“I verily believe that Stephen Sheffield would melt the head off his cane if he thought it would help,” he chuckled as he unlocked his money box.
People who knew Stephen and were aware of how frail he was at the outset of his campaign, could now see that he was worn to little more than the ghost of a man, fired and kept alive only by the passion of one purpose. Even strangers and the rough-mannered country folk could see how he was spending his last strength in this mighty effort for the success of the war.
“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.”
Stephen answered him with a happy smile.
“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.