He carefully tore the document into strips, and then into small squares, which were passed among the delighted audience. There was a busy whispering and scratching of heads. Over in one corner, jammed against the wall until he gasped for breath, Jabez Rockwell said to himself:
“I must guess shrewdly. Methinks he will choose a number halfway between fifteen hundred and two thousand. I will write down seventeen hundred and fifty. But, stay! Seventeen seventy-six may come first into his mind, the glorious year when the independence of the colonies was declared. But he will surely take it that we, too, are thinking of that number, wherefore I will pass it by.�
As if reading his thoughts, a comrade curled up in a bunk at Rockwell’s elbow muttered:
“Seventeen seventy-six, I haven’t a doubt of it!�
Alas for the cunning surmise of Jabez, the chief did write down Independence year, “1776,� and when this verdict was read aloud, the boy felt deep disappointment. This was turned to joy, however, when his guess of “1750� was found to be among the ten nearest the fateful choice, and one of the powder-horns fell to him.
The soldiers pressed back to make way for General Washington as he went out of the hut, stooping low that his head might escape the roof-beams. Before the party mounted, the boyish Lafayette swung his hat round his head and shouted:
“A huzza for ze wise general!�
The soldiers cheered lustily, and General Mühlenberg followed with:
“Now a cheer for the Declaration of Independence and for the soldier who wrote down ‘Seventeen seventy-six.’�
General Washington bowed in his saddle, and the shouting followed his clattering train up the valley on his daily tour of inspection. He left behind him a new-fledged hero in the person of Jabez Rockwell whose bold tactics had won him a powder-horn and given his comrades the rarest hour of the dreary winter at Valley Forge.