“I know,” Alison answered, “I know all that, but”--and her grave little face was set like a flint--“you’re not in it yet, you’re not _fighting_, and only countries that are fighting _with_ us can have their flags on the doll’s house. Mr. Strachan’s most partickler about that. My daddy’s been wounded twice.”
“Wouldn’t he have it at the back?” Barbara suggested. She couldn’t bear people to be hurt, and George looked very much hurt.
“No, thank you,” he said haughtily. “If it can’t be put with the others, you needn’t have it at all. It’s a great flag.”
“I know,” said Alison, “and I’m awfully sorry. Mr. Strachan would love it the minute you’re really in ... but till you are----”
“We’re in right enough,” George said bitterly, “in up to the neck. Mother says so. It’s only the President hasn’t said ‘Go’ yet--you know what Governments are, ‘waiting and seeing,’ and all that rot. Look at your own! And everybody getting killed all the time.”
“I know,” Alison said. “But that’s what makes the difference. We _are_ getting killed, all the time, even here in London.”
George put the little flag in his pocket. “I came to wish you a happy New Year, Alison,” he said with an effort to speak pleasantly. “I’ll have to get you something else. There’s some little silver things for the shop for you, Barbara, and a machine-gun for Jasper. Perhaps the partickler Mr. Strachan wouldn’t mind having that on his roof to fire at the Huns when they come over.”
“Won’t you let me keep the flag?” Alison asked. “Then if ever America....”
“If ever,” George interrupted scornfully. “That’s all you know about it. If you’ll wait you’ll jolly well see this time. And you won’t wait long!”
But he kept the flag in his pocket; and that night he put it in an envelope to keep it clean.
George was right. She didn’t have to wait so very much longer, for on April 6th, America declared war on Germany, and he appeared directly after breakfast waving a Stars and Stripes large enough to have covered the doll’s house like a tablecloth, so they hung it out of the nursery window instead, and Jasper “t’luted” it when he went out in his pram. And Alison got the little flag from George and put it between that of England and France on the doll’s house, and he further presented the Strachans with two little khaki gunners to man the gun on the roof, for there were rumors to the effect that London would get it particularly hot that summer. The Huns were so angry about America.