There was still much, so very much hard work for her to do. Although the surrender at Yorktown had marked the practical end of the fighting, the negotiations for peace had dragged on, the country could not settle down and want and poverty must still be bravely faced. The little town of Hopewell, while it looked more cheerful and began to wear an air of greater prosperity, was still full of women who had lost the mainstay of their families, of men whose means of livelihood had been swept away, of others wounded or suffering who needed a hand to set them on their feet again. From cottage to cottage Clotilde went, giving freely of her help in advice, money and the products of her lands. The time had not yet come for the finishing of Stephen’s house or the replanting of Master Simon’s garden.
At length the peace-treaty was signed and ratified by Congress, the last winter of dire poverty went by and with the Spring the Colonies of America began the task of setting their affairs to rights and forming a new government. Many jealous eyes were watching them from across the seas, for all the world was saying that, though Americans might know how to fight for freedom they had no wisdom in the matter of keeping it. Their good friend France had helped them to win their battles, but she had no power to aid them now. Ah, how sorely was Stephen Sheffield missed at this crisis and how much he could have done to smooth the rough road of the blundering nation. Not only those nearest to him, but also many of the great men of the country mourned the fact that Stephen Sheffield’s calm, clear, tolerant mind could not assist in this great task.
Miles Atherton did not come back to Hopewell until the last company of soldiers had disbanded and until General Washington had gone back to Mount Vernon to become a plain country gentleman again, instead of the greatest man of his time. Then it was that Clotilde’s old play-fellow came back to sit with her in the garden once more, to tell her that he was to make one more journey, to explain hesitatingly that this was to be a momentous one indeed—in short to unfold the whole story of the Quaker Ladies.
“All through that terrible winter at Valley Forge,” he said as, little by little, she drew the tale from him, “the soldiers used to talk of some one whom they called the ‘little Quaker Lady.’ No one had ever seen her close, for she used to come like a little grey shadow, slipping past our outer lines and then running away into the dark again as though she were a ghost. But what she left behind was apt to be far from ghost-like, such baskets of wonderful good things, such fat capons, such eggs and butter and fresh cream cheese! You would have to be a half-starved soldier to realise what her gifts meant.”
“Well,” smiled Clotilde encouragingly, as Miles paused, “surely all your raptures are not merely concerning what she brought you to eat.”
“No,” he answered. “I was only thinking of how I began to tell you of this when I was here before, and of how my unwonted talkativeness betrayed me to Master Sheffield and how he laughed at me. I am glad now that he did guess my secret and that I have the memory of the good wishes that he gave me. No,” he went on, returning to his tale, “if it had not been for a chance happening, I would have had no raptures nor ever known more of the Quaker Lady than that her hens laid most wondrous fresh eggs.”
“Most eggs are fresh when laid,” Clotilde reminded him, but he assured her that none could ever be compared to those roasted over the coals of a campfire in the wind-sheltered hollows of Valley Forge.
“I was doing sentry duty one night,” he continued, “for officers took their turn as well as privates, so short-handed were we. I had built a little fire, just so that my comrades would not have the sorrow of finding a frozen man at my post when they came to relieve me. Suddenly I thought that I heard, above the crackling of the flames, a sound of footsteps on the frozen snow, and to make sure, I dropped a branch of fat pitch-pine upon the coals. There was a quick flare of light and I could make out, not ten paces from me, a little dark figure in a Quaker bonnet and cloak. For a single second I saw her face plainly before the flame died down. She cried out when she found that she had been discovered, dropped her burden and fled away into the shadows. How the men chided me when I carried the basket into camp and told my story; they feared that she had been too badly frightened to return and besides four of the precious eggs were broken.”
“But she did come back?” Clotilde said eagerly.
“Yes, but so shyly and secretly that I did not see her again all through the winter. I watched eagerly enough, of that you may be sure, but it was not until Spring that I met her again. I had wandered one day far from our valley, farther indeed than was thought safe, but so frantic was I to see something green after all those months in the barren camp, that I had no thought of where I went. I told you once of the meadow and the little clear stream with its banks blue-grey with the close-growing Quaker Ladies; I did not tell you that, as I was hidden for a moment behind a clump of willows, the little Quaker maid herself, in her blue-grey gown and with her hands full of flowers, came walking along the farther bank. When she saw me she would have run away again, but I—I persuaded her to remain.”