“Eric!”
And McIvor growled roughly: “Let my angel alone, Mr. Mannering. She’ll gang her ain gait now, and I’ll help her. Bairn, sing ‘The Star Spangled Banner’? It’s for liberty—for America—sing!”
Into a hush ten thousand deep she sang, and the audience swayed as it stood, and then rolled into the chorus, lost in the huge psychical storm which that young, innocent, great voice created. McIvor reached for a chair and dropped at the girl’s side, and put his head into his hands and shuddered with emotion, complex machinery of nerves and temperament that he was. But the wonderful voice rang on.
“Oh, long may it wave,”
the young voice sang, and Honor shot up the flag which she held—
“Long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
There was, perhaps, no heart in the great place so tired, so dead, that it did not lift as on wings to the words and the voice. The workers were among the shaken people before the great moment ended. The workers themselves were shaken, all but crying.
“It’s for the flag, for liberty—it’s the Liberty Loan itself. Now’s the time if you love your country.”
Such things the men said as they passed the paper pledges about, things such as they had never said before. And the pledges came back, filled out generously, like leaves in a gale.