The square was a familiar spot transformed. Every window was filled with heads. Every foot of standing room was occupied by that close-packed mass of men, oddly silent in contrast to the shouting, gesticulating orator. And suddenly, to Cavvy’s wrought up imagination, instead of an ordinal crowd of workmen, many of whom he knew by sight if not by name, the throng became a mob of strangers waiting now only the word to launch into ravening destruction.
For a moment it all seemed incongruous, impossible. Mechanically his eyes travelled up the tall, white pole and rested dazedly on the Stars and Stripes rippling in the hot September sun just as it had gleamed there yesterday and the day before. Only that seemed real. His heart swelled unaccountably, then leaped driving the blood into his face as a phrase from the man on the box below stung into his consciousness.
“That flag up there—what does it mean to you?” the fellow shouted, with an upward fling of one long arm. “Does it stand for your country, or for a government you have any share in? No! A thousand times no! It’s like the Union Jack, or the French Tricolor—a symbol of tyrants who take the bread out of your mouths and fatten like leeches on your toil.”
He paused to sweep a long lock of dark hair out of his eyes. Then he reached out and dexterously loosened the rope halliards. Cavvy caught his breath.
“You’re dirt to them, that’s all,” continued the speaker loudly. “They work you for their own selfish ends and when you cry out, what do they tell you? It’s for the flag! Bah!” He was manipulating the ropes skillfully. Aghast, incredulous, Cavvy saw the flag quiver, dip and droop into a crumpled mass as it was dragged swiftly downward.
“The flag—look at it!” screamed the agitator, deftly loosening the bunting from the halliards and crushing it in both hands.
A startled murmur rose from the crowd, but Cavvy did not hear it. He bent forward, face white and strained, eyes glittering. Unconsciously the fingers of one hand dug into McBride’s shoulder until the boy winced.
“Look at it!” repeated the hateful voice triumphantly. “The symbol of tyrants! There’s no real flag but the emblem of universal brotherhood. This thing—this rag, is fit for nothing but the dirt, to be ground under foot.”
“No!” cried Cavvy hoarsely. “Stop!”
The words which had so infuriated him were scarcely spoken when out of the crowd packed around the flag-pole there leaped a boy—short, square-built, olive skinned. Like a flash he reached up and snatched the crumpled bunting from the hands of the startled orator, ducked under the arm of a burly miner who was too surprised to stop him, and disappeared into the throng.