“No, no, little chap, I’m not Brother Max,” said the voice, sounding somewhat farther away than before, “or any such callow chicken, but a full-grown man.”
“Ah, ha, I know now that it is Cousin Ronald,” laughed Lulu, “for Max would never call himself a callow chicken.”
“I shouldn’t think Cousin Ronald would call him so either,” said Grace in a hurt tone; “chickens are cowardly and I’m sure Max is not.”
“Better not be too sure, but wait till you see him tried, miss,” said a squeaky little voice, coming seemingly from another part of the vessel.
“Now that’s you, Max, I know, because it is the very same voice we heard at Minersville on the evening of the glorious Fourth,” remarked Lulu with a merry laugh.
Max neither acknowledged nor denied that she was right. Looking up and catching sight of the Stars and Stripes floating from the masthead, “O Lu,” he asked, “do you know who invented our flag—‘old glory,’ as we love to call her?”
“Why, no; who did?”
“A little woman named Betty Ross, a Philadelphia Quakeress. She had a great deal of taste, was particularly fond of red, white, and blue, and adorned many of the apartments we read of in colonial history; the halls of Congress, the governor’s reception-room in Philadelphia, among others. She was acquainted with a number of the great men of the time—Morris, Franklin, Rittenhouse, Adams, and best and greatest of all—our Washington. And she had a brother-in-law, Colonel Ross, who was a gallant American officer in the Revolutionary War.
“On the 14th of June, 1777, Congress was considering about a design for a national flag, and it was at once proposed that Betsy Ross should be requested to design one. The committee asked Colonel Ross, Dr. Franklin, and Robert Morris to call upon her. They went and General Washington with them. Mrs. Ross consented, drew the design, and made the first American flag with her own hands. General Washington had showed her a rough design which she said was wrong—the stars having six corners when the right number was but five. She said she didn’t know whether she could make the flag, but would try; which, as I have just said, she did, and succeeded so well that Congress was satisfied with it; and it was the first star-spangled banner that ever floated on the breeze.”
“There was an eagle on that flag, Max, was there not?” asked the captain as the lad paused in his story.