"Resist what?"
"You'll respect your country," I said.
"What do you mean?"
In those crowded noisy East Side streets one has to shout, and shout compact things. "This!" I said to the barbaric disorder about us. "Lynching! Child Labor! Graft!"
Then we were separated by a heap of decaying fish that some hawker had dumped in the gutter.
My companion shouted something I did not catch.
"We'll tackle it!" she repeated.
I looked at her, bright and courageous and youthful, a little overconfident, I thought, but extremely reassuring, going valiantly through a disorderly world of obstacles, and for the moment—I suppose that waving bunting and the children's voices had got into my head a little—I forgot all sorts of things....
I could have imagined her the spirit of America incarnate rather than a philanthropic young lady of New York.