Forth to the war marched the men of New England, lighthearted every one of them and thinking, as did Miles, that the siege of Boston was to be a merry affair.
“We will be back in three months,” they said to their wives as they bade them good-bye. “We will drive those redcoats into the sea and convince King George of what stuff we really are made. Then it will all be over.”
So down the roads came pouring a motley stream of volunteers, clad in hunting shirts and homespun, armed, for the most part, with the strangest weapons, flintlock muskets a hundred years old, clumsy, ancient blunderbusses and homemade pikes. All of the would-be soldiers knew how to shoot, but very few, how to march or drill; and nearly every one of them desired to be an officer. Who was to be found who could change this earnest-hearted but many-minded rabble into an army? That was the question on everybody’s tongue.
To the women of New England, however, the war seemed a greater and a graver thing, for it is easier to feel misgiving when you sit at home alone. What mattered to any one of them how short the struggle was if the goodman of that particular house never came home again? Yet there was little time for brooding since, if the war was to go on, the women must do their part. The army must somehow be given clothes to wear and food to eat, and out of the households of America must all such garments and provisions come. Down from the garrets were brought the big spinning-wheels that had long been laid away, and loud was their song as they began to whirr like swarming bees; the looms creaked, the scissors snipped, needles flew in and out and the ovens glowed all day long, for every one who was not at the war was toiling for the army.
Among all these busy ones, Clotilde and Mother Jeanne and the company of servants in the big house did their full share. Stephen, meanwhile, prowled up and down the narrow bounds of the garden and frowned and shook his head over the letters that came to him from Philadelphia, where the Congress was sitting. Such endless arguments, disagreements and downright quarrels were occupying them while the precious days passed! The lesson of acting together seemed a hard one for the Colonies to learn.
“If you could but be here!” was the burden of nearly every letter that came, although they who wrote and he who read both knew that such a thing was impossible. The long perilous journey to Philadelphia was utterly out of the question for a man of advancing years and such frail health as Stephen’s. Gladly would he have taken all risks had there been any hope, even in his own mind, that he could reach Pennsylvania with strength enough left to be of any use. Not even he could think so, however.
Mother Jeanne, provoked out of her usual respectful silence, observed grimly, when she heard the journey suggested:
“Monsieur must believe that a dead man would be a welcome addition to that great assembly.”
One journey, however, he did take and Clotilde with him, for which, although he was ill afterwards, neither of them could ever be made to express regret. It was early in July that they travelled up to Cambridge to see the review of troops before the army’s new leader, Colonel George Washington, out of Virginia. After the review was over and Clotilde had gazed her fill at the marching soldiers who were beginning at last, in form and discipline to resemble an army, and at the tall splendid figure that had ridden up and down the lines, she was amazed to see the General turn, come toward them and dismount a few paces off Stephen, leaning on his cane, had stepped forward to render his duty to the Commander-in-Chief, but General Washington was too quick for him, and advanced to take his hand before he could speak.
“I came to offer my respects to you, not to receive yours,” said he, “to salute the man who, above all others, has made possible what we see to-day.”