Janice Meredith: A Story of the American RevolutionFord, Paul Leicester
History
Janice Meredith: A Story of the American Revolution
Ford, Paul Leicester
United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Fiction
When Janice came to examine the contents of the
baskets, she was somewhat disappointed at the
mess of pottage for which she had half bartered
herself. Though every article the commissary
had enumerated was to be found, it was in meagre quantities,
and the girl was shrewd-witted enough to divine the giver's
intention,--that she should be quickly forced again to appeal
to him. Her mother's requirements and her own hunger,
however, prevented dwelling on the future, and scarcely had
these been attended to, when Mobray and Andre appeared, to
inquire if her immediate needs were supplied, and with a plan
of assistance.
"Miss Meredith," said Mobray, "Captain Andre and I have
had assigned to us for quarters the Franklin house down on
Second Street; and he and I have agreed that, if Mrs. Meredith
can be moved, you are to come and share it with us."
"We ask it as a favour, which, if granted, will make us the
envy of the army," remarked Andre. "And it will, I trust,
not be an entirely one-sided benefit. The old fox's den is
more than comfortable, Mobray and I have a couple of rankers
as servants, one of whom has more or less attached to
him a woman who cooks well enough to make even the present
ration eatable, and, lastly, though our presence may be something
of a handicap, yet in such unsettled times one must
tolerate the dogs if they but keep out the wolves. Hang and
whip as we may, the men will plunder, and some in high office
are little better. Alone here, you are scarcely safe, but with us
you need have no fear."
Janice attempted some objections, but her previous helplessness
and loneliness, as well as her recent fright from the
commissary, made them faint-hearted, and it needed little
urgence to win her consent to the plan. Her mother approving,
a surgeon and an ambulance were secured, and before
nightfall the removal was safely accomplished.
When, after the first good night's sleep she had enjoyed
since her mother sickened, the girl was summoned to breakfast,
she found that others had been more wakeful. In the
middle of the table was a pail of milk, a pile of eggs, four unplucked
fowls, and two sucking pigs, arranged with some
pretence of ornament, with two officer's sword-knots to better
the attempt at decoration, and the whole surmounted by a
placard reading: "Only the brave deserve the fare."
"Gaze, Miss Meredith!', cried Andre, jubilantly. "See
the results of a valour of which you were the inspiration!
Marathon, Cressy, Fontenoy, and Quebec pale before the march,
the conflict, and the retreat of last night, the glories of which
would ne'er be credited, even alas! were it not necessary that
they should ne'er be told."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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