“Neither can I—neither can anybody but a cat,” declared the little Corporal, and the crowd around cheered him. Leech vanished.
“Who is he?” asked Thurston, as Leech disappeared.
“He is a clerk in old Bolter’s commissary.”
The crowd was patriotic.
There was great excitement in the town all night: bells rang; crowds marched up and down the streets singing; stopping at the houses of those who had been opposed to ultra measures, and calling on them to put up flags to show their loyalty. The name of Jonadab Leech appeared in the papers next morning as one of the street-orators who made the most blood-thirsty speech.
Next day was Sunday. Sober second thought had succeeded the excitement of the previous day, the faces of the people showed it. The churches were overflowing. The preachers all alluded to the crisis that had come, and the tears of the congregations testified how deeply they were moved. After church, by a common impulse, everyone went to the public square to learn the news. The square was packed. Suddenly on the pole that stood above the old court-house, someone ran up the flag. At the instant that it broke forth the breeze caught it, and it fluttered out full and straight, pointing to the southward. The effect was electric. A great cheer burst from the crowd below. As it died down, a young man’s clear voice struck up “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” and the next moment the whole crowd was singing and weeping.
That flag and that song made more soldiers from the old town than all the newspapers and all the speeches, and Larry Middleton, for having struck up the song, found himself suddenly of more note in his own home than he could have been later if he had stormed a battery.
Loudest among the shouters was the street-orator of the evening before, Jonadab Leech, the clerk in Bolter’s commissary.
Within a week the two young men were on their way South.
A little later, Mr. Welch, having taken time to settle up his affairs, and also those of his cousin, Larry Middleton, went off to join the first corps of engineers from his State, with abundance of tears from Ruth and a blessing from his wife, whose mouth was never firmer, or her eye clearer, than when she kissed him, and bade him God-speed.