“Well, father, I’m in earnest. I don’t dislike real Britishers or Tories; but these German mercenaries I do detest.”
“Bah! bah!” growled Van Alstyne. “Perhaps to-morrow we’ll have a band of Continentals or some roving Skinners; then perhaps, day after, ‘tother side may visit us again. Why, child, I’m getting rich out of this war.”
“Take one side or the other,” returned Martha, shaking her head. “I’d rather be fair and open, even if we made less money.”
“Humph! We’d be in a pretty fix if I did that, child—a pretty fix. Why, this tavern wouldn’t stand a week, except for my double-faced sign-board; whereas now George Washington might be entertained here and depart highly edified, and so might King George. The only unpleasantness would be if they both happened to come at the same time. And so, child, you ought not to be finding fault.” Then, after pausing long enough to take a chew of tobacco: “And besides,” he went on, “’tis not easy in this world always to see the clear path we ought to follow. Why, you yourself are in a fix; and I don’t wonder at it, for in this township I can’t name two honester, jollier more manly fellows than ‘Lisha Williams and Harry Valentine. And if I were a girl with those two boys for sparks, I believe I’d jump into East Chester Creek, so that neither of ’em might be disappointed.”
Here Martha’s merry laugh rang through the house; then, taking Elisha’s bouquet in one hand and Harry’s magnolia in the other, she stretched forth her arms and stood exactly half-way between the two love-gifts, and said: “Well, yes, I am in a fix.”
“And a very, very sweet fix,” mumbled Uncle Pete, rolling the quid about in his capacious mouth. “Many a young woman might envy you.”
“Well, I do wonder how long it will last. I must decide one of these days.”
“Don’t be in a hurry, child. Wait; have patience. If we are beaten and forced to remain colonies, marry Harry Valentine; if we secure our independence, then choose ‘Lisha. For ’twill go hard with the party that’s beaten; their land will be confiscated.”
“Dear, darling flowers! How delicious you are!” said Martha, bringing the magnolia and the nosegay together and pressing both to her lips; and she kept kissing them and smelling them, and smelling and kissing them, till at length her father said:
“Humph! they’ll soon wilt, if you treat the pretty things that way.”