City and town life -- Fiction; Short stories, American
"'We will never bring disgrace to this our city by any act of dishonor
or cowardice, nor ever desert our suffering comrades in the ranks. We
will revere and obey the city's laws, and do our best to incite a like
respect and reverence in those above us who are prone to annul them or
set them at naught. We will strive unceasingly to quicken the public
sense of civic duty. Thus in all these ways, we will transmit this city
not less but greater, better, and more beautiful than it was transmitted
to us.'"
It was the Athenian boy's creed of citizenship, that Achilles' father
had learned in Greece, and that Achilles' grandfather, that officer in
the Greek government, had taught to them both.
The whole hall cheered him--how could they help that? And right out of
the fullness of the lump in my throat, I spoke out again. And I says:
"_To-morrow! To-morrow!_ You're going to give us a world, please God,
where we can be true to our own nation and true to all others, for we
shall all belong to the League of the World."
Oh, and they cheered that! They knew--they knew. Just like every hamlet
and cross-roads in this country and in this world is getting to
know--that a great new idea is waiting, for us to catch the throb of its
new life. To-morrow, the League of the World is going to teach us how to
be alive. If only we can make it the League of the World indeed.
Right then came beating out the first chords of the piece we were to
close with. And as it was playing they brought out the great world flag
that us ladies had made from the design that we had thought up and made
ourselves: A white world and white stars on a blue field.
It floated over the heads of all of us that were dressed as the nations
of the earth, and not one of us ladies was trying to tell which was the
best one, like we had that afternoon; and that flag floated over the
children, and over _To-morrow_ and _Democracy_ and _Liberty_ and
_Humanity_ and _Peace_ and like that. And then we sang, and the hall
sang with us:
"The crest and crowning of all good,
Life's common goal is brotherhood."
And when the curtains swept together--the curtains made of everybody's
flags--I tell you, it left us all feeling like we ain't felt in I don't
know when.
Within about a minute afterward Ruth and Ina and Irene were around me.
"Miss Calliope," they said, "the Red Cross isn't going to stop."
"No?" I said.
"We're going to start in with these foreign-born boys and girls--" Ina
said.
"We're going to teach them all the things _To-morrow_ was pretending to
teach them," Ruth said.
"And we're going to learn a thing or two they can teach us," I says,
"beginning with Achilles."
They knew what I meant, and they nodded.
And the flag of the white world and white stars on a blue field was all
ready-made to lead us--a kind of picture of God's universe.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Copyright, _Red Cross Magazine_, April, 1919.
PEACE IN FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE[2]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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