A fight suddenly broke out between the Benda and Schultz kids close beside Virginia. Zonia tried in vain to separate them. Vassar saved the situation by picking up Angela’s boy by his suspenders, and the German kid by the seat of his pants. He lifted them bodily out of the scene and carried them into a quiet corner. Virginia laughed heartily. Vassar demanded mutual apologies. “He called me ‘Sausage,’” complained the Schultz kid. “He calla me a Dago,” answered the Italian. “Now salute each other with a handshake!” Billy commanded. “And remember that you’re good Americans.” “He made them both take off their caps and yell: “Hurrah for Uncle Sam!” Virginia looked about the old hall with increasing amazement at the effective way in which the interior had been decorated. Around the walls in graceful festoons the beautiful red, white and blue emblems hung an endless riot of color. From the ceiling they fell in soft, billowing waves stirred by the breezes from the open windows. The eye of every child kindled with delight on entering. The exercises began with a song. A band of six pieces led them. Everybody rose and sang one stanza. John Vassar first wrote it in big plain letters on the blackboard where all could read: MY COUNTRY, ’TIS OF THEE, SWEET LAND OF LIBERTY, OF THEE, I SING! They sang it with a fervor that stirred Virginia’s soul. Vassar took the chair as presiding officer and directed the exercises, Billy acting as his chief lieutenant to Virginia’s continuous amusement. “Now, children, give me the cornerstone of the American nation--let’s get that in place first. Now everybody! All together!” From the crowd came a shout that stirred the big flags in the ceiling: “ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL!” Again he wrote it on the blackboard and asked them to repeat it. They did it with a will. “Now, children,” he said, “I’ve a distinguished artist here today who gives us this valuable hour of his useful life to draw a picture on the board. Watch him closely and don’t forget the message.” With quick, sure stroke the cartoonist drew a wonderful symbolic Stairway of Life for the American child. On the left of the scene appeared Uncle Sam holding the lamp of knowledge to light the way to success for the crowd of eager boys and girls at the bottom of the hill. In sharp outline he drew the steps upon which they might mount--each step a book they could master. The first step was marked--Primer, the next First Reader and then came Elementary Arithmetic, Second Reader, Grammar, Geography, History, Physiology, Rhetoric, Algebra, Physics, Latin, Greek, Geometry, Political Economy and Trigonometry. The last step faded out in the blazing light of the Sun of Success at the top of the hill. He drew the figures of little boys and girls on the lower rounds, bigger boys and girls on the middle ones, young men and women mounting the hill crest. At the bottom of the cartoon he wrote: