“And that’s what the picture is about?” Ethel said musingly, gazing upon it with redoubled interest. “I’m glad the Americans had such a good man for their general, and that God helped them to get free.”
“Yes, as one of our poets has said:
“Oh, who shall know the might Of the words he utter’d there? The fate of nations there was turned By the fervor of his prayer. “But wouldst thou know his name Who wandered there alone? Go, read enroll’d in Heaven’s archives, The prayer of Washington.”
“Ah, I like those verses,” Ethel said, her eyes shining. Then turning them again upon the picture, “He was praying for his poor soldiers then, wasn’t he? I think you said so.”
“No doubt; I know his heart bled for them in their sore extremities, for they were sore indeed. I have read that one day a foreign officer was walking with Washington among the huts where his soldiers were quartered, when they heard voices coming from between the logs of which they were built: ‘No pay, no provisions, no rum!’ and one poor fellow whom they saw going from one hut to another, was naked except that he had a dirty blanket wrapped about him. Then that officer despaired of ever seeing the Americans gain their freedom.”
“They did though, and I’m ever so glad of it!” Ethel said with satisfaction. “But—but you said they wanted rum. Were they drunkards, Mrs. Weston?”
“In those days, my dear, almost everybody took a little and did not think it wrong,” replied the lady, adding, “though now we think it is.”
“I hope God heard Washington’s prayer and soon made that bad Congress take better care of the poor soldiers who were fighting for them,” Ethel said enquiringly, still gazing earnestly at the picture.
“I am sorry to have to say that it was some time before Congress did much for their relief,” returned Mrs. Weston. “Indeed two winters later they—the poor soldiers—were in much the same condition at Morristown, where they were encamped at that time, having only beds of straw on the ground and but a single blanket to each man; while still their clothing was very poor and some had no shoes.
“It was a very severe winter, the snow early in January being from four to six feet deep and so obstructing the roads that they could not travel back and forth to get provisions, and in consequence were often for days at a time without bread, then again as long without meat; and the cold and hunger made the poor fellows so weak that they were hardly fit for fighting or for building their huts.”