Part 24 (1/2)

Rodney had secured quite profitable employment that winter. His mother's health had improved, and the lad could hear the clatter of her loom through the open window one warm morning in early March when a pa.s.sing horseman brought the news that ”Dan Morgan was having hard work to raise a body of riflemen.” He had been appointed a colonel the previous fall, and, as soon as he was released from his parole, began to enlist men to go to the a.s.sistance of Was.h.i.+ngton at Morristown.

The man talked loudly, and the noise of the loom ceased while Mrs.

Allison listened. After supper that evening she said, ”I hear that Colonel Morgan, of whom you have told me so much, is enlisting men.”

”Yes, mother, and there is no finer man for a leader than he, unless it is Was.h.i.+ngton.”

”I've thought, since Angus came home, that you were wis.h.i.+ng you might enter the service.”

Rodney looked up quickly. ”Why, if I could get away I'd like to go, but I--my duty is at home.”

”I am well, now,” she said, ”and affairs are in such condition I think we can care for them.”

”But--er--no, I ought not to.”

”My boy, you have my permission, indeed I'm not sure but it is your duty to give your service, your young life perhaps, to the cause of liberty.”

Rodney sprang up, his face aflame with eagerness. ”Do you mean it, mother?”

”Some one must fight our battles if we are to win. Your father is not here to go to the front, as he would have done had he lived, and--and I feel sure he would like to have the house of Allison represented in a cause he had so much at heart, and I'm afraid I should make a poor soldier, Rodney.”

”Mother, you are braver than any soldier who ever went to war!”

And so it happened that the following Monday, dressed in the homespun of his mother's loom and carrying the rifle he had taken from the lodge of the Wyandotte chieftain, Rodney Allison left for Winchester to join Morgan's command.

CHAPTER XXIII

IN THE THICK OF IT

”Can ye shoot straight an' often, travel light, starve an' yet fight on an empty stomach?”

”I've had some experience at that sort of thing, Colonel Morgan, and think I can be of service in your command.”

”Where have I seen you? Yer face looks familiar. I have it, your name is Allison an' you were the little feller as showed me the way to the rear of the redskins the day they ambushed Wood out in the Ohio country. Want ye, I reckon I do! I want five hundred like ye.”

And thus it was that Rodney found welcome when he presented himself to Morgan at Winchester, and the welcome was so hearty that it helped put the boy on friendly footing with his fellows at the start.

The march to Morristown was not very pleasant owing to the bad condition of the roads. On the way recruits joined them so that on the first of April, when they reached Was.h.i.+ngton's headquarters, they numbered about one hundred and eighty men, considerably less than the five hundred wanted.

One of the recruits who joined them on the march was a young man whose reception by Morgan attracted general attention, it was so cordial.

He was a straight, sinewy fellow with shrewd, kindly gray eyes and ”sandy” hair. He was clad like a frontiersman and the moment the colonel saw him he exclaimed, ”By all that's good an' glorious, Zeb, I've seen ye in my dreams followin' me up the ladder at the barrier, but I never expected to see ye in the flesh again. Where's yer Fidus--what's his name, that Lovell boy?”[1]

”I left him in Boston after the evacuation, an' haven't heard from him since. How are you?”

”Never so well in my life. Prison fare up in old Quebec agreed with me, I reckon. Boys,” he said, turning to a knot of his men who had gathered about, ”this man Zeb, an' a Boston boy, brought up the rear on that march to Quebec. It was the hardest thing I ever did when I detailed 'em for the duty. How they got through alive I never could understand. And young Allison, here, is a chap as was with me fightin'

Indians out in the Ohio country. I wish all the boys who've marched with me could fall into the ranks to-day; we'd keep right on to New York an' capture Howe, bag an' baggage.”

”When we take New York,” laughed Zeb, ”we'll need more men than Congress ever has got together, I'm thinkin'. I was there when Was.h.i.+ngton tried to hold it, because Congress an' the country expected him to do the impossible. But, Colonel, I will say as how if you led the way, thar'd not be one of 'em, as ever marched with Morgan, who wouldn't be at yer back.”