QUICK WIT AND COURAGE
Departing in haste, with ears purposely dulled against possible parental
voices, the boys headed for the mine by the shortest possible route. The
streets were singularly bare for a Saturday afternoon. Here and there a
woman talked anxiously to another over a fence-rail, or there was a
glimpse of children playing in a back yard. But there were scarcely any
men to be seen.
“Gee! I hope we’re not too late,” commented Cavanaugh, as they turned
the last corner and started up a steep, narrow street leading to the
open space in front of the mine property. Suddenly he stopped. “Listen!”
he said abruptly.
For a long moment they stood motionless. Down the narrow thoroughfare
swept the dull, low, pulsating murmur of many voices rising and falling.
The windows of the houses at the end of the street were filled with
people all staring in the same direction.
They were vaguely stirred and a trifle uneasy. What little they had
heard of the disturbances of the past week had passed mostly over their
heads. Cavvy merely knew that certain outside agitators had been
haranguing the men for the last few days. As they panted up the slope
and reached the level they paused, startled at what lay before them.
The wide, open space was packed with men. Hundreds and hundreds in their
greasy, ore-grimed working clothes, a week’s stubble, darkening their
already swarthy faces, stood shoulder to shoulder in close-packed
masses. That ominous rumble of voices had ceased. Only here and there
sounded sibilant whispers or hoarse, low-voiced comment. For the most
part they were listening intently to a speaker who stood on a box over
by the big flag pole in the center of the space.
Cavvy could not see the man clearly, nor could he get the thread of what
the fellow was saying. But there was a quality of harsh, sneering
dominance in the stranger’s voice to which he took an instant dislike.
He glanced at Micky, who had drawn closer to him.
“Come on over to those steps where we can see something,” he whispered,
and, turning quickly, he began to skirt the crowd.
McBride nodded silently. The steps in question were already pretty well
filled with late comers, but by dint of a little squeezing the two boys
managed to gain a foothold where they could overlook the crowd.
The square was a familiar spot transformed. Every window was filled with
heads. Every foot of standing room was occupied by that close-packed
mass of men, oddly silent in contrast to the shouting, gesticulating
orator. And suddenly, to Cavvy’s wrought up imagination, instead of an
ordinal crowd of workmen, many of whom he knew by sight if not by name,
the throng became a mob of strangers waiting now only the word to launch
into ravening destruction.
For a moment it all seemed incongruous, impossible. Mechanically his
eyes travelled up the tall, white pole and rested dazedly on the Stars
and Stripes rippling in the hot September sun just as it had gleamed
there yesterday and the day before. Only that seemed real. His heart
swelled unaccountably, then leaped driving the blood into his face as a
phrase from the man on the box below stung into his consciousness.
“That flag up there—what does it mean to you?” the fellow shouted, with
an upward fling of one long arm. “Does it stand for _your_ country, or
for a government _you_ have any share in? No! A thousand times no! It’s
like the Union Jack, or the French Tricolor—a symbol of tyrants who take
the bread out of your mouths and fatten like leeches on your toil.”
He paused to sweep a long lock of dark hair out of his eyes. Then he
reached out and dexterously loosened the rope halliards. Cavvy caught
his breath.
“You’re dirt to them, that’s all,” continued the speaker loudly. “They
work you for their own selfish ends and when you cry out, what do they
tell you? It’s for the flag! Bah!” He was manipulating the ropes
skillfully. Aghast, incredulous, Cavvy saw the flag quiver, dip and
droop into a crumpled mass as it was dragged swiftly downward.
“The flag—look at it!” screamed the agitator, deftly loosening the
bunting from the halliards and crushing it in both hands.
A startled murmur rose from the crowd, but Cavvy did not hear it. He
bent forward, face white and strained, eyes glittering. Unconsciously
the fingers of one hand dug into McBride’s shoulder until the boy
winced.
“Look at it!” repeated the hateful voice triumphantly. “The symbol of
tyrants! There’s no real flag but the emblem of universal brotherhood.
This thing—this rag, is fit for nothing but the dirt, to be ground under
foot.”
“No!” cried Cavvy hoarsely. “Stop!”
The words which had so infuriated him were scarcely spoken when out of
the crowd packed around the flag-pole there leaped a boy—short,
square-built, olive skinned. Like a flash he reached up and snatched the
crumpled bunting from the hands of the startled orator, ducked under the
arm of a burly miner who was too surprised to stop him, and disappeared
into the throng.
Cavvy caught his breath and straightened. From his point of vantage he
could follow the progress through the crowd of this new actor in the
drama. Ducking, squirming, wriggling, the boy eluded a dozen hands
stretched out to stop him. Away from those immediately surrounding the
agitator, his progress was easier. So swift had been his action that
many of those on the outskirts of the crowd had not even seen it. They
did not know what it was all about. Suddenly Cavanaugh clutched McBride
and dragged him down the steps.
“He’s getting away with it. It’s that Tallerico kid. Come ahead, quick.
Maybe he’ll need some help.”
Their progress toward the point where Cavvy thought the Italian boy
would merge was more or less hindered. The crowd was suddenly in motion,
roughly pushing in to gain a nearer view of what was going on about the
flag-pole. A bedlam of voices chattering half a dozen tongues took the
place of that former tense silence.
At last, bursting from the crowd, Cavanaugh caught a glimpse of
Tallerico darting down an alley, and impulsively he followed. Several
half-grown mine boys were headed in the same direction, and he
determined grimly that if they meant to stop the Italian they would not
do it unhindered.
Down the alley he ran with Micky at his elbow. They passed the mine boys
and presently emerged unopposed into the street beyond in time to see
Tallerico disappearing through the doorway of the Jessup house.
“He’s got away,” said Cavvy with a sigh of relief.
He slowed down, and McBride paused with him.
“Some kid!” exclaimed the latter. “Took nerve to put across a stunt like
that.”
Cavanaugh did not answer. He moved slowly on, and at the door of the old
house he paused, a curious expression on his face.
“I’m going in,” he stated abruptly, a touch of defiance in his glance.
The hall was dark and rather smelly. In the days of Washington it had
been spacious and beautiful, but it could scarcely be called so now.
Dirt streaked the walls; odds and ends of broken furniture cluttered the
door. Four doors opened out of the hall, all of which were closed, and
Cavvy hesitated doubtfully at the foot of the graceful, curving,
battered staircase.
Then from above, punctuating the stillness, came faintly the sound of
suppressed panting. Cavvy took the stairs at a run, McBride following at
his heels. An instant later he paused on the threshold of a room so
different from anything he had expected that he was fairly speechless
with surprise.
It was long and low, with three windows, two looking out on the street.
The glass in them was clear and unbroken; instinctively he realized that
these must be Micky’s “two whole windows” of that morning. The woodwork
shone immaculate in its creamy whiteness; the floor was clean. A table
and a few chairs were ranged against the wall. There were other things,
but just now Cavvy had no eye for detail.
From the wall above the white mantel—aloof, majestic, a touch of
kindliness about the eyes, a hint of world-weariness in the tight-lipped
mouth—looked down the face of Stuart’s Washington. Below the picture,
startled, defiant, a little afraid, stood the Tallerico kid, the rescued
flag still clutched tightly in his arm.
As recognition dawned, his tense expression faded. His eyes softened,
and with a long, relieved sigh his lips parted in a flashing smile.
“Oh!” he said. “It’s—it’s _you_!”
Cavvy gulped.
“Yes, it’s us,” he answered, oblivious of grammar. “We thought you might
need some help, but—” He broke off and moved swiftly toward the boy. “It
was great—simply great!” he exclaimed a little incoherently. “We got
there late and were away on the outside. When that—that _beast_ grabbed
the flag, I—I—”
“I heard you,” said Tallerico simply. “It—it helped.”
Cavvy stared. “Helped?”
“Yes,” nodded the other, smiling. “It came sudden, you know. I had not
thought the—the _faccino_ would do the thing he did. When you cry out
it—it wake me up. I know you were too far away to help; and so I did
quickly what you would do if you were near.”
A slow flush crept up into Cavvy’s face. He bit his lip, and then one
hand reached out and caught the smaller boy by the shoulder. For an
instant he stood there silent. Then:
“Let’s fold up the flag,” he said rather gruffly. “And while we’re doing
it you can tell me about this room. It’s got me guessing.”
“It is the room of the great Washington,” explained Tallerico
promptly—“his special room. He was here in the Revolution. You see, my
father says General Washington is the greatest man in the world, and
when he find out about this room he fix it up and keep it nice.
Sometimes—” He hesitated and then went on rather shyly. “Sometimes, when
I come here by myself and read the history and look at his picture, it
makes it all so real as if, almost, I could turn around and—and see him
standing by the window, or—” He broke off with an embarrassed laugh.
“Maybe that sounds foolish to you.”
Cavanaugh shook his head; there was a very curious expression on his
face.
“No,” he said slowly at length, “it doesn’t. I’ll tell you what I do
think, though,” he went on briskly. “You’re one good scout, Tallerico.
There isn’t a fellow in the troop who’ll beat you.”
The dark eyes glowed. “You mean—”
“Sure thing!” Cavvy’s lips parted in a friendly grin. “There’s a troop
meeting next Friday, and— Well, I guess he’ll see, won’t he, Micky?”