[CHAPTER VIII]
The audience in the armory at Fairweather on the evening of Donatello’s visit and expulsion had been treated to something more, and something of vastly greater moment, than a mere exhibition drill. They had not appreciated it at first, and while it was going on their attention had been too greatly strained to fully take it in. But when Sergeant McCormack reported the fulfilment of his orders, and started around the right of the line to take his post, it dawned on the people who had seen the incident that an exhibition of American military spirit had been witnessed, the spirit of the soldier as distinct from that of the civilian, that it would have been worth going far to see. Simultaneously, from all quarters of the hall, people began to applaud. The applause grew more vigorous and was punctured with loud hurrahs. Men and women rose to their feet and waved hands and handkerchiefs. Sarah Halpert mounted the chair in which she had been sitting, stood on it, and clapped her gloved hands until they burned.
First Sergeant Barriscale bowed to right and left. He naturally assumed that it was all a tribute to the prompt and vigorous action taken by him in ridding the room of an undesirable guest. Then some one yelled: “Three cheers for Sergeant McCormack!” and it occurred to Barriscale that the audience might also be expressing its appreciation of the splendid sense of military discipline, exhibited under the most severely trying circumstances, by the second sergeant.
In the midst of the applause and shouting, Captain Murray entered with his lieutenants, and the command was turned over to him. But he did not learn, until after the drill was over and the company had been dismissed, what had caused the commotion prior to his entrance. When he did find out what had happened he crossed the hall to where Sergeant McCormack stood talking with his mother and his aunt, and gave the boy’s hand a mighty grip.
“I’m proud of you!” he said. “That was splendid! You’re an ideal soldier!”
Whereupon Sarah Halpert, quite unable to restrain her enthusiasm, threw her arms around the neck of the second sergeant, and, much to his embarrassment, kissed him on both cheeks.
The next day the occurrence at the armory the night before was the talk of the town. The newspapers took the matter up and exploited it from one end of the State to the other. Sergeant Barriscale was commended for his prompt and vigorous action in ridding the armory of an avowed enemy to the government, while Sergeant McCormack received due credit for his soldierly obedience, under most embarrassing circumstances. But Sergeant McCormack’s anger at the humiliation that had been put upon him was not appeased by any commendation of his soldierly conduct. Slow to wrath as he had always been, he was now thoroughly aroused and intensely indignant. If he could have withdrawn from the company and so severed the only relations between him and Barriscale, he would have done so at once. But it is not within the province of an enlisted man to resign, and he had no legitimate excuse for applying for a discharge, so nothing happened. But the breach that had opened narrowly between the two boys at the time of the flag-raising, and that had broadened dangerously on the night Chick was ordered from the stack-room, and had yawned wide, deep and impassable, since the night of the company meeting, was apparently never to be closed.
Hal was still employed at the Citizens’ Bank. He had been promoted from one position to another until he had come now to be regarded as one of the most trusted and skilful employees of that institution. Only one shadow rested on his standing there, and that was cast by his open espousal of the cause of the discontented in society, and his association with the more radical elements in the city. He had not been accused of planning the destruction of the existing social order, nor of advocating the confiscation of the property of the rich. He was a student and a dreamer rather than a militant reformer. But his well-known attitude was bound to cast upon him the shadow of suspicion; and since the occurrence of the incident at the armory, and its wide exploitation, the shadow had deepened into a cloud, and more than one whispered accusation went forth against him, of disloyalty to the forces that had made this country great and prosperous, and of indifference to the flag which was a symbol of power and progress, and so regarded the world over.
Moreover, for nearly a year, Europe had been weltering in the bloodiest war of history. No one could tell how soon the red waves of it would break on the shores of the United States. It was a time when absolute loyalty was expected and demanded from every man who had the welfare of his country and of his fellow-citizens at heart. Had it not been that McCormack’s social heresies were leavened to an appreciable extent by his apparent devotion to the National Guard, he would doubtless have found himself criticized more severely, and ostracized more effectually, than he had thus far been.