n the ranching
country in a settlement of mixed foreigners--Swedes, Italians, Germans,
Jews--they had a great show they called 'saluting the flag.'
Being Scotch you despise the whole thing as a lot of rotten slushy
sentimentality, and a lot of Canadians agree with you. But let me tell
you how they got me. I watched those kids with their foreign faces,
foreign speech--you ought to hear them read--Great Scott, you'd have to
guess at the language. Then came this flag-saluting business. A kid
with Yiddish written all over his face was chosen to carry in the flag,
attended by a bodyguard for the colours, and believe me they appeared as
proud as Punch of the honour. They placed the flag in position, sang a
hymn, had a prayer, then every kid at a signal shot out his right hand
toward the flag held aloft by the Yiddish colour bearer and pledged
himself, heart, and soul, and body, to his flag and to his country.
The ceremony closed with the singing of the national hymn, mighty poor
poetry and mighty hard to sing, but do you know listening to those kids
and watching their foreign faces I found myself with tears in my eyes
and swallowing like a darn fool. Ever since that day I believe in
flag-flapping."

"Maybe you are right," replied Ross. "You know we British folk are
so fearfully afraid of showing our feelings. We go along like graven
images; the more really stirred up, the more graven we appear. But
suppose we move over to the platform where the speechifying is to be
done."

In front of the school building a platform had been erected, and before
the stage, preparations had been made for seating the spectators as far
as the school benches and chairs from neighbours' houses would go. The
programme consisted of patriotic songs and choruses with contributions
from the minstrel company. The main events of the evening, however, were
to be the addresses, the principal speech being by the local member for
the Dominion Parliament, Mr. J. H. Gilchrist, who was to be followed
by a local orator, Mr. Alvin P. Jones, a former resident of the United
States, but now an enthusiastic, energetic and most successful farmer
and business man, possessing one of the best appointed ranches in
Alberta. The chairman was, of course, Reverend Evans Rhye. The parson
was a little Welshman, fat and fussy and fiery of temper, but his heart
was warmly human, and in his ministry he manifested a religion of such
simplicity and devotion, of such complete unself