Peter knew vaguely that on
the other side of the world half a dozen mighty nations were locked
together in a grip of death; the whole earth was shaken with their
struggles, and Peter had felt a bit of the trembling now and then.
But Peter did not know that his own country had anything to do with
this European quarrel, and did not know that certain great interests
thruout the country had set themselves to rouse the public to
action.
This movement had reached American City, and the streets had broken
out in a blaze of patriotic display. In all the windows of the
stores there were signs: "Wake up, America!" Across the broad Main
Street there were banners: "America Prepare!" Down in the square at
one end of the street a small army was gathering--old veterans of
the Civil War, and middle-aged veterans of the Spanish War, and
regiments of the state militia, and brigades of marines and sailors
from the ships in the harbor, and members of fraternal lodges with
their Lord High Chief Grand Marshals on horseback with gold sashes
and waving white plumes, and all the notables of the city in
carriages, and a score of bands to stir their feet and ten thousand
flags waving above their heads. "Wake up America!" And here was
Peter Gudge, with an empty stomach, coming suddenly upon the
swarming crowds in Main Street, and having no remotest idea what it
was all about.
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