Phoebe smiled at him, a lop-sided smile, and twisted her fingers in her brown beads. “No, you naturally wouldn’t guess so. I only mention it so you won’t be impatient with those of us that aim to help you. There’s a lot of talk, at home, about patriotism. If you believe all you hear, everyone’s a Patriot; but when you try to get somebody to give you fifty dollars to prove his patriotism, that’s another story! Fifty ship carpenters marched up here with me to work on these ships, and only seven came of their own free will, to help the army! Only seven! You couldn’t get the rest of ’em away from the privateersmen unless you filled their hats with money and gave ’em as much live-stock as Noah carried in the Ark. Dominicus Davis and my cousin Theodore Marvin, they came for whatever pay we want to give ’em, and they’ll ship on the fleet when it’s ready to sail; but Enoch Cluff, from Wells, he wouldn’t come till he’d got fifty dollars hard money and nine cows, the cows to be let out to the persons that paid ’em, and doubled in four years’ time. Do you know how many cows Enoch Cluff’ll have by the time this war’s over?”

Cap Huff heaved himself about, and produced from some portion of his rags the stub of a pencil. “I know how many you think he’ll have, Phoebe,” he said, “but you’re mistook! Just let me have the names of the seven that come of their own free will.”

Phoebe ignored him. “Why, we had to offer ’em more than money and cows. Money and cows wasn’t enough! When we offered ’em money and cows to come up here and help stop the British from splitting the colonies in two, they shook their heads and said No, they guessed they’d stay where they were, on account of their labor’s being so valuable to the country! Valuable!”

She hitched at her red sash and shook her fist at Steven Nason. “Do you know what I’d do in time of war? I wouldn’t let anybody—not anybody—make more money than a soldier makes! I’d oblige every man to go in the army unless he could swear he was so poorly he hadn’t eaten but one meal a day for a month, and that a small one!”

Doc Means stared up at her pathetically. “I wouldn’t advise letting anyone off on that account. Half a meal a day is all you get in this army, and it ain’t harmed us yet.”

Nason looked at his wife as though lost in perpetual admiration of her, which I think he was. “How’d you contrive to get ’em to come, Phoebe?”