"In the history of every country, however just, however good or great, there are certain pages besmirched by the record of black deeds of wrong."
So his carefully written, carefully memorized speech began. As he stood before his audience he saw nothing but the pages of his manuscript: he felt that he must keep his mind on them or he would be lost. He followed down the first page, mentally turned it over, and began the second. Beeman had touched a point on the second page, and treated it in a ridiculous way, he thought. His concentration was broken, and he began to fear for the first time that his memory would fail. A dozen lines down the second page he faltered, stopped, and stood riveted, miserable. The few moments' pause seemed endless. He tried to think of the next line, next page, anything; in vain, it was all a blank. The pile of manuscript, a minute ago so clearly before his mind's eye, had vanished, and he stood staring at the crowd before him. Some one behind tried to prompt him; it brought him to life. Beeman's fallacies had incensed him; he'd tell them so, and in no uncertain way. With a whole-arm gesture he mentally cast away his carefully prepared speech.
"It's wrong! All wrong!" he said intensely, and with conviction in his tones. His own voice electrified him. His first few sentences were mere bursts of indignation, his tongue went on of its own volition, it could scarcely give utterance to his stirred feelings. As he went on, his emotions grew more quiet but none the less earnest. Constant yodelling to cattle for years had given him a voice which carried to the farthest corner of the building. He had carefully studied his subject, and now that he had regained his nerve he spoke his mind with enthusiasm and vigor. His arguments were well chosen and his language terse and to the point. Stimulated by excitement, new ideas came, and he uttered them with a confidence that afterward amazed even himself. Parts of his own prepared oration came back to him and he spoke it as if it was impromptu, with force and freedom.
The time had come to stop, and without a pause he launched out on his original peroration with the ease, confidence, and fire of a veteran orator. The closing sentence rang out clear and strong: "Men and women of America, let us wipe out the blot from this page of our country's history and make her in truth the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave."
His speech over, John stumbled, rather than walked, off the stage to the street. The reaction was great. He did not hear the applause, the cheering; he did not know that he had aroused the enthusiasm of people naturally prejudiced against his side of the question.
John went straight to his room and to bed, but not to sleep—his nervous tension would not allow that. The thing uppermost in his mind, the thing that worried him, was that he had forgotten his speech—the speech he had so carefully prepared and learned by heart.
The papers had to be delivered in the morning, however, and a certain self-imposed engagement at the racetrack kept, so he was up betimes.
After these two duties were finished, he rode down the street to discover if possible the depths of ignominy to which he had been brought by forgetting his speech. The idea that he had disgraced himself still clung to him. Two fellows appeared right away, and before John could voice his greeting they called out: "Say, Worth, you just ate Beeman up last night. Are you sure you wrote it yourself?"
"He doesn't know that I forgot it," thought John, who hesitated a minute before he answered aloud: "Of course, it was all my own."
"Well, it was a rattling good speech, anyhow."