Abner Simpson lifted his vagrant shifting gaze to its softly fluttering folds and its splendid massing of colors, thinking:—
"I don't know's anybody'd ought to steal a flag, the thunderin' idjuts seem to set such store by it, and what is it, anyway? Nothin' but a sheet o' buntin'!'"
Nothing but a sheet of bunting? He looked curiously at the rapt faces of the mothers, their babies asleep in their arms; the parted lips and shining eyes of the white-clad girls; at Cap'n Lord, who had been in Libby Prison, and Nat Strout, who had left an arm at Bull Run; at the friendly, jostling crowd of farmers, happy, eager, absorbed, their throats ready to burst with cheers. Then the breeze served, and he heard Rebecca's clear voice saying:—
"For it's your star, my star, all the stars together,
That make our country's flag so proud
To float in the bright fall weather!"
"Talk about stars! She's got a couple of 'em right in her head," thought Simpson. "If I ever seen a young one like that layin' on anybody's doorstep I'd hook her quicker'n a wink, though I've got plenty to home, the Lord knows! And I wouldn't swap her off neither.—Spunky little creeter, too; settin' up in the wagon lookin' 'bout's big as a pint o' cider, but keepin' right after the flag!—I vow I'm 'bout sick o' my job! Never with the crowd, allers jest on the outside, 's if I wa'n't as good's they be! If it paid well, mebbe would n't mind, but they're so thunderin' stingy round here, they don't leave out anything decent for you to take from 'em, yet you're reskin' your liberty 'n' reputation jest the same!—Countin' the poor pickin's 'n' the time I lose in jail I might most's well be done with it 'n' work out by the day, as the folks want me to; I'd make 'bout's much, n' I don' know's it would be any harder!"
He could see Rebecca stepping down from the platform, while his own red-headed little girl stood up on her bench, waving her hat with one hand, her handkerchief with the other, and stamping with both feet.
Now a man sitting beside the mayor rose from his chair and Abner heard him call:—
"Three cheers for the women who made the flag!"
"Hip, hip, hurrah!"
"Three cheers for the State of Maine!"