The thrilling young voice stopped, and for a second there was silence, and then the audience burst into a storm of clapping and applause, and with that they broke ranks and began crowding about the men who had come in the car with the two Mannerings, the workers.
“I want a bond—I want two—I’ve got to stick in a bond to build that wall,” the men were saying over each other’s shoulders.
Eric, flushed, happy, watched them and shook hands with them, and introduced them to his little sister, and both enjoyed every moment of the scene with the hot, happy, pulsing blood which real living brings.
“Honor, you never sang like that before,” the boy said, and Honor laughed.
“You don’t know yet what your tame prima donna can do,” she answered easily.
“Do you want to go with me to-morrow?” Eric asked.
Day after day Eric spoke, working far into the nights to make time for this work which he offered to his country instead of the body which he might not offer. And it came to be that on most days Mr. Barron’s secretary went with him, Mr. Barron sending her gladly for the cause, to sing patriotic songs. The two were soon a feature of the Liberty Loan campaign, and booked for all their time. Meetings at great factories, meetings in large schools, meetings in country towns where farmers must be aroused to the importance of their savings for Uncle Sam’s safety—many sorts of meetings heard Eric speak and Honor sing, and always the two were a success. Always there was, in their wake, an uncommon sale of Liberty Bonds.
So it happened that on a Saturday the committee sent Eric to speak at the Lynden Knitting Mill. The girl drove with her brother and the three other men, the “workers,” across the city and down into the manufacturing district, and the car slid to a stop before a large square brick building. They went up steps and into a hall-way, and wound through ten-foot piles of boxes to a glassed-in office, where were the “boss” and other unexplained officials, and a girl stenographer or two, lifting their heads to regard this other girl, who sang. She was beginning to be known for her singing, her work with her brother; the papers spoke of her when they reported Eric’s speeches.
Shortly they were taken through mountainous piles of more boxes, and more, through lanes in a dark ware-room, lanes between piled-up boxes, around corners of boxes, into a great place of mysterious machinery, with a large open space. Along the sides of this space and among the machines—which were stopped—stood girls, girls, girls, the factory-hands. Eric and his party, behind the manager, marched between the lines of girls and came to a manner of stage, although in truth it was only a part of the floor, with half a dozen chairs for the visitors. The girl and the “workers”—the men who were to explain and try to sell the bonds, after Eric’s speech—sat down in the chairs, and the manager said a few words to his employees, while Eric stood by, flushed, breathless as always with the excitement of his coming speech. Then the manager stepped back and Eric spoke, with his voice, his glance of a comrade.
“I think before I begin that we might all like to sing a verse of a song which we love,” and he turned to the girl.