"What's that?"
"Wonderful." Neil chose his one adequate word, from the tiny vocabulary of youth, small because few words are worthy to voice the infinite dreams of it. "Wonderful."
"No, I'm not wonderful. You are. That dreadful old man, and every one knew he was dreadful and wouldn't do anything about it till you——"
"Bawled him out? That's all I did, you know, really. It was a kid's trick. He lost out because it was coming to him anyway. Poor Theodore saw to that. He turned the town against Everard when he killed himself. It wasn't turning fast, but it was turning. I did give it a shove and make it turn faster, but I didn't even have sense enough to know I had until the day after the rally, when the Judge sent for me and told me. I didn't dare go near him until he sent for me, and I thought he had sent for me to fire me."
"But you broke up the rally. They were dead still in the hall until you left, and then they went crazy, calling for you, and all talking at once, talking against you, some of them, till it really wasn't a rally any more, but just like a mob. Oh, I know. The Judge tells me, every time I go to ride with him, and when he came on to the school last winter and saw me there, he told me all over again. Father has never half told me. He hates to talk about the rally or the Colonel either, but I don't care, he and mother are both so sweet to me lately—just sweet.
"So it was just like a mob, and then poor Mrs. Burr got up and tried to speak, and they got quiet and listened, and she said "Every word the boy says is true and more—more——" just like that, and then she got faint and had to stop, and then the Judge took hold. That's what he says he did, took hold, and he says it was time, because they might have tarred and feathered the Colonel if he hadn't. I don't suppose they would, but I wish I could have seen the Judge take hold. I love him."
"Don't you love anybody else?"
Judith ignored this frivolous interruption, as it deserved.
"And so your work was done, though you didn't know it and ran away. And the Judge says you are a born orator, Neil. That you've got the real gift, the thing that makes an audience yours. I don't know just what he means, but I know you've got it, too. You're going to be a great man, Neil."
"I didn't do anything."