Part 46 (1/2)

”That is the n.o.blest type of womanhood,” said General Was.h.i.+ngton.

”Perhaps,” he added, ”you may wish to visit your parents for a few days, but a little later I shall desire you to a.s.sist Colonel Knox in executing an important trust.”

”I am ready to do what I can in any capacity for which I am fitted,”

Robert replied.

A flag of truce went out from the headquarters; among the letters to people in Boston was one directed to Miss Ruth Newville. The red-coated officer who inspected the letters read but one word.

”Safe.”

To her who received it the one syllable was more than a page of foolscap.

XXII.

BRAVE OF HEART.

The king's plan to punish Boston because the East India Company's tea had been destroyed was not working very satisfactorily. Ten thousand troops were cooped up in the town with little to eat. They could obtain no fresh provisions. Lord North was sending many s.h.i.+ps, and the s.h.i.+p-owners were asking high prices for the use of their vessels; for the Yankee skippers of Marblehead, Captain Manly and Captain Mugford, were darting out from that port in swift-sailing schooners, with long eighteen-pounders amids.h.i.+ps, and the decks swarming with men who had braved the storms of the Atlantic and knew no fear, capturing the s.h.i.+ps dispatched from England with food and supplies for the army. The ministers had paid twenty-two thousand pounds for cabbages, potatoes, and turnips; as much more for hay, oats, and beans; half a million pounds for flour, beef, and pork. They purchased five thousand oxen, fourteen thousand sheep, and thousands of pigs, that the army three thousand miles away might have something to eat. There were plenty of cattle, sheep, and pigs within fifty miles of Boston, but General Howe could not lay his hand on one of them. The winter storms were on, and the s.h.i.+ps sailing down the Thames or from Bristol Channel had a hard time of it before losing sight of the hills of Devon. The people along the Cornwall sh.o.r.es beheld the seash.o.r.e strewn with carca.s.ses of cattle, sheep, and pigs, tossed overboard from the decks of foundering vessels. The few cattle that survived the six weeks' tossing on the sea were but skin and bones when the s.h.i.+ps dropped anchor by Castle William.

In contrast, Tom Brandon and the soldiers under General Was.h.i.+ngton had plenty of good food. It was a tantalizing handbill which Benjamin Edes printed on his press at Watertown.

Tom Brandon, on picket at Charlestown Neck, hailed the Britisher a few rods distant.

”How are you, redcoat?”

”How are you, rebel?”

”Say, redcoat, if you won't pop at me, I won't at you.”

”Agreed.”

”Wouldn't ye like a chaw of tobacco, redcoat?”

”I wouldn't mind.”

”All right. Here's a plug with my compliments; 'tain't poisoned. Ye needn't be afraid of it,” said Tom, tossing it to him.

The Britisher opened the paper and read:--

_American Army._ _English Army._

1. Seven dollars a month. 1. Three pence a day.

2. Fresh provisions in plenty. 2. Rotten salt pork.

3. Health. 3. The scurvy.

4. Freedom, ease, affluence, 4. Slavery, beggary, and want.

and a good farm.