“Ah, Signorina, I hear you speak so fine—so beautiful! I make my man Tommaso vote for you or breaka his neck! I done tell him so too—”
“And did he promise?”
“Si, si, signorina—I mak him—”
Virginia stooped and gathered the child in her arms. Shy at first, he put his hand at last on her shining hair, touched it gracefully, and looked into her face with grave wide eyes.
Virginia pressed him suddenly to her heart and kissed him.
“You glorious little creature!” she cried. The act was resistless. In all her career she had never before done so silly and undignified a thing in public. She blushed at her folly. What crazy spell could she be under today? She asked the question with a new sense of uneasy annoyance as her eyes swept the room in search of the hero of the occasion.
Vassar could scarcely walk for the crowds of joyous women and children who pressed about him and tried to express their love and pride in his leadership.
A fight suddenly broke out between the Benda and Schultz kids close beside Virginia.
Zonia tried in vain to separate them. Vassar saved the situation by picking up Angela’s boy by his suspenders, and the German kid by the seat of his pants. He lifted them bodily out of the scene and carried them into a quiet corner.