"I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
Somebody punched at me, violent.
"Ain't it magnificent to hear 'em say it?" says Mis' Sykes. "Ain't it truly magnificent?"
But I was looking at Achilles and thinking of her being willing to make an example of him instead of helping him, and thinking, too, of his two dollars a week.
"It is if it is," says I, cryptic.
To-morrow was speaking again.
"Those of you whose fathers come from Europe, hold up your hands."
Up shot maybe twenty hands—scraggy and plump, and Achilles' little thin arm in the first row among them.
And at the same minute, out came us ladies, marching from the wings—all those of us that represented the different countries of the world; and we formed back of the children, and the stage was full of the nations of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, the Americas, the islands and all.