The Junior Classics, Volume 7: Stories of Courage and Heroism
History
The Junior Classics, Volume 7: Stories of Courage and Heroism
Children's literature
After a time, Mrs. Morris found an opportunity of showing, that,
although in principle she might be a Tory, she was at heart a good,
kind Quaker lady ready to give help to suffering people, no matter
whether they belonged to the side she favored or to that which she
opposed.
Some of the people who came up the river in the gunboats--and in
many cases the soldiers brought their wives with them, probably
as cooks--were taken sick during that summer; and some of these
invalids stopped at Burlington, being unable to proceed farther.
Here, to their surprise, they found no doctors; for all the patriots
of that profession had gone to the army, and the Tory physician had
departed to the British lines. But, as is well known, the women in
the early days of New Jersey were often obliged to be physicians;
and among the good housewives of Burlington, who knew all about
herb teas, homemade plasters, and potions, Mrs. Morris held a high
position. The sick Continentals were told that she was just as good
as a doctor, and, besides, was a very kind woman, always ready to
help the sick and suffering.
So some of the sick soldiers came to her; and from what Mrs.
Morris wrote, one or two of them must have been the same men who
had previously come to her house and threatened the life of her
boy, who had been looking at them with a spyglass. But now they very
meekly and humbly asked her to come and attend their poor comrades
who were unable to move. At first Mrs. Morris thought this was
some sort of a trick, and that they wanted to get her on board of
one of the gunboats, and carry her away. But when she found that
the sick people were in a house in the town, she consented to go
and do what she could. So she took her bottles with her, and her
boxes and her herbs, and visited the sick people, several of whom
she found were women.
They were all afflicted with some sort of a fever, probably of
a malarial kind, contracted from living day and night on board of
boats without proper protection; and, knowing just what to do with
such cases, she, to use her own expression, "treated them according
to art," and it was not long before they all recovered.
What happened in consequence of this hospital work for those whom
she considered her enemies, is thus related by Mrs. Morris:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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