In the Days of Poor Richard Part 30

It said: 'My work in England has been fruitless and I am done with it.

I bring you much love from the fair lady of your choice. That, my young friend, is a better possession than houses and lands, for even the flames of war can not destroy it. I have not seen, in all this life of mine, a dearer creature or a n.o.bler pa.s.sion. And I will tell you why it is dear to me, as well as to you. She is like the good people of England whose heart is with the colonies, but whose will is being baffled and oppressed. Let us hope it may not be for long. My good wishes for you involve the whole race whose blood is in my veins.

That race has ever been like the patient ox, treading out the corn, whose leading trait is endurance.

"There is little light in the present outlook. You and Binkus will do well to come here. This, for a time, will be the center of our activities and you may be needed any moment."

Jack and Solomon went to Philadelphia soon after news of the battle of Lexington had reached Albany in the last days of April. They were among the cheering crowds that welcomed the delegates to the Second Congress.

Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton, the only delegate in uniform, was the most impressive figure in the Congress. He had come up with a coach and six horses from Virginia. The Colonel used to say that even with six horses, one had a slow and rough journey in the mud and sand. His dignity and n.o.ble stature, the fame he had won in the Indian wars and his wisdom and modesty in council, had silenced opposition and opened his way. He was a man highly favored of Heaven. The people of Philadelphia felt the power of his personality. They seemed to regard him with affectionate awe. All eyes were on him when he walked around.

Not even the magnificent Hanc.o.c.k or the eloquent Patrick Henry attracted so much attention. Yet he would stop in the street to speak to a child or to say a pleasant word to an old acquaintance as he did to Solomon.

That day in June when the beloved Virginian was chosen to be Commander-in-Chief of the American forces, Jack and Solomon dined with Franklin at his home. John Adams of Boston and John Brown, the great merchant of Providence, were his other guests. The distinguished men were discussing the choice of Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton.

"I think that Ward is a greater soldier," said Brown. "Was.h.i.+ngton has done no fighting since '58. Our battles will be in the open. He is a bush fighter."

"True, but he is a fighter and, like Achilles, a born master of men,"

Franklin answered. "His fiery energy saved Braddock's army from being utterly wiped out. His gift for deliberation won the confidence of Congress. He has wisdom and personality. He can express them in calm debate or terrific action. Above all, he has a sense of the oneness of America. Ma.s.sachusetts and Georgia are as dear to him as Virginia."

"He is a Christian gentleman of proved courage and great sagacity,"

said Adams. "His one defeat proved him to be the master of himself.

It was a n.o.ble defeat."

Doctor Franklin, who never failed to show some token of respect for every guest at his table, turned to Solomon and said:

"Major Binkus, you have been with him a good deal. What do you think of Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton?"

"I think he's a hull four hoss team an' the dog under the waggin," said Solomon.

John Adams often quoted these words of the scout and they became a saying in New England.

"To ask you a question is like priming a pump," said Franklin, as he turned to Solomon with a laugh. "Was.h.i.+ngton is about four times the average man, with something to spare and that something is the dog under the wagon. It would seem that the Lord G.o.d has bred and prepared and sent him among us to be chosen. We saw and knew and voted. There was no room for doubt in my mind."

"And while I am a friend of Ward, I am after all convinced that Was.h.i.+ngton is the man," said Brown. "Nothing so became him as when he called upon all gentlemen present to remember that he thought himself unequal to the task."

Was.h.i.+ngton set out in June with Colonel Lee and a company of Light Horse for Boston where some sixteen thousand men had a.s.sembled with their rifles and muskets to be organized into an army for the defense of Ma.s.sachusetts.

2

A little later Jack and Solomon followed with eight horses and two wagons loaded with barrels of gunpowder made under the direction of Benjamin Franklin and paid for with his money. A British fleet being in American waters, the overland route was chosen as the safer one. It was a slow and toilsome journey with here and there a touch of stern adventure. Crossing the pine barrens of New Jersey, they were held up by a band of Tory refugees and deprived of all the money in their pockets. Always Solomon got a squint in one eye and a solemn look in the other when that matter was referred to.

"'Twere all due to the freight," he said to a friend. "Ye see their guns was p'intin' our way and behind us were a ton o' gunpowder. She's awful particular comp'ny. Makes her nervous to have anybody nigh her that's bein' shot at. Ye got to be peaceful an' p'lite. Don't let no argements come up. If some feller wants yer money an' has got a gun it'll be cheaper to let him have it. I tell ye she's an uppity, hot-tempered ol' critter--got to be treated jest so er she'll stomp her foot an' say, 'Scat,' an' then--"

Solomon smiled and gave his right hand a little upward fling and said no more, having lifted the burden off his mind.

