“You may think,” he said in one of his speeches to a gathering of men before a blacksmith’s shop, “that it scarce seems right that I should ask you to go into danger when I stay behind myself.”
“Nay,” returned one of the men bluntly, “it is not hidden from our eyes, Master Sheffield, that you too are laying down your life in the cause.”
“It is the least that any of us can do,” he said, “but I am hoping that Heaven will grant it me to see the end of the war.”
To Clotilde, Stephen, when he went away, had left a heavy task.
“Once we had a few poor people in Hopewell to care for,” he told her, “now all are in want and you must do your best to see that they do not suffer.”
So Clotilde, young as she was, took up the burden and carried it well. Master Simon’s empty garden was ploughed from end to end and planted with cabbages, turnips, beets, potatoes, anything that would give food to the hungry and could be stored away for the winter. Wheat and barley and rye now grew where once a smooth strip of greensward had extended down to the harbour’s edge, while the sturdy women and growing boys of Hopewell were taught to turn their bits of land to similar account.
“We will let the men see that we can bring in as good a harvest as they,” Clotilde told the women, whereupon Nature seemed to bend herself to helping their efforts by giving them a fair and prosperous season.
All through the summer and autumn, Stephen’s time, for the most part, was spent in his journeyings throughout New England. Prospects began to brighten as Washington’s army gathered strength. In October came the wonderful news of Burgoyne’s surrender back in the wilderness of the Hudson valley, where he had been harried and driven up and down the whole summer long. Stephen chanced to be at home when the tidings came.
“Yes,” he said with a smile, as he and Clotilde sat in the porch talking of the good news. “Washington made the victory possible by holding back the British troops that were to have aided Burgoyne, Benedict Arnold brought about the surrender by his gallant fight in the forest, and now General Gates receives the British Commander’s sword with a bow, and apparently all the credit is his. That is the way of war.”
