VOL. I May 1902 No. 3
WITH WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGEBy W. Bert Foster
By W. Bert Foster
The story opens in the year of 1777, during one of the most critical periods of the Revolution. Hadley Morris, our hero, is in the employ of Jonas Benson, the host of the Three Oaks, a well-known inn on the road between Philadelphia and New York. Like most of his neighbors, Hadley is an ardent sympathizer with the patriot cause. When, therefore, a dispatch bearer is captured on the way to Philadelphia, he gives Hadley the all-important packet to be forwarded to General Washington. The boy immediately escapes with it, and, after many perilous experiences, finally makes his way across the river to the Pennsylvania side. On the road, Hadley, failing to give the countersign, is stopped by a foraging party of Americans; but by his honest bearing he wins the attention of John Cadwalader, a personal friend of Washington, just then journeying to the American headquarters. Under his protection, our hero speedily arrives at his destination, and there, in an interview with General Washington himself, he tells his story and delivers the dispatches, which, because of the impending crisis, are received eagerly by the head of the patriot cause.
The story opens in the year of 1777, during one of the most critical periods of the Revolution. Hadley Morris, our hero, is in the employ of Jonas Benson, the host of the Three Oaks, a well-known inn on the road between Philadelphia and New York. Like most of his neighbors, Hadley is an ardent sympathizer with the patriot cause. When, therefore, a dispatch bearer is captured on the way to Philadelphia, he gives Hadley the all-important packet to be forwarded to General Washington. The boy immediately escapes with it, and, after many perilous experiences, finally makes his way across the river to the Pennsylvania side. On the road, Hadley, failing to give the countersign, is stopped by a foraging party of Americans; but by his honest bearing he wins the attention of John Cadwalader, a personal friend of Washington, just then journeying to the American headquarters. Under his protection, our hero speedily arrives at his destination, and there, in an interview with General Washington himself, he tells his story and delivers the dispatches, which, because of the impending crisis, are received eagerly by the head of the patriot cause.
THE collie rattled his chain at the corner of the sheep pen, and from a low growl changed his welcome to a bark of delight and frisked about Hadley’s legs as the boy stopped to pat him. The house door across the paved yard opened and the innkeeper’s voice cried: “Be still, Bose! Who’s out there?”
Hadley went nearer and laughed. “What’s the matter, Master Benson?” he asked. “Are the dragoons still about the place?”
At once the innkeeper plunged down the steps, and, reaching the boy, seized him tightly in his arms. “Had! Had!” he cried, “why did you come back to the Three Oaks? We thought you’d join the army for sure this time.”
“Is the colonel still here?” asked Hadley, in haste, and drawing back from the inn.
“Yes, he’s here,” grunted Jonas, “but he can’t do anything to you. The dragoons are no longer at the Mills. Malcolm’s troop started for York this morning. There’s something going to happen ’fore long, for the British are stirring, and they say Lord Howe has sailed with his fleet.”
“I know,” said the boy, with some pride. “There’s going to be a big battle, or something. Those papers I ran away with told all about Lord Howe’s plans, and now our generals will be able to meet him.”
“Who told you?” Jonas asked, open-mouthed in astonishment.
“I heard General Washington himself say so,” declared the boy, and then, having entered the wide inn kitchen, and, finding it empty, he had to sit down and relate the particulars of his ride to Germantown, and his brief interview with the Commander-in-Chief of the American forces.
“I’ve heard of that Colonel Cadwalader,” Jonas said, drawing a long breath, “and you were certainly lucky to make such a powerful friend, Hadley. Why didn’t you join the army? You’d make a good soldier, and perhaps get to be a captain, or something. Men rise quick from the ranks now-a-days.”
“You know very well why I cannot enlist,” Hadley replied, gravely. “If Uncle Ephraim should tell me I could go, I might feel as though I would not be breaking my word by enlisting. But unless he says so, I don’t see how I can do it, much as I would like.”
