And To-morrow asked:
"What is it that your fathers have sworn to, so that you now all belong to one nation?"
Then we all said it with the children—waveringly at first, swelling, mounting to full chorus, the little bodies of the children waving from side to side as we all recited it:
"I absolutely and entirely renounce and adjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, and particularly to—"
Here was a blur of sound as all the children named the ruler of the state from which their fathers had come.
"—of whom I have heretofore been subject ... that I will support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, and bear true faith and allegiance to the same, so help me God...."
Before they had finished, I began to notice something. I stood on the end, and Achilles was just near me. He had looked up and smiled at me, and at his Greek flag that I was carrying. But now, while the children recited together, Achilles stood there with them saying not one word. And then, when the names of the rulers all blurred together, Achilles scared me, for he put up the back of his hand as if to rub tears from his eyes. And when they all stopped speaking, only his sobbing broke the stillness of the hall.
I don't know how it came to me, save that things do come in shafts of light and splendor that no one can name; but in that second I knew what ailed him. Maybe I knew because I remembered the picture of his grandfather on the wall over the lamp shelf. Anyway, the big pang came to me to speak out, like it does sometimes, when you have to say what's in you or die.
"To-morrow!" I cried out to Ruth, and I was glad she had her back to the audience so they couldn't see how scared she looked at me speaking what wasn't in my part. "To-morrow! I am Greece! I ask that this little Greek boy here say the words that his Greek grandfather taught him!"