Chapter 76
'Still shouting the battle-cry of freedom?' asked Demi, peering
through the banisters at this moment. 'Up with your flag! I'll stand
by and lend a hand if you want it. With you and Nan to lead the van,
I think you won't need much help.'
'You are a great comfort, Demi, and I'll call on you in all
emergencies; for you are an honest boy, and don't forget that you owe
much to your mother and your sisters and your aunts,' continued Nan.
'I do like men who come out frankly and own that they are not gods.
How can we think them so when such awful mistakes are being made all
the time by these great creatures? See them sick, as I do, then you
know them.'
'Don't hit us when we are down; be merciful, and set us up to bless
and believe in you evermore,' pleaded Demi from behind the bars.
'We'll be kind to you if you will be just to us. I don't say
generous, only just. I went to a suffrage debate in the Legislature
last winter; and of all the feeble, vulgar twaddle I ever heard, that
was the worst; and those men were our representatives. I blushed for
them, and the wives and mothers. I want an intelligent man to
represent me, if I can't do it myself, not a fool.'
'Nan is on the stump. Now we shall catch it,' cried Tom, putting up
an umbrella to shield his unhappy head; for Nan's earnest voice was
audible, and her indignant eye happened to rest on him as she spoke.
'Go on, go on! I'll take notes, and put in "great applause"
liberally,' added Demi, producing his ball-book and pencil, with his
Jenkins air.
Daisy pinched his nose through the bars, and the meeting was rather
tumultuous for a moment, for Emil called: 'Avast, avast, here's a
squall to wind'ard'; Tom applauded wildly; Dan looked up as if the
prospect of a fight, even with words, pleased him, and Nat went to
support Demi, as his position seemed to be a good one. At this
crisis, when everyone laughed and talked at once, Bess came floating
through the upper hall and looked down like an angel of peace upon
the noisy group below, as she asked, with wondering eyes and smiling