“Say, but you’re game!” declared Fred admiringly, as Nathalie finished her story. “It was a fine thing for you not to tell; I don’t blame you for feeling mean about it. But the Sport had no right to use it—”
“Well, never mind now,” cried Nathalie, “it is all over with and I am glad I didn’t tell any one but you, and you won’t break your word, will you? The word of a Scout, you know,” added the girl archly.
Fred laughingly assured her that his word as a gentleman was sufficient and as binding as that of a Scout. Then as they discussed the Scout oath, its pledges, and so forth, Dr. Homer appeared and asked his little hike-mate if he might have the pleasure of a dance with her.
Nathalie smilingly assured him she would be most happy and then with a good-by to Fred, the quaint little figure in its queer Dutch cap and flowered gown followed the doctor into the hall.
The long anticipated fourteenth of June had arrived, and the level stretch of green grass with its circling hillocks in the rear of the gray house was ablaze with color. Beneath a high arch festooned with the red, white, and blue—the Pioneers’ color again—stood a number of merry girls, each one gowned in white with a scarlet sash, and a red liberty cap, and holding in her hand a flag or small banner.
Every eye as well as tongue was on duty, as each girl triumphantly displayed her flag to her comrades, proudly claiming that it was an exact copy of one of the liberty banners used by the colonies preceding or during the Revolution.
“Hurrah for the Concord flag,” cried Kitty Corwin, as she hoisted up a small maroon banner inscribed with the motto, “Conquer or Die.” “This is one of the oldest flags in America, for it was the one carried when the ‘embattled farmers fired the shot heard round the world’”—she twirled it high in air—“on the 19th of April, 1775, at the first battle of the Revolution!”
“Oh, but your flag hasn’t the romance that mine has,” said Edith, ostentatiously waving a crimson flag fringed at the ends, and with a cord and tassel. “This is the Eutaw flag and was made by Miss Jane Elliot. Col. William Washington—he was a relative or something of little Georgie—when stationed at Charleston, South Carolina, fell in love with Miss Jane. One night, after spending the evening with his lady love, as he bade her good night, she said she hoped to hear good news of his flag and fortune. Whereupon the poor colonel was forced to confess that his corps had no flag. Upon hearing this the young lady pulled down one of the portières, cut it to the right size, fringed it at the ends, stuck it on a curtain pole, and then presented it to her gallant lover, telling him to make it his standard. Of course after that it brought good luck and won a great victory at Cowpens, January, 1781, and another at Eutaw Springs the following September. Forty years later the flag was presented by the hands that made it to the Washington Light Infantry of Charleston, for the fair Jane married the colonel, all right.”
“Well, don’t you girls boast too much,” declared Jessie, “for if it hadn’t been for my flag there wouldn’t have been any banners of liberty to make you patriotic.” And Jessie held up a white flag barred with the scarlet cross of St. George, the flag dear to Merrie Old England as the flag of the people, and beloved by the colonists as the ensign that floated from the little ship Mayflower.