The two girls emotionally trod a dancing measure, and then, because of the smell of saltpeter, the snorts of horses, the shouts of men, the red and white ripple of the flags that went careering by in smoke and flame, some strange suggestion of the war our political contests typify, in spirit and symbol at least, was borne to them, until they felt what they conceived to be patriotic thrills coursing up and down their spines.
“Don’t you love the dear old flag, after all, Dade?” cried Emily, above the noise. The girl pressed her companion’s waist in response.
“Yes, but it’s a rebel tune they’re playing,” said old Mrs. Garwood, dubiously wagging her head in its bonnet.
“Oh, we’re all one now!” said Mr. Harkness, and then blew his nose in chagrin at this show of feeling.
They stood and shivered in the cold night air and watched the parade go by, read the transparencies with their boasting inscriptions, praised the various regalia of the marchers, kept time to the singing of the bugles and the going of the drums, and cheered when fifty men from Cotton Wood township, wearing coon-skin caps and followed by dogs, trotted by on their heavy plow horses. Finally a rabble of boys and negroes brought up the rear, snatching extinguished torches, half-burned roman candles or sticks of red fire to make a little celebration, and the parade had passed.
When Emily and her party reached the opera house, the sidewalk was cumbered with the loafers who always gathered there when the place of amusement was opened, and people were streaming up the wide stairway into the hall. Mr. Harkness led the women to seats toward the front of the house, where they joined the scattered folk already sitting there, fanning themselves in the air that was overheated by the blazing gas jets, talking, laughing, whiling away the long time they had to wait for their entertainment to begin. Up in the dim and dusty gallery boys were improving an opportunity of liberty by clattering over the wooden benches, calling to one another, whistling, dinning the night with the noises boys love.
The stage was furnished with a table, and on it were the white pitcher and the waiting glass from which orators quench their ever-raging thirst. The table’s legs were hidden by a flag, in the folds of which was a picture of the candidate for president. The stage had been set with the theater’s gray-walled drawing-room scene—the one with the frescoed curtains and tassels—and an effort had been made to warm the cold and cheerless setting of so many domestic comedies and kingly tragedies by a further use of flags and bunting and a few pictures. Among them was one of Garwood, which Emily recognized after study, and resented, because of the fierce cast in the eye, and the aged droop to the mouth. They left old Mrs. Garwood in the dark as to the identity of that portrait.
The stage was filled with wooden chairs, ashen-white in their unpainted newness. The vice-presidents, for whom these chairs were intended, had not arrived, but presently they began to tiptoe awkwardly across the stage, and then seat themselves, troubled about the disposition of their feet before the unaccustomed footlights. They coughed into their hands from time to time, and were obviously glad when some black-garbed companion came to share their misery and let them pretend the ease they sought by talking to him. The stage filled, and some began looking at their watches. At eight o’clock the hall was full; the meeting was certain to be a success anyway. Ten minutes more passed by. The committee arrived and seated itself on the stage. The Glee Club came and cleared its four throats. Outside the noise of the disbanding parade could be heard and then the rush of the marchers to get indoors. The band clambered up to the gallery, ousted a whole section to make a fitting place for itself down by the railing, then at half-past eight began to play a medley of national airs, and though the strains of America, Columbia, The Red, White and Blue, Dixie, Marching Through Georgia and Yankee Doodle filled the theater, the atmosphere was charged with the suspense of long waiting.
Suddenly, while the band was playing, a wave of excitement swept over the audience; there was a commotion at the door, a shuffle of feet, a scraping of chairs. The vice-presidents craned their necks to peer over the black-coated shoulders in front of them, people ceased their fanning and twisted about in their seats to look, a rattle of clapping hands broke forth, a cheer arose, the floor began to tremble and vibrate beneath stamping feet, and then the building shook with heavy applause.
And all at once Emily saw Jim Rankin, rubicund, his curls sticking to his wet forehead, smiling always, leading the way up a side aisle, and behind him Garwood, his hat in his hand, his overcoat on his arm. She saw him run his free hand through his hair to loosen it, then shake it back with that royal toss of the head she knew so well, and stride on, his face white, his eyes dark, his mouth firmly closed on the level line of his lips.