“Sandhelo’s got his red, white and blue pompom that the girls sent him for Christmas,” I went on, ignoring Justice’s gibe. “We could make red, white and blue harness for him, too.”
“If only he doesn’t get temperamental!” said Justice fervently.
“The girls could wear their Red Cross caps and aprons in one part of it,” I continued, “and flags draped on them when they act out ‘The Spirit of Columbia.’ One of the girls can wear her Ceremonial gown and be the Spirit of Nature that comes to tell the others the secret of the soil that will help them win the war. Oh, ideas are coming to me faster than flies to molasses.”
“Would you advise me to wear my Ceremonial gown or my Red Cross apron and cap?” asked Justice soberly. “I could braid my hair in two pig-tails—”
“Oh, Justice!” I interrupted, “if you only had a soldier’s uniform!” Then, as I saw Justice wince and the laughter die out of his eyes, I stopped abruptly and changed the subject. It was an awfully sore point with him that he had been rejected for the army.
“We’ll have a flag raising, of course, and tableaux,” I rushed on. “Would you put the flag on the schoolhouse, or set up a pole in the ground?”
“I think on the schoolhouse,” said Justice, with a return of interest. “That’s where it belongs.”
Justice and I held more conferences in the next day or so than the King and his Prime Minister. Lessons in the little schoolhouse were abandoned while we drilled and rehearsed for the pageant. Justice and I put together and bought the flag.
“Who’s going to raise it?” asked Justice, shaking the beautiful bright starry folds out of the package.
I considered.