“Go on. The soldiers were lined up—–”

“Oh. Well, there were the Russian soldiers on one side, and the American troops in blue uniforms lined up on the other side.”

“The other side of what?”

“Of the flagpole, with the Russian flag flying at the top of it, ninety feet up in the air. The Russian flag had a double golden eagle on it, it was called the Imperial Flag of Russia then. There was an ocean breeze up there on the hill where they all stood, and the flag was very pretty, waving and snapping in the wind. They were in front of the house of the Russian Governor, Prince Maksoutoff. The Russian officers wore uniforms of scarlet with gold braid. There was a salute from the artillery of the Russians and then a salute from the artillery of the Americans, all very dramatic, as you might imagine. And then very slowly they began to lower the Russian ensign—–”

“What’s an ensign?”

“Flag. They began to lower the Russian flag and it fouled in the halyards”—he caught the question before it was uttered—“that means the flag got caught and snarled in the ropes that were pulling it down. This man says he really saw this. So they sent an American sailor up the pole to loosen it, but he couldn’t work it loose, and there were all those people with their faces turned up toward him, looking at him and the flag. He couldn’t work it loose and he was sort of desperate then, and nervous, so he tore it down and threw it and it landed on the heads of the Russian soldiers. That was bad.”

“Why was it?”

“Because the flag of a country isn’t just a piece of cloth, it’s the sign of the country, the emblem, it’s something you treat with great respect and honor. Well, then, the Russian flag came down, and the Stars and Stripes—the United States flag—went up, and the cannon boomed, and they made speeches, first the Russian officers and then the United States officers, and then everybody cheered except one person, and they say she cried as if her heart would break when the Russian flag was lowered and the land that her husband had worked for and believed in passed from the rule of the Czar of Russia to the rule of the United States.”

“To Grandpa Czar?”

Startled, “No.” But then he laughed a little, ruefully.

“Who was the one who cried as if her heart would break? And did it?”

“Her name was Princess Maksoutoff, and she was the wife of the Russian Governor, and they left Alaska then, forever, and went back to Russia. No, it didn’t break, it seldom does,” he said, contritely. He thought he must be more careful in his figures of speech, with the child.

“Was she a young and beautiful princess?”

“All princesses are young and beautiful,” Thor Storm said, gently, remembering the gaunt and long-toothed princesses of Scandinavia; and remembering his own childhood and youth, so incredibly unlike his life here in the past half century.