"And New York and Philadelphia would 'a done the same, but for the ships turning tail, and going where they came from. They've burned the stuff in Annapolis, and it's spoiling in the Charleston cellars, bless the Lord!" said Mr. Smith, striking his heavy hand on his knee.
"Hurray!" shouted John and Jack and William and Ebenezer, Cynthia's brothers. "Hurray!" echoed Cynthia, as if she understood all about it.
The following year, when England shut up Boston Harbor with her "Stamp Act," never a bit of rice did Cynthia get to eat, for her father sent his whole harvest North, as did many another Southerner.
After that, John went to Massachusetts to visit Uncle Hezekiah, and the next June they heard that he had been shot dead at the battle of Bunker Hill.
Cynthia wept hot tears on her coarse homespun apron; but she dried them in a sort of strange delight when Jack, all on fire to take John's place, insisted on joining the Virginia Riflemen, and following a certain George Washington to the war.
"It's 'Liberty or Death' we have marked on our shirts, and it's 'Liberty or Death' we have burned into our hearts," Jack wrote home; at which his mother wrung her hands, and his father smiled grimly.
"Just wait, you two other boys," said the latter; "we'll have it hot and heavy at our own doors before we're through."
That was because Will and Ebenezer wished to follow in Jack's footsteps. Cynthia longed to be a boy, that she might indulge in a private skirmish with the "Britishers" on her own account.
But she had little time for even patriotic dreamings and yearnings. There was a deal of work to be done in those days.
Cynthia helped to weave cloth for the family gowns and trousers, and to spin and knit yarn for the paternal and fraternal stockings. This kept her very busy until 1776, when two great events took place.