Part 3
Saturday night, in early June, came off warm and clear, and the square where towered the court-house and the cathedral and the library was turned into an out-of-doors auditorium, streaming with the colors of the Allies. A platform gay with flags stretched across the huge, pillared, gray stone of the court-house, and down in front of it were two thousand seats. From every side streets led into the square; these spaces, it was hoped, would also fill with people, drawn by the famous singer, and inspired by his singing to subscribe to the Liberty Loan. The arrangements had been worked out in every detail, so that the sequence slipped like oiled machinery. At seven o’clock Henry Barron went to the train at the head of a committee to meet the great man.
“It’s too good to be true, Mac,” said Barron, seizing the big figure stepping from the Pullman car. “It’s wonderful of you to help us----”
“In the name of mercy, Henry, shut up,” answered McIvor, and Mr. Barron and the committee behind him jumped and stood horror-struck. For the cryptic words that came from the singer, the star, the reliance of the whole meeting, came in a hoarse wheeze.
“Mac--damn you--” pleaded Barron, hot and cold all over.
And McIvor responded grimly: “It’s so. Had a tickle in the wretched throat when I started, and the whole tunnel caved in on the train. Take me to Dr. Thomas, quick. Maybe the man works miracles. It’s the only chance. The Lord He knows how sorry I am.”
A mad car sped to the specialist, and the specialist did what science might--but a miracle did not happen. And the two thousand seats were filled, and the seven streets which led into the square were filling with an ever-swelling crowd eager to hear the glorious voice of the musician fling “America” to the winds of heaven, freely and without price, and for love of a great country and the cause of humanity. So it stood when the musician arrived on the platform.
Flags painted the evening breeze; electric lights caught the colors, and multiplied, with long rays and long dancing shadows, the flags and the thronging multitude. There was a hum of contented voices through the square. The town was jubilant; things had gone well; it was the greatest occasion for years; no other city could boast such an ending as this to its liberty campaign--to have McIvor himself journey to them to give his voice for the cause! The six million of their allotment would be raised--McIvor’s voice was worth six million in itself. And still the crowd came, and when McIvor, muffled, appeared on the platform, everybody in the crowd recognized him, even across the uncertain lights and shadows and the waving flags and the moving branches of the elms of the square. Applause broke tumultuously from the amphitheatre of seats, from the shifting fringe outside, from far down converging streets.
McIvor stepped sharply forward and bowed once, and then, before the clapping ended, had turned and was talking to Mr. Barron, to Eric Mannering, the chairman of the committee on arrangements.
“It’s damnable,” he whispered. “You’ll have to tell them, Mr. Mannering. I hoped it might come back up to now, but it’s well gone. I can think of but one possible thing to do. If there’s a person in sight who can turn a tune and make a noise, fetch him up--and I’ll stand beside him and wish luck on him--if I can. It’s all I can do now,” and he coughed through the words.
Eric, thunderstruck, stood bewildered. What could one do? McIvor was particularly all the show. How might any other man substitute for him? One could make a speech and explain the disaster and send the workers about to get what money they could from a disappointed crowd, and then one could let the crowd go home. What else? Suddenly, as his eyes stared helplessly into the rows of people, he met Honor’s clear gray gaze lifted. She had got a front seat as he had promised. There she was, twenty feet from him. Eric swung about.
“Mr. McIvor,” he stammered, “you’ll think me presuming likely, but--my sister sings. She’s young, but she has a big voice.”
McIvor’s eyebrows drew together, considering. The great man had forgotten an incident two years back. Yet “any port in a storm.” “Bring her,” he coughed, and in half a minute Eric was down in the audience, bending over a startled girl. Henry Barron, as the brother and sister made their way to the stage, went to the singer and the two spoke together a moment. The singer looked curiously at the young girl as she came to him.
Behind palms on the stage they wrapped the tall figure in a flag, and she walked forth, another flag in her hand, a young Goddess of Liberty, lovely enough in the swaying, dreamy lights and shadows, with her fair hair loose, for any country’s ideal. Mr. Barron told the townspeople briefly of Mr. McIvor’s illness, and begged their kindness for his understudy. The people, after a moment’s startled silence, were gracious in their disappointment, and clapped, not over-heartily, with friendliness the still young figure standing at McIvor’s side. The band began softly, suggesting the air.
