McIvor’s eyebrows drew together, considering. The great man had forgotten an incident two years back. Yet “any port in a storm.” “Bring her,” he coughed, and in half a minute Eric was down in the audience, bending over a startled girl. Henry Barron, as the brother and sister made their way to the stage, went to the singer and the two spoke together a moment. The singer looked curiously at the young girl as she came to him.
Behind palms on the stage they wrapped the tall figure in a flag, and she walked forth, another flag in her hand, a young Goddess of Liberty, lovely enough in the swaying, dreamy lights and shadows, with her fair hair loose, for any country’s ideal. Mr. Barron told the townspeople briefly of Mr. McIvor’s illness, and begged their kindness for his understudy. The people, after a moment’s startled silence, were gracious in their disappointment, and clapped, not over-heartily, with friendliness the still young figure standing at McIvor’s side. The band began softly, suggesting the air.
Then a sudden volume of sound soared effortless above the instruments and flowed across the packed square, out through the June evening and out through the flags and overhanging branches of the trees. The audience, astonished, forgot to breathe. Had this voice gone about among them, unknown? Eric, listening, thought that he had never before heard his sister sing at all. And the girl singing, singing from something within her that flamed and ached and triumphed, did not know that she lived, was only a voice set there to pour out love of country and sacrifice and unending devotion.
“My country, ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing!”
With a swing as of one movement every person in the great place was standing, and with the second stanza more than three thousand voices emptied, as mountain-streams empty into a river, into the flood of the young, tremendous voice.
The strong melody ended and there was silence. In a second Honor was a shy girl again. Had she done well or ill? Anxiously she turned to McIvor at her side. No syllable had come from him, and as she looked she saw that tears were frankly running down his cheeks. He stared at her a second. “Bairn, ye’ve found your soul,” he said, and bent and kissed her hand. And with that, the mass of people burst into a storm.
After a while they quieted, and Barron, smiling, stepped up beside the girl. “Mr. McIvor wishes me to tell you,” he said, and the crowd, sobbing, laughing, held its breath to listen—“Mr. McIvor wishes me to tell you that he thanks God for his sore throat, which made it possible for him to hear one of the great voices of the world.”
The girl’s eyes opened. What was this? Was it McIvor? Was she dreaming these impossible words? She stared at her brother, who was close to her, now, looking at her with a face she had never seen before.