Alec's voice lost its tremor and ended with a patriotic ring that made Blue Bonnet glow with pride—pride in the heroes he told of, and in the friend who told of them.
"It just needs Colonel Potter's poem to add the right climax to that bit of history," Dr. Judson declared; and Sandy stood up at once.
Sandy was used to "talking on his feet;" and he stood in an easy posture, tossing his light reddish hair back from his broad forehead, and with one hand resting lightly on the alpenstock he had been carving for Blue Bonnet.
Listening to him, Blue Bonnet lost all her early prejudice against the clever lad, and responding to the unbounded enthusiasm and the true orator's ring in the boyish voice, thrilled warmly to the spirit of the lines:
| HYMN OF THE ALAMO |
| "Arise! Man the wall—our clarion blast |
| Now sounds its final reveille,— |
| This dawning morn must be the last |
| Our fated band shall ever see. |
| To life, but not to hope, farewell; |
| Yon trumpet's clang and cannon's peal, |
| And storming shout and clash of steel |
| Is ours,—but not our country's knell. |
| Welcome the Spartan's death! |
| 'Tis no despairing strife— |
| We fall, we die—but our expiring breath |
| Is freedom's breath of life! |
"Here, on this new Thermopylae, |
| Our monument shall tower on high, |
| And 'Alamo' hereafter be |
| On bloodier fields the battle-cry!" |
| Thus Travis from the rampart cried; |
| And when his warriors saw the foe |
| Like whelming billows surge below,— |
| At once each dauntless heart replied: |
| "Welcome the Spartan's death! |
| 'Tis no despairing strife— |
| We fall—but our expiring breath |
| Is freedom's breath of life!" |
As Sandy resumed his seat amid a hush that was a greater tribute than applause, Blue Bonnet turned to Knight with glowing eyes.
"And to think those brave fellows did all that for Texas! Aren't you proud to belong to this state?"
"You'd better believe I am!"
"We've had some heroes in Massachusetts," Alec reminded them.
"And they were all Americans—and so are we." Knight's bigger way of looking at the matter settled what threatened to grow into an argument.