The innkeeper shook his head. “Ah, boy, there’s plenty of time yet for you, after all, it’s likely. The struggle is bound to be a long one. The king is sending over more troops, they say, and there’s a big force marching from Canada. We’ll never give up till we’re free; but most of us may be dead before freedom comes.”
Mistress Benson came in a minute later, and her delight at seeing Hadley safe and sound again was sincere, although, as Jonas had admitted to the boy’s private ear, she was none too sympathetic with the patriot cause. She set before the boy a bountiful repast and made him eat his fill. Then he retired to his usual couch in the loft of the great barn and slept undisturbed until morning.
He was currying down Black Molly in the open door of the stable before breakfast when Colonel Knowles chanced to stroll into the inn yard. The Englishman stopped and stared at the stableboy with a lowering brow. Hadley kept at work, whistling cheerfully, but a little amused at the colonel’s evident surprise, and not at all sure what the outcome of the meeting might be.
“Well, young man!” exclaimed the guest; “you certainly are a youth of mettle to dare come back here after what occurred the other day. Do you know who I am?”
“You are a guest of Master Benson’s, sir,” Hadley said, quietly.
“I am an officer in His Majesty’s army, sir.”
“But you are in the enemy’s country just now, Colonel Knowles,” the boy said, softly. “The dragoons are no longer within call, and although there are some Tories in the neighborhood, there are more men who hold to the cause of the Colonies. I think I am safer to come back here than you are to remain.”
“Humph!” grunted the colonel; but the words evidently impressed him. After a moment of sullen silence he said: “They tell me your name is Morris; is that so?”
“It is, sir.”
“Do you know a person named Ephraim Morris living in this part of the country?”
“That is my uncle’s name,” declared the boy, and his interest grew, for he remembered his conversation two days before with Mistress Lillian.
“How old a man is he?” demanded Colonel Knowles, with some eagerness.
“Rising sixty, sir. He is a farmer and lives not more than four miles from here.”
“Well,” said the Englishman, turning finally on his heel, “you’re a worthy nephew of such an uncle, I don’t doubt.”
“I’m afraid Uncle Ephraim would not agree with you,” Hadley called after the gentleman. “He is a Tory.”
But Colonel Knowles paid no further attention to him, and the boy went on with his work. But his mind ran continually on the interest the colonel and his daughter evidently had in old Ephraim Morris. Mistress Lillian herself appeared after breakfast, and while Hadley was clearing up the entrance to the inn yard. Jonas Benson prided himself on having everything about the inn as neatly kept as did his wife inside the house.
“Hadley Morris!” the colonel’s daughter exclaimed, leaning over the railing of the inn porch and looking at the youth with sparkling eyes. “Has my father seen you? Mistress Benson told me you had come back and that she was afraid father would be angry when he saw you. Aren’t you afraid?”
“I’ve seen the colonel,” Hadley replied, smiling up at her. He remembered the anxiety in her countenance when he had last seen her looking from the inn window as he ran with the dispatches to escape the dragoons, and he was not so much afraid of her as he had been earlier in their acquaintance. “He wasn’t very pleasant, but the dragoons aren’t in the neighborhood now and I guess he won’t try to do anything to me. You see, m’am, most of the farmers are on my side.”
“You are a terrible rebel!” declared the girl, but she still smiled down upon him. “Did you carry those dispatches ’way to—to that Mr. Washington whom your people call ‘general’?”
“I went all the way with them and saw General Washington himself,” declared the boy, proudly. “He is a mighty fine gentleman, and the place where he stops was full of officers. All the American army are not ragamuffins,” and his eyes twinkled as he thus reminded her of her criticism of the American soldiery on a previous occasion. “Some of the colonists know how to fight as well as hired soldiers.”
“And some of them know how to run,” Lillian cried.
“True. Would you have had me stand here and face that whole mob of dragoons—to say nothing of your father?”
“Oh, I didn’t mean you. I think you were very smart to get away on that horse with the dispatches. And I’ll tell you what father said about it,” she added, lowering her voice and glancing about her. “He said that ‘if the rebel youth can fight so well and are such strategists, it is no wonder that my Lord Howe and the other generals have so little luck in bringing the uprising to a swift close.’ Now, aren’t you proud?”
