How a certain little girl prepared for General Washington the “best
breakfast he had had in a month.”
Long, long ago, when my mother was a little girl, there lived in her
neighborhood an old lady whom all the children called “Aunt Prissy.”
She was a quaint, funny little old lady, with her bobbing white curls,
and always wore a small black lace cap, a black silk gown, a soft white
kerchief, and fringed silk apron.
The children loved to pay a visit to Aunt Prissy. After they were all
carefully seated, each child with a small seed-cake, the eager little
faces would turn toward her, and one of the children would say, “Now,
Aunt Prissy, we won’t drop crumbs on the floor, and we are sitting up
straight, and we haven’t got our knees crossed, so won’t you please
tell us about the time you saw General Washington with your own eyes?”
Aunt Prissy would count the stitches in her knitting, look up over her
“specs,” and begin, “Well, well, children, it does seem to me you ought
to know _that_ story by heart. But never mind; I s’pose you know which
you like best.
“Now let me see. It must have been in ’81, and I was nine years old,
that our folks went to Salisbury to see General Washington.
“I had been in disgrace for a whole day, and for punishment it was
decided that I must stay at home.
“My poor little heart almost broke, and I cried and made myself
altogether disagreeable while the great lunch-baskets were being
strapped behind the carriage, the huge bunches of roses to hurl at
the general wrapped in wet cotton, and the family bundled into the
carriages.
“After they had gone I wandered disconsolately about house and garden.
As I was swinging on the gate and wondering what I would do next, I
heard a great clatter of horses’ feet up the road, and in a few minutes
a party of men in uniform came in sight. I had seen enough soldiers to
know that these were Continental officers, so I was not frightened, but
waited until they came up.
“A tall man on a white horse, with a cocked hat and plain uniform, rode
forward, and with the kindest smile in the world, asked, ‘My little
girl, can you give us a cup of coffee?’
“Now I was very proud of being able to make coffee and batter-cakes, so
I said I would try. The gentlemen rode into the yard, their servants
came forward to take the horses, and I showed the party into the
house. Mammy Dilsie had gone to the quarters on an errand, so I had
things my own way.
“A fire was blazing in the huge kitchen fireplace. We didn’t have
cooking-stoves in those days, but did our baking in great round iron
ovens, with lids to heap coals on, and our boiling in pots swung
over the coals on cranes. I raked out a nice bed of coals, filled
the big coffee-pot, and soon had it simmering, then put the pan for
the batter-cakes on to heat, made them up, had them nicely browned
in a trice, set out a cold ham, and then invited the gentlemen in to
breakfast.
“They came, laughing and talking, said the coffee was the best they
had ever tasted, the cakes delicious. I poured the coffee, and the
gentlemen laughed and joked me, and one of them asked how I happened to
be at home all alone.
“My eyes filled with tears and I could hardly speak, but managed
to tell him that everybody had gone to Salisbury to see General
Washington; and that I wanted to see him worst of all because in the
picture of him in my red book one of his eyes was blue and the other
brown, and I wanted to see if it was really true. The officers all
laughed at this, but the leader raised his hand, and they did not say
anything.
“‘But why did you not go, little maid?’ he asked.
“Then I hung my head, but at last blurted out, ‘Because I tried to bury
John’s ten little biddies in the sand.’
“The men roared again at this; but the tall one said, ‘Did you not
know that it was very wrong to hurt the little chicks?’
“I began to cry then, but the kind officer took me on his knee and
kissed me.
“‘And now, my little maid,’ he said, ‘you may tell your mother that you
did see General Washington and gave him the best breakfast he has had
in a month. And you see, his eyes are neither brown nor blue, but gray.’
“And I looked into his kind face and saw that the red book was not even
half right. Then Mammy Dilsie came in and courtesied to the floor when
I told her who it was.
“The gentlemen patted me on the head, General Washington kissed me
again, and they rode away.”