“And shall I tell thee all that I am to say to Friend Washington?” asked Peggy with an important air. “Mother, thee did not guess that while thee was gathering supplies I too had business of like nature?”
“No, I did not know,” replied Mrs. Owen. “Unravel the matter, I beg, Peggy. ’Twill serve well to pass the time, and I am curious also concerning the affair.”
It was three weeks after the receipt of David Owen’s letter, and December was upon them ere mother and daughter had completed their arrangements for the journey. Knowing the great need of supplies at the encampment, Mrs. Owen determined not to go empty handed, and so made a personal canvas among the citizens, who responded to her appeal for the soldiers with their usual liberality. In consequence, when at length everything was in readiness, it was quite a little caravan that left the city headed for Middlebrook, New Jersey. First came the coach with Peggy and her mother inside; then followed two farm wagons loaded with stores of various kinds; behind these came Tom with Star, for Peggy was hoping for rides with her father; the whole traveling under the escort of four of the Pennsylvania Light Horse who had been in Philadelphia on furloughs.
The roads were bad, the traveling rough and slow, the weather cold and damp, but to Peggy, who had never before been away from Philadelphia and its vicinity, the journey was full of interest and excitement. It was now the afternoon of the fourth day since they had started, and both the maiden and the lady were conscious of a growing feeling of excitement as they neared the journey’s end, so the matter of the box, about which the matron had in truth been wondering, was a welcome diversion.
“At first,” said Peggy pulling the fur robe closer about her and nestling confidentially up to her mother, “he said ’twas so small an amount that he wished me to say naught concerning the donor. But I persuaded him to let me tell who gave it, saying to him that ’twas not the amount that counted so much as the spirit in which ’twas given.”
Mrs. Owen nodded approval, and the girl continued:
“And so I am to say that since Jacob Deering is esteemed too old to take up arms for his country ’tis the only thing he can do to show his sympathy with the cause.”
