“I fear that it would not be altogether to my liking, Betty. I know that I should be inoculated, but I shrink from the process. I will say so frankly.”
“Thee is just like Sally,” cried Betty. “She hath courage to become a nurse, yet cannot pluck up heart to join a smallpox party. And thee, Peggy Owen! I am disappointed in thee. I have not half thy pluck, nor Sally’s; yet I mind not the ordeal. It may save me from a greater calamity. Just think how relieved the mind would be not to dread the disease all the rest of one’s life. And then to emerge fairer than before, for so the doctor promises. Oh, charmante!” ended Betty.
“Thee is brave to feel so about it, Betty,” said Peggy. “I hope that all will result as thee wishes. I shall miss thee.”
“I wish thee would come too,” said Betty wistfully. “The other girls are nice, but there are none like thee and Sally. It used to be that we three were together in everything, but since the war began all that hath changed. What sort of times have come upon us when the only fun left to a damsel is to take the smallpox? And what does thee think, Peggy? I wove some linen, and sent it to the ladies to make into sheets for the prisoners. They said that it was the toughest linen they had ever worked with. It made their fingers bleed.”
“Oh, Betty, Betty! was it thou who wove that linen?” laughed Peggy holding up her hands for inspection. “I’ve had to bind my fingers up in mutton tallow every night since I sewed on it. Never mind! thee meant well, anyhow. Come now! Shall we have a cup of tea, and a chat anent things other than smallpox, or tough linen?”
The two girls left the room, and Mrs. Owen turned once more to her accounts. But as the days passed by and the complexion of the times became no better her perplexity deepened.
The ferment of the city grew. Personal and political disputes of all kinds were rife at this time. Men began to refer to the capital city as an attractive scene of debauch and amusement. In compliment to the alliance French fashions and customs crept in, and the extravagance of the country at large in the midst of its distresses became amazing. It was a period of transition. The war itself was dull. The two armies lay watching each other—Clinton in New York City, with Washington’s forces extending from White Plains to Elizabeth, New Jersey. The Congress was no longer the dignified body of seventy-six, and often sat with fewer than a dozen members. Even the best men wearied of the war, and their dissatisfaction communicated itself to the masses. The conditions favored excesses, and Philadelphia, as the chief city, was caught in a vortex of extravagances.
So it was much to Mrs. Owen’s relief when she received a letter from her husband bidding her to come to him with Peggy.
“There will be no luxuries, and few conveniences,” he wrote from Middlebrook, which was the headquarters for the winter of seventy-eight. “None the less there is time for enjoyment as well as duty. Many of the officers have their wives and families with them so that there is no reason why we should not be together also.
“Tell Peggy that she will live in the midst of military equipment, but will not find it unpleasant. General Greene told me that he dined at a table in Philadelphia last week where one hundred and sixty dishes were served. Would that our soldiers had some of it! What a change hath come over the hearts of the people! I shall be glad to have thee and my little Peggy out of it.