Then a sudden volume of sound soared effortless above the instruments and flowed across the packed square, out through the June evening and out through the flags and overhanging branches of the trees. The audience, astonished, forgot to breathe. Had this voice gone about among them, unknown? Eric, listening, thought that he had never before heard his sister sing at all. And the girl singing, singing from something within her that flamed and ached and triumphed, did not know that she lived, was only a voice set there to pour out love of country and sacrifice and unending devotion.
“My country, ’tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing!”
With a swing as of one movement every person in the great place was standing, and with the second stanza more than three thousand voices emptied, as mountain-streams empty into a river, into the flood of the young, tremendous voice.
The strong melody ended and there was silence. In a second Honor was a shy girl again. Had she done well or ill? Anxiously she turned to McIvor at her side. No syllable had come from him, and as she looked she saw that tears were frankly running down his cheeks. He stared at her a second. “Bairn, ye’ve found your soul,” he said, and bent and kissed her hand. And with that, the mass of people burst into a storm.
After a while they quieted, and Barron, smiling, stepped up beside the girl. “Mr. McIvor wishes me to tell you,” he said, and the crowd, sobbing, laughing, held its breath to listen--“Mr. McIvor wishes me to tell you that he thanks God for his sore throat, which made it possible for him to hear one of the great voices of the world.”
The girl’s eyes opened. What was this? Was it McIvor? Was she dreaming these impossible words? She stared at her brother, who was close to her, now, looking at her with a face she had never seen before.
“Eric!”
And McIvor growled roughly: “Let my angel alone, Mr. Mannering. She’ll gang her ain gait now, and I’ll help her. Bairn, sing ‘The Star Spangled Banner’? It’s for liberty--for America--sing!”
Into a hush ten thousand deep she sang, and the audience swayed as it stood, and then rolled into the chorus, lost in the huge psychical storm which that young, innocent, great voice created. McIvor reached for a chair and dropped at the girl’s side, and put his head into his hands and shuddered with emotion, complex machinery of nerves and temperament that he was. But the wonderful voice rang on.
“Oh, long may it wave,”
the young voice sang, and Honor shot up the flag which she held--
“Long may it wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
There was, perhaps, no heart in the great place so tired, so dead, that it did not lift as on wings to the words and the voice. The workers were among the shaken people before the great moment ended. The workers themselves were shaken, all but crying.
“It’s for the flag, for liberty--it’s the Liberty Loan itself. Now’s the time if you love your country.”
Such things the men said as they passed the paper pledges about, things such as they had never said before. And the pledges came back, filled out generously, like leaves in a gale.
McIvor came to the girl as she sat, stupefied, at the back of the stage. “Once more, child. It’s the six million sure now, and we’ll get some over,” he said. “I’ve just heard about your bonds, your money--how you offered up your career for your country. And--and--” Honor, flushing, half angry at Eric who had told family secrets, forgave her brother because of that catch in McIvor’s words, and because she knew that it was not the sore throat which choked him then. “Ye’re goin’ to hae an education and a future--ye’re goin’ to learn to sing as no American ever sang before. Ye do now,” stated McIvor recklessly. “Put that thought in your pipe, and now get up, bairn, and gie ’em ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic,’ while they’re signing away their souls. Sing it as if ye were singing the Germans out of New York harbor--as if ye were singing glory to your country and eternal peace into the universe.”
With a spring she was on her feet and standing close at the edge of the platform. The orchestra, at a word, played the notes that were needed:
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
The magnificent words with their rhythm of marching armies rolled out in the fresh, tremendous tones with the new-born soul in them, with a throb in them not to be described. The voice gathered the overwrought people into one person--one person who signed pledges as they came, and rejoiced to sacrifice and to renounce for the dear country, the beloved country--great America.
“In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea-- With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me. Since He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, For his truth goes marching on.”
And in the depths of each human being in the great square, each one knew, as we all know, that through dangers and sufferings that may be coming, America is safe--humanity is safe with America. Not sorrow or poverty or death is too high a price for American men and women to pay to safeguard liberty, and the truth indeed is marching on.