Yet all this time, one great desire and romantic longing of the maidens was unfulfilled. The yearning of the girls, as they became sweethearts, wives, and mothers, was handed down, as if it were a family heirloom, to see a real prince or a nobleman, or a man with a title. They hoped that some officer, in resplendent uniform, such as they had seen in their home village, would come into their neighborhood, for they were tired of Quaker drab. Even though their grandparents were democratic by their Swiss inheritance, and almost by instinct, and though reared in the oldest of republics, and accustomed to town meetings, the little maids, Sarah and Hannah, longed to see a real pageant, a prince; or at least a marquis, and something of the pomp of courts or even of armies. They heard that the Prince of Wales, who became King George II, had indeed visited New York, and skated on the ice of the Collect Pond; but he had come and gone, as a private person, and it was not likely [[21]]that either he, again, or even King George III would ever visit the colonies.
Before the two little girls could know what it all meant, the Harbys heard, in their home at Barren Hill, of the Continental Congress, held in Carpenters’ Hall, in Philadelphia. In this gathering Canada was represented. Then, it was hoped that there would be fourteen stripes in the flag, which the Philadelphia City Troop of cavalry were making. But when their flag was unfurled and the handsome horsemen escorted Colonel George Washington, of Virginia, to Cambridge, many felt very sorry, that there were only thirteen, instead of the longed-for fourteen stripes, and hoped, even yet, that Canada would join.
War broke out. From the new State House, in Philadelphia, then one of the most wonderful buildings in any of the colonies, floated the flag of thirteen stripes, red and white, and independence was proclaimed.
Then, after two years, this same flag had as many stars in its blue field. Yet the armies of the Congress met with many disasters, and, one day the little girls out in the garden heard the boom of the cannon at Brandywine. It was not very long afterward, that the Continentals marched past the house, to make camp and winter quarters at Valley Forge. [[22]]
Among the young men riding on horses, as Washington’s body guard of young troopers, who were mostly Pennsylvania Swiss, or Germans, was John Harby’s nephew, Gustave. At the camp, besides being an orderly at headquarters, it was his special duty to raise, at sunrise, and lower, at sunset, the thirteen-striped flag, which now bore no longer the British Union Jack, but a blue field, in which, in a circle of glory, were thirteen stars; and he and his comrades rejoiced that the colonies had been made independent, and each stripe and star stood for a state, and all in a union. It was his people that, first of all, spoke of Washington as the “Father of his country”; or, as the minister said, “Pater Patriæ.”
The winter of 1777–78 had nearly passed and many a skirmish, between the British foraging parties, of Hessians and red coats, and the American Colonel Sheldon’s dragoons, had taken place. One fine morning, in the spring, while Gustave was taking breakfast, with his little cousins at the Harbys, all were startled by the firing of guns at Valley Forge. Evidently the Continentals were busy burning powder, but why?
“A battle?” asked the mother as she glanced at her husband.
At the first roll of the echoes, the young [[23]]trooper, Gustave, put on his bearskin cap, seized his carbine, and rushed out to hear. Putting his ear to the ground, he made up his mind that the reports were too regular for war. Then, entering the house, he declared it must be a salvo—a feu de jeu—or joy volley.
“For what, I wonder,” asked Mrs. Harby.
“I know,” said Daddy. “We have been waiting for news of the alliance with France. Now, our Continentals and the sparkling Bourbonnieres will march together. Whole companies, among these, are our Swiss boys.” Then he hummed, joyfully, the old German tune of Yankee Doodle. Perhaps now, a French fleet would come up the Delaware, blockade Philadelphia, and capture Howe’s army, as Burgoyne had been captured. At the table, they kept on talking a long time.