A LOYAL LITTLE RED-COAT
A Story of Child-life in New York a Hundred Years Ago
By Ruth Ogden
Fourth Edition
Illustrated by H. A. Ogden
New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company
1890
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PREFACE.
In the introductory chapter of “The History of the People of the United
States,” Mr. McMaster announces as his subject, “The history of the
people from the close of the war for Independence down to the opening of
the war between the States.” It seems at first thought improbable that
a history excluding both the Revolution and the Civil War should prove
in any great degree interesting, but the first twelve pages suffice to
convince one to the contrary. With consummate skill in selection and
narration, Mr. McMaster has brought to light information of a singularly
novel character. Impressed with this unlooked-for quality, it occurred
to me that here was ground that had not been previously gone over--not,
at any rate, in a story for children. “A Loyal Little Red-Coat” has been
the outcome. Whether I have succeeded in transferring to these pages
aught of the peculiar interest of the history remains to be seen. This
much may be said, however, that every historical allusion is based
upon actual fact. The English Circus, the Captain's letter, Harry's
Prison-Ship experiences, Alexander Hamilton's successful defence of a
Tory client, the treatment of the Bonifaces at the ball--all find their
counterpart in the realities of a century ago. For much of the minor
historical detail I am indebted to those rare and quaint old volumes,
carefully treasured by our historical societies, which make possible
the faithful recounting of the story of bygone days. In my attempt to
reproduce the child-life of a time so far removed, I have probably been
guilty of some anachronisms. If, however, I have woven a page of history
into a story that, by any chance, shall interest the children, for whom
it has been a delight to me to write it, I shall be sincerely grateful.
Ruth Ogden.
Brooklyn, N. Y.
A LOYAL LITTLE RED-COAT
CHAPTER I.--ON THE ALBANY COACH
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AZEL BONIFACE was a Loyalist, which means that she was a hearty little
champion of King George the Third of England, and this notwithstanding
she lived in America, and was born there. It had happened to be on a
crisp October morning of the year 1773 that Hazel's gray eyes first saw
the light, and they no sooner saw the light than they saw a wonderful
red coat, and just as soon as she was able to understand it, she learned
that that red coat belonged to her papa, and that her papa belonged to
King George's army. So, after all, you see it was but natural that she
should have been a little Loyalist from the start, and quite to have
been expected that she should, grow more and more staunch with every
year.
Now it chanced one midwinter afternoon, when Hazel was about six years
old, that she came into the city--that is, into New York--on an errand
with her father, and that she stood for a while watching a merry party
of boys, who were having the jolliest sort of a time coasting down
Powder House Hill, and skating on the clear, crystal ice of the Collect.
The Collect and Powder House Hill! You never heard of them, did you, and
yet may have lived in New York all your life; but you may believe the
little New Yorkers of those days knew them and loved them.
The Collect (though where it got its name no one knows) was a beautiful
sheet of water connected with the North River by a creek crossing
Broadway, where we now have Canal street, and the hill where the Powder
House stood was one of the pretty heights that bordered it. Wouldn't
some of the little people who live in that crowded part of the city
to-day be surprised to know, that only a hundred years ago ponds and
hills took the place of the level city streets, and that a boy could
start way over east of Broadway, skate under the arch at Canal street,
and then strike out across the broad Lispenard meadows straight to the
North River? But those boys of the olden time, who were spending their
short afternoon holiday there on the ice, were exactly like the boys of
to-day, in that they were cutting up the very silliest sort of capers.
Hazel, however, thought it all very funny, and longing for the time when
she should have a pair of skates of her own, wondered if that boy with
the pretty name--that boy the other boys called Starlight--would teach
her how to use them. And so one time when he came gliding her way she
called out, quite to the surprise of her father, whose hand she stood
holding, “Will you teach me how to skate when I grow old enough,
Starlight?”
“Bless your heart, yes,” came the answer, as soon as the finest little
skater that ever buckled skates on the Collect could put the brakes to
his winged feet, “but you must tell me your name, so that I shall know
you when you grow up.”
“Hazel, Hazel Boniface,” she replied; “and is your name really
Starlight? It's a beautiful name.”
“Yes, Starlight's my last name; my other name is Job; that isn't so
pretty, is it?”
“I should think not; I shall always call you just Starlight.”
And Hazel had been true to her word, and had always called Job just
Starlight, and Job had been true to his promise, and had long ago taught
Hazel to skate, for she was ten now and he fourteen, and they had been
the best of friends this long while, notwithstanding Job was as zealous
a Whig as was Hazel a Loyalist.