On the post road, beyond Horse Neck in Connecticut, they had a more serious adventure. They had been traveling with a crude map of each main road, showing the location of houses in the settled country where, at night, they could find shelter and hospitality. Owing to the peculiar character of their freight, the Committee in Philadelphia had requested them to avoid inns and had caused these maps to be sent to them at post-offices on the road indicating the homes of trusted patriots from twenty to thirty miles apart. About six o'clock in the evening of July twentieth, they reached the home of Israel Lockwood, three miles above Horse Neck. They had ridden through a storm which had shaken and smitten the earth with its thunder-bolts some of which had fallen near them. Mr. Lockwood directed them to leave their wagons on a large empty barn floor and asked them in to supper.

"If you'll bring suthin' out to us, I guess we better stay by her,"

said Solomon. "She might be nervous."

"Do you have to stay with this stuff all the while?" Lockwood asked.

"Night an' day," said Solomon. "Don't do to let 'er git lonesome.

To-day when the lightnin' were slappin' the ground on both sides o' me, I wanted to hop down an' run off in the bush a mile er so fer to see the kentry, but I jest had to set an' hope that she would hold her temper an' not go to slappin' back."

"She," as Solomon called the two loads, was a most exacting mistress.

They never left her alone for a moment. While one was putting away the horses the other was on guard. They slept near her at night.

Israel Lockwood sat down for a visit with them when he brought their food. While they were eating, another terrific thunder-storm arrived.

In the midst of it a bolt struck the barn and rent its roof open and set the top of the mow afire. Solomon jumped to the rear wheel of one of the wagons while Jack seized the tongue. In a second it was rolling down the barn bridge and away. The barn had filled with smoke and cinders but these dauntless men rolled out the second wagon.

Rain was falling. Solomon observed a wisp of smoke coming out from under the roof of this wagon. He jumped in and found a live cinder which had burned through the cover and fallen on one of the barrels.

It was eating into the wood. Solomon tossed it out in the rain and smothered "the live spot." He examined the barrels and the wagon floor and was satisfied. In speaking of that incident next day he said to Jack:

"If I hadn't 'a' had purty good control o' my legs, I guess they'd 'a'

run erway with me. I had to put the whip on 'em to git 'em to step in under that wagon roof--you hear to me."

While Solomon was engaged with this trying duty, Lockwood had led the horses out of the stable below and rescued the harness. A heavy shower was falling. The flames had burst through the roof and in spite of the rain, the structure was soon destroyed.

"The wind was favorable and we all stood watching the fire, safe but helpless to do anything for our host," Jack wrote in a letter.

"Fortunately there was another house near and I took the horses to its barn for the night. We slept in a woodshed close to the wagons. We slipped out of trouble by being on hand when it started. If we had gone into the house for supper, I'm inclined to think that the British would not have been driven out of Boston.

"We pa.s.sed many companies of marching riflemen. In front of one of these, the fife and drum corps playing behind him, was a young Tory, who had insulted the company, and was, therefore, made to carry a gray goose in his arms with this maxim of Poor Richard on his back: 'Not every goose has feathers on him.'

"On the twentieth we reported to General Was.h.i.+ngton in Cambridge. This was the first time I saw him in the uniform of a general. He wore a blue coat with buff facings and buff underdress, a small sword, rich epaulets, a black c.o.c.kade in his three-cornered hat, and a blue sash under his coat. His hair was done up in a queue. He was in boots and spurs. He received us politely, directing a young officer to go with us to the powder house. There we saw a large number of barrels.

"'All full of sand,' the officer whispered. 'We keep 'em here to fool the enemy,'

"Not far from the powder house I overheard this little dialogue between a captain and a private.

"'Bill, go get a pail o' water,' said the captain.

"'I shan't do it. 'Tain't my turn,' the private answered."

The men and officers were under many kinds of shelter in the big camp.

There were tents and marquees and rude structures built of boards and roughly hewn timber, and of stone and turf and brick and brush. Some had doors and windows wrought out of withes knit together in the fas.h.i.+on of a basket. There were handsome young men whose thighs had never felt the touch of steel; elderly men in faded, moth-eaten uniforms and wigs.

In their possession were rifles and muskets of varying size, age and caliber. Some of them had helped to make the thunders of Naseby and Marston Moor. There were old sabers which had touched the ground when the hosts of Cromwell had knelt in prayer.

Certain of the men were swapping clothes. No uniforms had been provided for this singular a.s.semblage of patriots all eager for service. Sergeants wore a strip of red on the right shoulder; corporals a strip of green. Field officers mounted a red c.o.c.kade; captains flaunted a like signal in yellow. Generals wore a pink ribband and aides a green one.

This great body of men which had come to besiege Boston was able to shoot and dig. That is about all they knew of the art of war.

Training had begun in earnest. The sergeants were working with squads; Generals Lee and Ward and Green and Putnam and Sullivan with companies and regiments from daylight to dark.

Jack was particularly interested in Putnam--a short, rugged, fat, white-haired farmer from Connecticut of bluff manners and nasal tw.a.n.g and of great animation for one of his years--he was then fifty-seven.

He was often seen flying about the camp on a horse. The young man had read of the heroic exploits of this veteran of the Indian wars.

Their mission finished, that evening Jack and Solomon called at General Was.h.i.+ngton's headquarters.