She tossed her head. “We scared the privateer builders! We went to ’em and showed ’em what would happen unless they made sure we got ship carpenters. After we scared ’em, they told off carpenters to go to the fleet. Sometimes they even gave us the money to pay the wages the carpenters demanded.”

“How’d you scare ’em?”

“We told ’em the truth. Told ’em that if they didn’t help us build a fleet on the lake, their privateers wouldn’t ever make any money for them on account of not having any home ports to come back to. We proved to ’em that the British would hold all the ports in America, so there wouldn’t be anything for the privateers to do but sail around in circles in the middle of the Atlantic.”

Cap Huff looked at me. “I told you she was smart!”

Phoebe eyed him darkly. “That shows you what ship builders have come to on the coast. I wouldn’t choose to see people in this section making fools of themselves in the same way. I hope I won’t hear of anyone whining, or being afraid of shadows, or such-like nonsense. So far as I can see, you haven’t anything to be afraid of. The fifty ship carpenters I brought up here today are as good ship carpenters as you’ll find anywhere, and I want ’em treated right, because the better they’re treated, the more work they’ll do.”

She stared hard at Cap, who set up an unmusical humming, like an enormous bee. “What’s more,” she went on, “you’ve got a Connecticut general coming up here, and two regiments of men that can handle felling-axes, unless they were brought up to be nursemaids or hairdressers, which they probably weren’t.”

“Felling-axes!” Cap bawled suddenly. “Where do you think—–”

He breathed heavily and was silent when Phoebe brandished a brown forefinger in his face. “Twelve hundred felling-axes left Albany yesterday, thanks to Schuyler, and two tons of oakum! Let me tell you, too, I’d rather be you, sweating over nothing worse than how to build ships without spikes and oakum, than be Schuyler, and be responsible for getting the oakum and the nails! Yes, and that’s not all! Connecticut may be full of pirates and wooden nutmegs and clay coffee beans, as you imply, but you can thank your stars for her governor! He’s sending eight hundred more felling-axes by way of Bennington; and Waterbury’s men claim he’s sending the best privateer captain in the state to sail one of your vessels. If New York was half as patriotic as that little mouse of a state, and had a governor a third as able as Trumbull, New York could whip three Englands, all by herself!”