And now, for fear you should not happen to know just what is meant
by Whig and Loyalist, you must--there is no help for it if you are to
understand this story--put up with a solid little bit of history right
here and now. You see Hazel was born in 1773, and as she has just scored
a tenth birthday, that brings us to 1783, and 1783 found affairs in New
York in a decidedly topsy-turvy state. A great war had been going on for
eight long years called, as you know, the war of the Revolution, because
the colonies in America had _revolted_, declaring their determination
to be independent, and that King George of England should no longer be
their king. And all that while, that is, during those eight long years,
King George's soldiers had been in possession of New York, and many of
the Whigs--and Whigs, remember, are the people who sided against King
George--had fled from their dwellings, and scores of Loyalists, pouring
into the city to be under the protection of the English soldiers,
had made their homes in the Whigs' empty houses. But now matters were
beginning to look very differently. The great war was over, the colonies
had been successful, and although the English soldiers were still in
New York, they were soon to go, every one of them, and the Whigs were
returning in great numbers, and trying to turn out the Loyalists, whom
they found living in their homes. Most of these Loyalists, however, were
very loath to go, some of them, indeed, avowing that go they would not!
No wonder, then, that affairs in New York in 1783 were in a decidedly
topsy-turvy state; and this brings us to the real commencement of our
story, and to Hazel, sitting alone on the porch of her home at Kings
Bridge, and with a most woe-begone expression on her usually happy face.
Suddenly a new thought seemed to strike her, and she started on a brisk
little run for the gate; but it was simply that, hearing the sound of
wheels in the distance, she knew that the Albany coach was coming, and
the Albany coach was what she was waiting for. That was long before the
days of railroads, and when all the travelling must needs be done in
that “slow-coach” fashion.
The Albany stage was generally full inside, and, as Hazel expected, this
morning was no exception; but that did not make the least difference in
the world to her, for what she wanted was a seat beside Joe Ainsworth,
the driver. Indeed, it was not an unusual thing for Hazel to ask for a
ride into town, nor for Joe to grant it, so that the moment he spied her
standing in the road ahead of him, he knew what it meant, and reined up
his four dusty white horses.
Hazel looked very sweet and fresh, no doubt, in the eyes of the wearied
travellers, who had journeyed all night in the jouncing stage, and, in
fact, she would have looked sweet and fresh in the eyes of anybody
whose eyes were good for very much. She wore a quaint little gown and
kerchief, as yet without rumple or wrinkle, for it was but nine o'clock
in the morning, and breakfast and a quiet little “think” on the porch
had not proved in the least damaging to either skirt or kerchief. To
tell the truth, Hazel had an intense regard for a fresh and dainty
toilet, and somehow contrived to scale the side of the coach without in
any way begriming her pretty dress, although she was obliged to make use
of one great dusty wheel in ascending. First she planted both feet on
its hub, and then by aid of Joe's hand fairly bounded to her seat beside
him with quite as much grace as a little deer of the forest, and a
“little dear” she was in point of fact, if you alter but one letter in
the spelling.
“Well, Miss Hazel,” said Joe, after he had started up his horses, “how
are you this warm morning?” for it was early September, and the sun was
already shining hotly down upon them.
“Oh, I'm very well then,” after a moment's pause, “No, I don't believe I
am very well, either, because, Joe, I feel very blue.”
“Blue!” exclaimed Joe; “you blue! Why, you ought not to learn even the
meaning of the word these twenty years yet.”
“Some children learn it very young, Joe,” with a real little sigh.
“But what in creation have you to be blue about, I'd like to know?
Perhaps you have gotten a spot on that pretty Sunday frock of yours,”
for Joe knew Hazel's little weakness in that direction.
“Joe!” said Hazel, indignantly, and with such a world of reproof in her
tone that Joe had to pretend to cough to keep from laughing. “If you
think a moment, Joe, I'm sure you will remember that I have reason to
feel very, very blue indeed.”
Hazel was so serious that Joe felt in duty bound to put his thinking-cap
on, and ransacked his brain for the possible occasion of her depression.
