At the hour designated for the performance to begin--to the girls' delight, the room was crowded--Janet began to play softly on the piano, suddenly breaking into "Hail Columbia," then a patriotic march, following these selections with "The Royal March of Italy," the "Lorraine March" and several other well-known favorites either of the Americans or the Allies, ending with France's adored march, "Sambre et Meuse."
The boys, in their khaki suits, each one carrying his gun, now marched before the audience. They were headed by Sheila, who, as a little Goddess of Liberty, acted as the color-bearer. As she stepped to one side of the stage and stood at attention, the boys saluted the flag and then repeated the oath of allegiance.
Sheila now fell in line, and they went through a manual-of-arms, and then, amid loud applause, broke into the "Red, White, and Blue." This was followed by a number of patriotic airs, and the national anthem, when all rose to their feet and joined in the singing with patriotic fervor. After a short pause Danny started to whistle "La Marseillaise"--Janet playing the accompaniment on the piano very softly--as the children joined in, coming out with startling effect with the words:
"To arms! Ye warriors all! Your bold battalions call! March on, ye free! Death shall be ours, Or glorious victory!"
Van Darrell now appeared in front of the little platform--he had modestly refused to ascend it--and introduced Mr. Philip de Brie as a British soldier, a member of "Kitchener's mob," known as the greatest volunteer army in the world. As Philip stepped forward in response to an enthusiastic ovation he bowed courteously, but with a certain diffidence of manner that showed that this was a more trying ordeal than being under fire at the front.
The personal part of Philip's story was quickly told,--how he came to join the army,--the audience cheering lustily when he claimed he was an American, while a tenseness seized them as he related his strange experience while lying in a shell-hole, and the revelation the apparition of the White Comrade had brought to him.
Their interest continued as he told how, in the British offensive south of the Somme, he and his company, with four machine-guns, had cleaned out a Prussian machine-gun nest that had been making havoc with their men. They peppered the enemy so severely, he asserted, while playing a crisscross game with their guns, that the only remaining German gunner was captured, surrounded by his dead comrades.