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The surrender of Burgoyne left the north free from foes, and consequently with no use for great numbers of soldiers, so that Putnam was soon in command of more than nine thousand men, mainly drafts from Gates's army.
Kosciusko, Gates's engineer, chose the ground on which to receive Burgoyne's attack, at one of these places where the heights crowd upon the river, thus forming a narrow defile, which a handful of men could easily defend against an army. At this place the house of a settler named Bemis stood by the roadside.
"It is Wilkie Collins gone mad, Gaboriau in extremis, Du Boisgobey suffering from delirium tremens. I go to Gates's house here, and am solemnly told in the midst of surroundings that I can swear to that I have never been there before; the whole mad expedition is launched by the turning of the handle of a telephone in the house of a distinguished, trusted, if prosaic, citizen.
They hoped by thwarting and insulting Washington to wound his pride and force him to resign. In this wretched work they had altogether too much help from Congress, but they failed ignominiously because Gates's lies were too plainly discovered. The attempts to injure Washington recoiled upon their authors. Never, perhaps, was Washington so grand as in that sorrowful winter at Valley Forge.
It was a good plan, undertaken without Gates's knowledge or consent. On the same day that Burgoyne was crossing the Hudson, Lincoln sent five hundred men to the head of Lake George, with orders to destroy the stores there; five hundred more to attack Ticonderoga; and another five hundred to Skenesborough, to support them in case of need.
Monona entered this request with precision on Ina's nastiest moments, but she always rose, unabashed, and went, motherly and dutiful, to hear devotions, as if that function and the process of living ran their two divided channels. She had dispatched this errand and was returning when Mrs. Bett crossed the lawn from Grandma Gates's, where the old lady had taken comfort in Mrs.
And when he heard master crying and cursing as he and missus were walking in the shrubbery, and saying that for the want of a few pounds a few shillings the finest fortune in Europe was to be overthrown, why Gates and his woman thought that they should come for'ard, to be sure, with all they could, to help the kindest master and missus ever was." This was the substance of Gates's speech; and Mr.
Men were killed on both sides, and presently Patterson was besieged. A regiment of soldiers was then sent from Philadelphia, under Colonel Armstrong, who had formerly been on Gates's staff, the author of the incendiary Newburgh address.
"I know what it is like to scrimp and save, and my children are going to be spared that!" was Mrs. Gates's creed in the matter. The little girls were always dressed alike in elaborately simple clothes, with frilly, starched underpinnies, silk stockings, high boots buttoned up slim legs; and across their shoulders, from beneath wonderful lingerie hats, hung shining curls.
There was a brief muttered conversation among the Dennisons, and then Jake Dennison rose, put on his hat slowly, and, addressing the other boys, announced that he didn't know what they were going to do, but he was "a-gwine home and git ready to go and see the dance up at Gates's." He swaggered toward the door, the others following in his wake. Keith rose from his seat. "Go back to your places."
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