“Oh, and there’s another daughter speaking to the Goddess. See, she carries the flag that came over in the Mayflower with the Pilgrims.” Then Miss Nita, finding she had an appreciative audience in her mother and Ellen, rattled on, highly pleased to think she was giving them such good entertainment. She repeated the words of each fair daughter as she displayed her trophy of liberty, and could clap as enthusiastically as the spectators watching from the hillocks in the distance. Mrs. Van Vorst, as she heard her daughter’s words and witnessed her joy, entering with as much zest and spirit into the patriotic little drill as the Pioneers smiled in attune with the invalid, showing more enjoyment than she had done for years.
“There’s the flag of Bunker Hill; it is just like the Pine Tree flag, only it is blue instead of red,” exclaimed Nita. “And, oh, Mother, see, there’s the real Liberty Flag with its pine tree, and motto, ‘An Appeal to Heaven.’ Look quick! that’s the Markoe flag! See, it is yellow and has thirteen stripes of blue and silver. Nathalie said this flag was the first one on land to float stripes, and that it was the flag carried by the Philadelphia Troop of Light Horse when they escorted Washington to New York. And that crimson silk flag is the Casimir flag; it belonged to Count Casimir. He was the son of Pulaski, who perished in a dungeon for advocating the cause of liberty. The Count came to America and organized a corps of cavalry at Baltimore, and when the Moravian nuns heard of it they presented him with that flag. But, oh, Mother, the poor Count died after all; he was shot at the siege of Savannah in 1779.”
Ellen, the old Scotch nurse who adored her invalid charge, and who had always taken care of her from the time she was a wee tot, was deeply stirred as she saw how Nita entered into the new life that had suddenly been opened up to her, and her face fairly beamed with gratified pride as she heard her repeat the songs and speeches of the girls in the playlet.
When the last speech ended, the strains of Yankee Doodle were heard, and presently a Scout in the uniform of a Continental soldier appeared on the platform carrying a draped flag. After saluting the mother of Freedom he planted his pole in the center of the circle of Liberty maidens, and the next instant each one had caught up one of the red, blue, and white streamers that hung from it, and were swinging gayly around, singing “The Red, White, and Blue.”
This song was followed by the “Battle Cry of Freedom,” and then the soldier, saluting the Goddess again in a short speech, said he desired to present to her an emblem, the outgrowth of the labors of the Sons and Daughters of Liberty. The ensign that stands for everything that is just, true, and progressive, the symbol of the sovereignty of Civilization, the banner that had been unfurled in more movements for the protection, the liberty, and the elevation of mankind, than any ensign that ripples to the four winds of Heaven.
Oh, no, the little company up in the window didn’t hear all these words from the lips of the soldier, but from Nita as she read them softly from her paper. But they did see the signal given by the soldier, and clapped with joy when each fair daughter pulled her streamer, the red drapings fell from the pole, and Old Glory stood revealed. And as the colors swayed softly in the gentle breeze they joined with patriotic fervor as the girls and audience broke into “The Star Spangled Banner!”
The Flag Drill was over, and the girls, breaking ranks, were soon scattered here and there over the lawn in groups, as they stood receiving the congratulations of their friends on the success of the entertainment. It was but a moment or so, however, and the girls had all rushed back to duty, and each one with a scout was serving ice-cream and cake to the buyers at the gayly festooned tables under the trees.
Nathalie, nerve and bone tired, was wishing that she could sit down if only for a moment, when her eyes suddenly grew bright with thought, and the next second she had darted across the grass crying, “Oh, Grace, don’t you think it would be nice if we could take some cream and cake up to Nita and her mother?”
“Nita?” repeated that young lady, who had never heard the name before. “Why, what do you mean?”
Nathalie started. “Oh, why, to be sure, I forgot to tell you about her, but Mrs. Morrow thought best to—”