The scene that lay before them when, after coming up a ridge the back way and entering the impromptu dressing-room—an army tent—and then taking their places on a board platform backed by a sounding-board, was one they would not soon forget. The platform had been erected on a broad rock facing a hillside that rose like the tiers of seats in an opera house.
“Seats for twenty thousand, and every seat taken,” Isabelle whispered.
This, Gale thought, must be true. She found herself looking into a sea of faces. “The colonel’s army.” She swallowed hard. “Thousands of nice boys from my own native land. Tonight they are here to be entertained, and tomorrow, perhaps—” She closed her eyes on the morrow.
There were other features than theirs on the program. All the participants were on the stage.
When the great throng stood up, when some soldiers struck the chords of Star Spangled Banner and those men, twenty thousand of them, roared out the national anthem, Gale felt her soul lifted to the stars that shone above the treetops.
The colonel stepped to the microphone and like a football coach before the big game of the season, gave the boys a pep-talk that was brief as it was impressive.
A band swarmed onto the platform and played two stirring marches. The boys roared their approval.
“We—we’re next,” Gale gulped as the band trooped off.
The colonel announced them only as the Barber Shop Quartette. “They’ll think we’re boys,” Jan whispered.
They sang Sweet Adeline, giving it everything.