“It is not usual,” concluded Mr. Leslie, “to impose conditions in giving an invitation, but I must ask a promise from all of you, as we are to start at seven, sharp, on our collecting tour, not to leave your homes that morning until you are called for. We shall have a long drive to take, and I wish to have it over before the heat of the day begins. Will all the boys who agree to grant me this favor raise their right hands?”
Most of the right hands flew up as if their owners had nothing to do with it; there was a very short pause, and then the remainder followed. Johnny drew a long breath of intense relief. He knew that, although some of the boys were anything but strictly truthful, they would consider it “a little too mean” to break their pledge to their entertainer, and besides, Mr. Leslie had said, emphatically, that there would be no hunting for absentees, but simply a call at each door.
That picnic was unanimously pronounced the most brilliant of this, or of any, season. Mr. Leslie was voted “as good as forty boys,” and the woods rang again with laughter and joyous shouting. But when a long tin horn had given the signal which had been agreed upon, and the boys were gathered together for the return, Mr. Leslie mounted a convenient stump.
“Boys!” he said, as the noisy throng grew silent to listen, “No Fourth of July celebration is complete without a speech, so I feel called upon to make a short one. How does the Declaration of Independence begin?”
“‘All men are born free and equal, and endowed with certain inalienable rights!’” shouted at least half the party.
“And what does ‘inalienable’ mean?” pursued the orator.
Silence. And then somebody said doubtfully, “Something you can’t lose or give away?”
“Exactly,” said Mr. Leslie. “So, as we travel through life, we are to bear in mind this fact, that no matter how great, or wise, or rich, or powerful, or poor, or oppressed, or injured we may be, we are bound to respect the ‘inalienable rights’ of other people, and that we shall never gain anything really worth gaining, or that will bring a blessing with it, by disregarding those rights.
“I will not undertake to tell you what they are; I think we can generally tell nearly enough for all practical purposes by two ways; remembering what we consider our own rights, and imagining what we should consider our rights, were we in the places of the people with whom we are dealing. We have had a happy day, I think; I know I have——”