In the cherry-tree, which was laden with red cherries a
little over ripe, birds were quarrelling, and for a minute she could not
separate the sound of Abel's voice from the confusion around her. Then
his figure, standing under a stunted cedar on a small raised platform,
which was used for school celebrations or out-of-door concerts, appeared
to gather to itself all that was magnetic and alive in the atmosphere.
Of the whole crowd, including Gay, the speaker in his blue shirt, with
his head thrown back enkindled from the fire of his enthusiasm, seemed
the one masculine and dominating intelligence. To Molly he represented
neither orator nor reformer, but a compelling force which she felt
rather than heard. What he said she was hardly aware of--for it was
emotion not thought that he aroused in her.
"That's good!" said Jonathan quietly at her side, and glancing at him
she realized that Gay was regarding merely a picturesque embodiment
of the economic upheaval of society. Judging the scene from Gay's
standpoint, she saw that it was, after all, only the ordinary political
gathering of a thinly settled community.
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