Hadley flushed as she spoke. “I thought he was very angry with me this morning.”
“Well, I think he is angry enough; but he seemed to admire your ability to beat the dragoons and get across the river as you did. I heard him and the officer in command of the troopers talking about it, and they both wondered how you escaped them on the road to the ferry. Father said he had almost caught you—he could tell by the sound of your horse’s feet—when the sound suddenly stopped and you disappeared as though the earth had opened and swallowed you. How did you do it?”
“You are an enemy,” the boy returned, with amusement. “I couldn’t tell you that, you know. Anything else—”
“Tell me what sort of a man that uncle of yours, Ephraim Morris, is?” she broke in, suddenly. “I spoke to father about him and he said he must be the man he has come here to see.”
“Uncle Ephraim is an old man. He came from England years ago. He isn’t liked very well. He’s a king’s man, you know—a Tory.”
“Oh! that’s something in his favor,” she declared.
“So I thought you’d say,” he replied, shouldering his rake and broom and preparing to return to the stableyard. “I didn’t want you to have too bad an opinion of Uncle Ephraim.”
“If he is the person my father is looking for I have a very bad opinion of him, indeed, and his being for the king will make little difference one way or another.”
Her words disturbed Hadley when he thought them over. Mistress Lillian had seemed well disposed towards him personally, but she was also bitter against his uncle, and Hadley believed Uncle Ephraim should have warning of the colonel’s visit. So, immediately after his duties at the Three Oaks were performed, Hadley set out to his uncle’s house.
The Morris pastures were the nearest to the Three Oaks Inn, and crossing the road where he had so fortunately escaped the dragoons by the aid of Lafe Holdness, Hadley struck into the open plain on which his uncle’s cattle grazed.
The big pasture was dotted with clumps of trees, and while yet Hadley was some distance from the farmhouse and its neighboring buildings, he saw a band of young stock stampeding wildly from the vicinity of a grove of dwarfed oaks not far away. The cattle, heads down and tails in the air, plunged across the plain at a mad pace, and Hadley was positive that they were not running without cause. The drove passed him like a whirlwind, and in their wake came a loudly-yelping cur and a person whom he very well knew, urging the dog on.
“Hold on there! what are you about?” cried Hadley, running forward. “What are you chasing the cattle for? That brute of yours will kill some of the stock.”
It was Lon Alwood, and it was quite evident by Lon’s expression of countenance that Hadley was the last person he had expected to meet just then. “Wh—why, I thought you had gone to join the army!” he gasped.
“I’m right here to tell you to stop chasing my uncle’s cattle,” returned Hadley, in disgust.
“Oh, you are, hey?” cried the other boy, with bravado. Then, to the cur who had halted like his master at the appearance of Hadley: “Sic ’em, boy—sic ’em!”
Hadley grabbed a clod, and as the dog started after the fleeing steers he hurled the lump of earth with considerable force and it bounded resoundingly from the canine’s ribs. The brute gave a yelp and took refuge behind its master, its interest for the moment lost in the inoffensive cattle. There it crouched and growled at Hadley, while Lon fairly danced up and down in his rage.
“What you need, Had Morris, is a sound thrashing, and I’m going to give it to you right now!” declared the young Tory.
“I wouldn’t try any thrashing, if I were you, Lon. You know you tried it once, a long time ago, and I haven’t forgotten how to wrestle since then.”
Hadley tried to pass on as he spoke, but young Alwood sprang before him and barred his way. “You’re going to get thrashed right here and now, Had Morris!” declared he, resentfully. “You haven’t got any gun or pistol to help you out, and I’m not afraid of you. So look out for yourself!”
Hadley saw no way of avoiding the struggle unless he took to his heels, and he could not bring himself to do that. So he met his antagonist’s charge to the best of his ability, and in a moment they were locked together in a close, but far from loving, embrace, while the dog ran around and around them, barking its approval of its master’s conduct.