“There are times,” he said at last; “times like these, when even that which one would not sell for all the gold on earth must be freely given. What Master Simon left to us seems well-nigh sacred, but the welfare of our neighbours, is not that sacred too? People are suffering, some are starving, and with every year that the war drags on the poverty grows worse. My own fortune has been swept away by the hazards of the time; a moment is very close when people will come to me for help and I will have naught to give them. Shall a strip of meadow land, a blossoming hedge and a memory of Master Simon be more to us than our love for our people?”
“No,” agreed Clotilde, but with a sob; “no, you are right and he would never have wished us to keep it. But oh, the very thought of it breaks my heart!”
On Stephen’s next journey to Boston the transfer was made and a good half of Master Simon’s garden passed into the hands of Ephraim Paddock, the wealthiest and most close-fisted man in all of Massachusetts. Having in view the building of docks and warehouses at the water’s edge, a plan that could not well be carried out at once, he graciously granted, as part of the terms of sale, permission that Stephen Sheffield make use of the land until building should begin. Therefore the meadow still yielded its harvest for the feeding of the poor, while its purchase price was spread broadcast to give clothing and shelter to those who were in need.
November came, and with it began that season of bitter and piercing cold, to be known, as long as history books tell the tale, as the Valley Forge winter, the most severe that America had known in nearly a hundred years. The snow fell early and lay so deep and so long that people began to wonder if Spring were ever to come again. Never before had such black and destroying frosts been known, so that, had not the women and children brought in an abundant harvest, had not the wheat sheaves been full and golden and the shocks of corn piled high in the barns, the time would have been a desperate one indeed.
Yet none of those at home had leisure for complaint; the thoughts of all were centered upon the little dauntless American army, those gaunt determined soldiers shivering among the hills and ravines of Valley Forge. Would they come through the winter with strength enough left ever to fight again? Would the warm, comfortable, well-fed British army leave its safe shelter in Philadelphia and sally forth to destroy them at one blow? Time only could tell and time dragged, oh, so slowly, as the winter months went by.
The roads of New England were so deep in snow, the cold so intense and so terrible that, through the midwinter, Stephen was forced to forego his journeyings. At the end of January, however, a difficulty arose that haled him forth again. Andrew Shadwell, the wealthy and influential Tory who dwelt in the next town, had gathered about him a considerable company of his own kind, the number beginning to grow so great that their presence was a threat against the peace of the community. People said that the nest of Loyalists was plotting all sorts of evil, and demanded that the enemy be driven out. The Tories, in turn, loudly complained that they were persecuted and had done no wrong. Each party was afraid of the other and neither dared to move first. It was to confer with the authorities in Boston in this matter, and to try for some peaceable settlement of the trouble, that Stephen set out one cold, glittering January morning, when the dry snow creaked under the horses’ hoofs, and their breath rose in twin columns of steam as they pawed and snorted before the door.
“I have no reluctance in leaving matters in your hands,” he said to Clotilde, as he bade her good-bye in the hall.
“I will do what I can,” she answered, “although the best thing that I could accomplish would be to keep you at home.”
“No, no, child, there is no danger in this journey,” he said, “but, should this brewing trouble break out while I am gone—well, well, there is small use in such misgivings! I will be back again in four days and little can happen in that time.”
Clotilde watched him ride away through the clear, keen, frosty air and wished, for the hundredth time, that she were a man and could go with him.