Hazel, with childish dignity, did not offer to help him in the matter,
and they drove for a few moments in a silence broken only by the creak
of the weather-beaten stage, and the regular, monotonous rattle of
the loose-fitting harness. Down through the dusty yellow leaves of the
roadside trees the sunlight filtered, to the dustier hedges below, and
there was little or no life in the air. Indeed, it was a morning when
one had need to be very much preoccupied _not_ to feel blue, as Hazel
called it, and a discriminating person might have deemed the weather
in a measure responsible for her down-heartedness. Meanwhile the horses
jogged along at the merest little pretence of a trot, and, missing the
customary, “Get-up, Jenny!” and “Whist there, Kate!” subsided into a
walk, varied more than once by a deliberate standstill, whenever the
“off-leader” saw fit to dislodge a persistent fly by the aid of a
hind hoof. “Look here, driver!” called one of the passengers at last,
“there's a snail on the fence there, that will beat us into town if you
don't look out.” The fact was, Joe had not only put his thinking-cap on,
but had pulled it so far down over his ears, that he had quite
forgotten all about his horses and Hazel, and his thoughts had gone
“wool-gathering,” as old people's thoughts have a fashion of going. “Get
along with you,” he called to the tired team, thoroughly roused from
his reveries, and spurring them into greater activity with his long
whip-lash; then, turning to Hazel, he said--“Come to think of it, I
should not wonder if you are blue about that little Starlight matter.”
“Little Starlight matter! Do you think it's a little matter, Mr.
Ainsworth, to be kept out of your house and have a lot of soldiers
living in it?”
“But they are King George's soldiers; that ought to make it all right in
your eyes, Miss Hazel.”
“Oh, the men are not to blame; they have to do as the officers tell
them; but I hate that old Captain Wadsworth. Sometimes I think I'll
write and tell King George what a dreadful man he is, for I don't
believe he knows. But, after all, they say it's an American, our own
Colonel Hamilton, that's most to blame.”
“Alexander Hamilton! Why, how's that?” exclaimed Joe, knowing well
enough, but wishing to hear Hazel grow eloquent on the subject.
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“Well, this is how it is, Mr. Ainsworth,” and Hazel folded her hands and
composed herself for what promised to be quite a long story. “You know
the Starlights. Well, they've lived right on that same piece of land
ever since Job's great-great-grandfather, who was an Englishman, married
a Dutch wife and came to live in New York. Why, there weren't more than
half-a-dozen houses here when they came, and if anybody has a right
to their land and their house, they have. They used to be a very big
family, the Starlights did, but now there's only Job left and his Aunt
Frances. She's the loveliest lady, Joe, and so very fond of Starlight
(that's Job), and Starlight is just as good to her as a boy can be.
Well, one night, nearly two years ago, a party of English soldiers (some
of them were awful bad fellows, Joe, even if they were the King's
men) went about the street doing just about as they pleased, and Miss
Avery--that is, Aunt Frances--was very much frightened, as well she
might be, and the next day she packed up and took the ferry to Paulus
Hook, to stay with some friends of hers, who live over there and own a
big farm.”
“You mean the Van Vleets, don't you?” questioned Joe, now wisely
dividing his attention between Hazel's narrative and his horses, who
were only too quick to detect any lack of vigilance on his part.
“Yes, do you know them, Joe?”
“Know 'em like a book, Miss Hazel. Old Jacob Van Vleet has been over the
road with me scores of times.”
“Well, they're very kind people, Joe, and Starlight and his aunt are
living there still, only now that the war is over they want to come
back.”
“And that's not an easy thing to do, is it,” laughed Joe, “when your
house is full of English officers and their men?”
“But the soldiers have no right there, Joe, and the worst of it is,
Captain Wadsworth says he is going to resign his commission and stay
after his men go back to England, and make it his own home. He says it
belongs to him. It was given to him, after Miss Avery left it, by what
they call a military order. But, military order or no, Joe, that house
belongs to Aunt Frances.”
“Of course it would seem so, Miss Hazel--”
“And if it hadn't been for Colonel Alexander Hamilton she'd be in it
to-day, Joe. You see she went to law about it, and they say Colonel
Hamilton, who took Captain Wadsworth's side, is so smart and so handsome
that he just talked the court into deciding against her.”
“It certainly was mighty queer in Lawyer Hamilton,” said Joe,
meditatively, “to turn against his own side in that fashion; but, Miss
Hazel, why don't you go and see him about it?”
Hazel looked up a moment with a questioning gaze to see if he Were quite
in earnest.
“That is just what I am going to do this very day,” she answered,
reassured, “and first I want to see Captain Wadsworth. Let me down at
the Starlights' gate, please.”
So a few moments later the Albany coach reined up in front of the
Starlight homestead, and Hazel, jumping quickly down from the coach with
a “Thank you for the ride, Joe,” swung open the old Dutch gate with an
air well calculated to make the heart of Captain Wadsworth quake.