In the Days of Poor Richard

  2

  A little later Jack and Solomon followed with eight horses and twowagons loaded with barrels of gunpowder made under the direction ofBenjamin Franklin and paid for with his money. A British fleet beingin American waters, the overland route was chosen as the safer one. Itwas a slow and toilsome journey with here and there a touch of sternadventure. Crossing the pine barrens of New Jersey, they were held upby a band of Tory refugees and deprived of all the money in theirpockets. Always Solomon got a squint in one eye and a solemn look inthe other when that matter was referred to.

  "'Twere all due to the freight," he said to a friend. "Ye see theirguns was p'intin' our way and behind us were a ton o' gunpowder. She'sawful particular comp'ny. Makes her nervous to have anybody nigh herthat's bein' shot at. Ye got to be peaceful an' p'lite. Don't let noargements come up. If some feller wants yer money an' has got a gunit'll be cheaper to let him have it. I tell ye she's an uppity,hot-tempered ol' critter--got to be treated jest so er she'll stomp herfoot an' say, 'Scat,' an' then--"

  Solomon smiled and gave his right hand a little upward fling and saidno more, having lifted the burden off his mind.

  On the post road, beyond Horse Neck in Connecticut, they had a moreserious adventure. They had been traveling with a crude map of eachmain road, showing the location of houses in the settled country where,at night, they could find shelter and hospitality. Owing to thepeculiar character of their freight, the Committee in Philadelphia hadrequested them to avoid inns and had caused these maps to be sent tothem at post-offices on the road indicating the homes of trustedpatriots from twenty to thirty miles apart. About six o'clock in theevening of July twentieth, they reached the home of Israel Lockwood,three miles above Horse Neck. They had ridden through a storm whichhad shaken and smitten the earth with its thunder-bolts some of whichhad fallen near them. Mr. Lockwood directed them to leave their wagonson a large empty barn floor and asked them in to supper.

  "If you'll bring suthin' out to us, I guess we better stay by her,"said Solomon. "She might be nervous."

  "Do you have to stay with this stuff all the while?" Lockwood asked.

  "Night an' day," said Solomon. "Don't do to let 'er git lonesome.To-day when the lightnin' were slappin' the ground on both sides o' me,I wanted to hop down an' run off in the bush a mile er so fer to seethe kentry, but I jest had to set an' hope that she would hold hertemper an' not go to slappin' back."

  "She," as Solomon called the two loads, was a most exacting mistress.They never left her alone for a moment. While one was putting away thehorses the other was on guard. They slept near her at night.

  Israel Lockwood sat down for a visit with them when he brought theirfood. While they were eating, another terrific thunder-storm arrived.In the midst of it a bolt struck the barn and rent its roof open andset the top of the mow afire. Solomon jumped to the rear wheel of oneof the wagons while Jack seized the tongue. In a second it was rollingdown the barn bridge and away. The barn had filled with smoke andcinders but these dauntless men rolled out the second wagon.

  Rain was falling. Solomon observed a wisp of smoke coming out fromunder the roof of this wagon. He jumped in and found a live cinderwhich had burned through the cover and fallen on one of the barrels.It was eating into the wood. Solomon tossed it out in the rain andsmothered "the live spot." He examined the barrels and the wagon floorand was satisfied. In speaking of that incident next day he said toJack:

  "If I hadn't 'a' had purty good control o' my legs, I guess they'd 'a'run erway with me. I had to put the whip on 'em to git 'em to step inunder that wagon roof--you hear to me."

  While Solomon was engaged with this trying duty, Lockwood had led thehorses out of the stable below and rescued the harness. A heavy showerwas falling. The flames had burst through the roof and in spite of therain, the structure was soon destroyed.

  "The wind was favorable and we all stood watching the fire, safe buthelpless to do anything for our host," Jack wrote in a letter."Fortunately there was another house near and I took the horses to itsbarn for the night. We slept in a woodshed close to the wagons. Weslipped out of trouble by being on hand when it started. If we hadgone into the house for supper, I'm inclined to think that the Britishwould not have been driven out of Boston.

  "We passed many companies of marching riflemen. In front of one ofthese, the fife and drum corps playing behind him, was a young Tory,who had insulted the company, and was, therefore, made to carry a graygoose in his arms with this maxim of Poor Richard on his back: 'Notevery goose has feathers on him.'

  "On the twentieth we reported to General Washington in Cambridge. Thiswas the first time I saw him in the uniform of a general. He wore ablue coat with buff facings and buff underdress, a small sword, richepaulets, a black cockade in his three-cornered hat, and a blue sashunder his coat. His hair was done up in a queue. He was in boots andspurs. He received us politely, directing a young officer to go withus to the powder house. There we saw a large number of barrels.

  "'All full of sand,' the officer whispered. 'We keep 'em here to foolthe enemy,'

  "Not far from the powder house I overheard this little dialogue betweena captain and a private.

  "'Bill, go get a pail o' water,' said the captain.

  "'I shan't do it. 'Tain't my turn,' the private answered."

  The men and officers were under many kinds of shelter in the big camp.There were tents and marquees and rude structures built of boards androughly hewn timber, and of stone and turf and brick and brush. Somehad doors and windows wrought out of withes knit together in thefashion of a basket. There were handsome young men whose thighs hadnever felt the touch of steel; elderly men in faded, moth-eatenuniforms and wigs.

  In their possession were rifles and muskets of varying size, age andcaliber. Some of them had helped to make the thunders of Naseby andMarston Moor. There were old sabers which had touched the ground whenthe hosts of Cromwell had knelt in prayer.

  Certain of the men were swapping clothes. No uniforms had beenprovided for this singular assemblage of patriots all eager forservice. Sergeants wore a strip of red on the right shoulder;corporals a strip of green. Field officers mounted a red cockade;captains flaunted a like signal in yellow. Generals wore a pinkribband and aides a green one.

  This great body of men which had come to besiege Boston was able toshoot and dig. That is about all they knew of the art of war.Training had begun in earnest. The sergeants were working with squads;Generals Lee and Ward and Green and Putnam and Sullivan with companiesand regiments from daylight to dark.

  Jack was particularly interested in Putnam--a short, rugged, fat,white-haired farmer from Connecticut of bluff manners and nasal twangand of great animation for one of his years--he was then fifty-seven.He was often seen flying about the camp on a horse. The young man hadread of the heroic exploits of this veteran of the Indian wars.

  Their mission finished, that evening Jack and Solomon called at GeneralWashington's headquarters.

  Jack Irons and Solomon Binkus with General GeorgeWashington.]

  "General, Doctor Franklin told us to turn over the bosses and wagons toyou," said Solomon. "He didn't tell us what to do with ourselves'cause 'twasn't necessary an' he knew it. We want to enlist."

  "For what term?"

  "Till the British are licked."

  "You are the kind of men I need," said Washington. "I shall put you onscout duty. Mr. Irons will go into my regiment of sharp shooters withthe rank of captain. You have told me of his training in Philadelphia."