Boys and Girls of Colonial Days

by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey

“What are you stitching, Prudence? Surely you are not going to dress yourself in these gaudy colors? It would scarcely be right in these hard times.”

Prudence laughed, shaking out the strips of scarlet and white that filled her lap.

“No, indeed, William. Dark colors and plain frocks must be worn by us children of the war. I am making a flag. Our great, beautiful stars and stripes of the Colonies went to our regiment with father and your brother John. But I went down to the flag shop of Mrs. Betty Ross not long ago, and I stood awhile on the threshold, watching how she and her maids cut and sewed their red, white, and blue cloth together. I said to myself, ‘why not make your own flag, Prudence Williams? You have ten fingers and a piece bag up in the attic.’ And here it is, all done but sewing on the little white stars.”

“Oh, Prudence!” William’s eyes shone.

“It is wonderful! How did you ever measure and sew it so well? I always did say that you are the most clever girl with your needle of any in town.”

“It is carefully made,” Prudence assented, “but that is because I thought of my regiment with every stitch. And I wished that I might march in the regiment beside my father, waving my flag, and shouting for the independence of our dear Colonies at every step. Oh, it is hard, William, to be a girl in this time of the Revolution, with nothing to do but sit at home.”

“‘IT IS HARD, WILLIAM, TO BE A GIRL ... WITH NOTHING TO DO BUT SIT AT HOME’”

“That it is,” William said, “but now let’s go in the house and delve in your cooky crock, Prudence. Perhaps your cook has filled it with her good caraway cakes,” and the two little neighbors disappeared through the great white door of the old house.

In the days that followed, Prudence quite forgot to dread the coming to Philadelphia of the British soldiers. Rumors came of how the Red Coats had marched through the near-by towns and countryside. They had taken possession of the homesteads, appropriated the supplies that had been left for the women and children, and plundered the treasures of silver that were almost all the wealth of the Colonists. News of this reached the ears of those who remained behind, alone, in Philadelphia. But Prudence paid little heed to the rumors. Her mother was better, but still an invalid and confined to her room. There was only one maid servant to do the work of the large house, and Prudence found herself a real little housekeeper with her hands very full. All day long she tripped up and down the wide oak staircase, with instructions from her dear mother to the maid in the kitchen, and then helped to carry them out. She had finished the flag. It was laid away in a drawer.