Mrs. Baxter communicated her patriotic idea of a new flag to the
Dorcas Society, proposing that the women should cut and make it
themselves.
"It may not be quite as good as those manufactured in the large
cities," she said, " but we shall be proud to see our home-made
flag flying in the breeze, and it will mean all the more to the
young voters growing up, to remember that their mothers made it
with their own hands."
"How would it do to let some of the girls help?" modestly asked
Miss Dearborn, the Riverboro teacher. "We might chose the best
sewers and let them put in at least a few stitches, so that they
can feel they have a share in it."
"Just the thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Baxter. "We can cut the stripes
and sew them together, and after we have basted on the white
stars the girls can apply them to the blue ground. We must have
it ready for the campaign rally, and we could n't christen it at
a better time than in this presidential year."
In this way the great enterprise was started, and day by day the
preparations went forward in the two villages.
The boys, as future voters and soldiers, demanded an active share
in the proceedings, and were organized by Squire Bean into a fife
and drum corps, so that by day and night martial but most
inharmonious music woke the echoes, and deafened mothers felt
their patriotism oozing out at the soles of their shoes.
Dick Carter was made captain, for his grandfather had a gold
medal given him by Queen Victoria for rescuing three hundred and
twenty-six passengers from a sinking British vessel. Riverboro
thought it high time to pay some graceful tribute to Great
Britain in return for her handsome, conduct to Captain Nahum
Carter, and human imagination could contrive nothing more