The Rescue of Old Glory
by
When mother was making plans for a “safe and sane Fourth,” Uncle Henry said, “Why not take the children to the park and have a kite party? I’ll help them make the kites.”
The next morning Harry and Anna were busy out on the piazza with Uncle Henry. By ten o’clock three handsome white kites were drying in a row. Anna called them the “Big Bear, the Middle-Sized Bear, and the Baby Bear.”
When the kites were dry, the whole family started for the park–Uncle Henry with the Big Bear and a box of luncheon, Harry with the Middle-Sized Bear, and Anna, of course, with the Baby Bear. Mother carried some sewing and grandmother carried the surprise, something that Uncle Henry had brought home in a flat box. When they reached the park, they found a French society holding a picnic. A tent was up, the band was playing, the older boys were shooting at a target, and the little boys and girls were flying red and blue balloons.
Uncle Henry said, “Ladies first, always,” and he soon had the Baby Bear in the air, and the string in Anna’s hands. He drove the bobbin into the ground, to make sure that the kite would not get away. Harry insisted upon putting his kite up alone. Then Uncle Henry put up the Big Bear, and when it was up some distance, he asked grandmother to open the box. Then he shook out a red-white-and-blue silk American flag, and the crowd cheered.
Uncle Henry tied the flag to a loop of string, and fastened it to the Big Bear’s string. Then he let it out, hand over hand. Up, up, went Old Glory, and snapped in the breeze. The higher it went, the farther out the kite soared, until it hung over the harbor. They were all so busy watching it that they had not seen that the picnic people below were pointing up to the flag; but when the band struck up the Star-Spangled Banner, and the foreign people began to sing, Uncle Henry noticed one dark-skinned boy who sang with a strange accent and great energy, and who kept his big, solemn eyes on the flag that glowed against the sky. But when the boy, whose name was Caspar, saw the others looking at him, he ran down the hill and hid behind the children.
“Any one who can sing the Star-Spangled Banner like that is a good American,” said Uncle Henry, as he drove his bobbin into the ground, and prepared to open the box of luncheon.
When the foreigners went in to dinner, Caspar did not follow. He took his sandwiches, frosted cake, and ice-cream, and sat down on the grass, where he could look at the flag.
There was not a child in the whole park who loved the Stars and Stripes as little Caspar did, not even the two American children; for in his own country Caspar had lived in a mission house, where they had told him all about America, and how the Stars and Stripes protected the people, even the poorest of little children. They told him that he must never harm the flag, or allow it to be trampled on. After he came to America, his teacher had taught him to salute the flag.
He had heard the flag song on the big ship, and he felt that it was Old Glory that had brought him safe to one of his own country-women in America, with whom he lived.
Caspar was thinking of all this as he lay on the grass, and saw the flag fluttering in the light wind. He had watched it for some time, when he saw it give a quick little shiver, then begin to sink slowly, and then faster. He looked to the end of the line, and saw that the great white kite was dipping about in a strange manner; then he looked up to the hill and saw the kite man leaping down the slope as fast as he could. The American children were running behind him.