The Flag Part 6

"That's a lie, Elmer Cuddeback, and you know it!"

At once confusion reigned. People stood up and looked around to get a possible glimpse of the object of Aleck's denunciation. Some one cried: "Put him out!"

Two or three members of the Riverbeds started threateningly toward Elmer, and his friends struggled to get closer to him. An excitable woman in the audience screamed. Miss Grey was pounding vigorously with her gavel, but to no effect. Then Colonel Butler himself took matters in hand. He rose to his feet, stretched out his arm, and shouted:

"Order! Order! Resume your seats!"

People sat down again. The belligerent boys halted in their tracks.

Everyone felt that the colonel must be obeyed. He waited, in commanding att.i.tude, until order had been restored, then he continued:

"The young gentleman who undertook to respond to my address was stricken with what is commonly known as stage-fright. That is no discredit to him. It is a malady that attacked so great a man and so brave a warrior as General Grant. I may add that I, myself, have suffered from it on occasion. And now that order has been restored we will proceed with the regular program, and Master Sands will finish the delivery of his address."

He stepped back to give the respondent the floor; but Master Sands was nowhere in sight. In the confusion he had disappeared. The colonel looked around him expectantly for a moment, and then again advanced to the front of the platform.

"In the absence of our young friend," he said, "whose address, I am sure, would have been received with the approbation it deserves, I, myself, will occupy a portion of the time thus made vacant, in still further expounding to you--"

But at this moment, notwithstanding his effort to avoid it, he again caught his daughter's warning look, and saw her forefinger held threateningly in the air.

"I am reminded, however," he continued, "by one in the audience whose judgment I am bound to respect, that it is not appropriate for me to make both the speech of presentation and the address on behalf of the recipient. I will, therefore, conclude by thanking you for your attendance and your attention, and by again adjuring you to honor, protect and preserve this beautiful emblem of our national liberties."

He had scarcely taken his seat amid the applause that his words always evoked, before Miss Grey was on her feet announcing the closing number of the program, the song "America," by the entire audience.

Whether it was due to the excitement of the occasion, or, as the colonel afterward modestly suggested, to the spirit of patriotism aroused by his remarks, it is a fact that no one present had ever before heard the old song sung with more vim and feeling.

The audience was dismissed.

Colonel Butler's friends came forward to congratulate and thank him.

The Hilltops, chuckling gleefully, with Elmer Cuddeback in their center, marched off up-town. The Riverbeds, downcast and revengeful, made their way down the hill. But Aleck Sands was not with them. He had already left the school-building and had gone home. He was angry and bitterly resentful. He felt that he could have faced any one, at any time, in open warfare, but to be humiliated and ridiculed in public, that was more than even his phlegmatic nature could stand. He could not forget it. He could not forgive those who had caused it.

Days, weeks, years were not sufficient to blot entirely from his heart the feeling of revenge that entered it that winter afternoon.

It was late on the same day that Colonel Butler stood with his back to the blazing wood-fire in the library, waiting for his supper to be served, and looking out into the hall on the folds of the handsome, silk, American flag draped against the wall. There had always been a flag in the hall. Colonel Butler's father had placed one there when he built the house and went to live in it. And when, later on, the colonel fell heir to the property, and rebuilt and modernized the home, he replaced the old flag of bunting with the present one of silk. Indeed, it was on account of the place and prominence given to the flag that the homestead had been known for many years as Bannerhall.

Pen sat at the library table preparing his lessons for the following day.

"Well, Penfield," said the colonel, "a--what did you think of my speech to-day?"

"I thought it was great," replied Pen. "Pretty near as good as the one you delivered last Memorial Day."

The colonel smiled with satisfaction. "Yes," he remarked, "I, myself, thought it was pretty good; or would have been if your aunt Millicent had permitted me to complete it. It was also unfortunate that your young friend was not able fully to carry out his part of the program."

"You mean Aleck Sands?"

"I believe that is the young gentleman's name."

"He's not my friend, grandfather."

"Tut! Tut! You should not harbor resentment because of his having outwitted you in the matter of procuring the flag. Especially in view of his discomfiture of to-day."

"It wasn't my fault that he flunked."

"I am not charging you with that responsibility, sir. I am simply appealing to your generosity. By the way, I understand--I have learned this afternoon, that there exists what may be termed a feud between the boys of Chestnut Hill and those of Chestnut Valley. Have I been correctly informed?"

"Why, yes; I guess--I suppose you might call it that."

"And I have been informed also that you are the leader of what are facetiously termed the 'Hilltops,' and that our young friend, Master Sands, is the leader of what are termed, still more facetiously, the 'Riverbeds.' Is this true?"

Pen closed his book and hesitated. He felt that a reproof was coming, to be followed, perhaps, by strict orders concerning his own neutrality.

"Well," he stammered, "I--I guess that's about right. Anyway our fellows sort o' depend on me to help 'em hold their own."

Pen was not looking at his grandfather. If he had been he would have seen a twinkle of satisfaction in the old gentleman's eyes. It was something for a veteran of the civil war to have a grandson who had been chosen to the leadership of his fellows for the purpose of engaging in juvenile hostilities. So there was no shadow of reproof in the colonel's voice as he asked his next question.

"And what, may I inquire, is, or has been, the _casus belli_?"

"The what, sir?"

"The--a--cause or causes which have produced the present state of hostility."

"Why, I don't know--nothing in particular, I guess--only they're all the time doing mean things, and boasting they can lick us if we give 'em a chance; and I--I'm for giving 'em the chance."

Reproof or no reproof, he had spoken his mind. He had risen from his chair, and stood before his grandfather with determination written in every line of his flushed face. Colonel Butler looked at him and chuckled.

"Very good!" he said. He chuckled again and repeated: "Very good!"

Pen stared at him in astonishment. He could not quite understand his att.i.tude.

"Now, Penfield," continued the old gentleman, "mind you, I do not approve of petty jealousies and quarrelings, nor of causeless a.s.saults. But, when any person is a.s.sailed, it is his peculiar privilege, sir, to hit back. And when he hits he should hit hard. He should use both strategy and force. He should see to it, sir, that his enemy is punished. Have your two hostile bodies yet met in open conflict on the field?"

"Why," replied Pen, still amazed at the course things were taking, "we've had one or two rather lively little sc.r.a.ps. But I suppose, after what happened to-day, they'll want to fight. If they do want to, we're ready for 'em."

The colonel had left his place in front of the fire, and was pacing up and down the room.

"Very good!" he exclaimed, "very good! Men and nations should always be prepared for conflict. To that end young men should learn the art of fighting, so that when the call to arms comes, as I foresee that it will come, the nation will be ready."

He stopped in his walk and faced his grandson.

"Not that I deprecate the arts of peace, Penfield. By no means! It is by those arts that nations have grown great. But, in my humble judgment, sir, as a citizen and a soldier, the only way to preserve peace, and to ensure greatness, is to be at all times ready for war.

We must instil the martial spirit into our young men, we must rouse their fighting blood, we must teach them the art of war, so that if the flag is ever insulted or a.s.sailed they will be ready to protect it with their bodies and their blood. Learn to fight; to fight honorably, bravely, skillfully, and--to fight--hard."

"Father Richard Butler!"

It was Aunt Millicent who spoke. She had come on them from the hall unawares, and had overheard the final words of the colonel's adjuration.

"Father Richard Butler," she repeated, "what heresy is this you are teaching to Pen?"

He made a brave but hopeless effort to justify his course.

"I am teaching him," he replied, "the duty that devolves upon every patriotic citizen."