“Dear maid,” said the tall Colonel, touched to the quick, “I hope your kindness to me will not prove more than I deserve. You have done me no small service. I wish I might requite it.” He held out both hands as he spoke, smiling so winningly that without an instant’s hesitation Rose put hers into them and lifted her face to be kissed. Then Ruth and then Darthea must have one too, while they all laughed, even Mr. Wynne.
“Foolish children,” he said. “You must forgive them, Colonel. Since Braddock’s day, you have been a hero, you know.”
The Colonel shook his head.
“The maids have put me doubly in their debt,” he said. The soldier now called out that the gangway was to be withdrawn, so Mr. Wynne drove them all before him off the ship. On the dock they stood waving as the ship drew away, watching that tall figure in blue as he returned the salute. Waving farewell till the Quaker bade them follow him home, and be sensible.
They turned back to the town as the last streak of sunlight shone on the sails, tingeing them with a pale salmony pink, and flushing the waves that rippled by the prow. Washington waved his handkerchief a last time, his white head clear against the dark woodwork behind him. Gulls swept the air above, and a chantey rose upward as the sailors worked at the ropes. Rose and Ruth felt their hearts swell to think they had served this man. Hand in hand with Darthea they followed the tall Quaker back through the streets, chatting of the adventure they had had.
“Why do you think so much of Mr. Washington?” Darthea was asking, as they reached the gate of her house, to which Mr. Wynne had taken them.
It was odd that Rose and Ruth could not quite remember what it was they knew of him. Surely he ... he....
“Why, he was the Father of his country,” exclaimed Ruth, and at the same instant Rose actually shouted: “He is the first, the greatest, the man who made us America.”
But where was Darthea? Where the bricked street, the green-bowered garden, the stiff figure of the Quaker moving off?
Gone like a dream. And there instead was the placid lake, the cottonwoods, the grazing ponies and the sun low in the western sky.