white, and blue
dreams on the night after the new flag was raised. A stranger thing,
perhaps, is the fact that Abner Simpson should lie down on his hard bed
with the flutter of bunting before his eyes, and a whirl of unaccustomed
words in his mind.
“For it's your star, my star, all our stars together.”
“I'm sick of goin' it alone,” he thought; “I guess I'll try the other
road for a spell;” and with that he fell asleep.