Washington’s War

by Stacia Deutsch

  “I’m not being left behind again!” I put my hands on my hips and refused to move.

  Jacob rolled his eyes at me. Zack sighed. And Bo shook his head. “We aren’t going to leave you,” they said almost at the exact same time.

  The mustached officer pointed at the rock-circled fire pit. In a booming voice he gave more orders to the boys. “Collect as many large pieces of wood as you can carry. This fire needs to grow.”

  I decided that doing laundry had to be better than lugging wood for the fire. “Have fun getting wood,” I said with half a smile. “Try not to get any splinters.”

  Zack must not have had any good firewood jokes, because as I turned toward the river, I could hear him mumbling and grumbling behind me.

  Slowly I walked toward the women, the ice-cold river, and the smelly laundry. “So,” I said as I approached an older woman on the riverbank, “have you seen General Washington today?”

  The woman ignored my question. Instead she asked if I had come to help.

  “No,” I began, but then decided to take Bo’s advice. I shouldn’t make trouble. And when I thought about it, as horrible as doing the laundry was, it was really important. Without these women, the soldiers couldn’t do their part in the war.

  In our time, women fight side by side with men. Everyone does laundry. But during the Revolutionary War, the women had jobs of their own. I felt like if I helped, even just for a minute, I’d be doing a small part toward winning the war and making America free.

  “I’m here to volunteer,” I said positively. I hoped she wouldn’t suggest I jump in the river to wash clothes. Brrr. I shook at the thought of freezing my toes off. There had to be another job.

  I was relieved when she said, “You can help Martha with the sewing.” She pointed at a distinguished-looking woman about the same age as my mom.

  Martha wore a thick white cape. Her white hair was piled high on her head. There was a small lightweight bonnet pulled down over all that hair. She was sitting on a rock by the water’s edge, mending clothes with a needle and thread.

  As I approached, I realized that this woman looked very familiar.

  When I suddenly figured out who she was, I was so excited that I quickly spun around to find the boys. But they must have still been out looking for firewood. I couldn’t see them anywhere.

  As hard as it is for me to wait, I’d have to be patient for them to come back.

  I had good news. Great news.

  I’d found Martha Washington.

  GW

  “Mrs. Washington.” I approached cautiously. I was surprisingly nervous. Sure, we’d met other famous Americans on our time-travel adventures, but this was Martha Washington!

  “Come, come, girl.” She waved to me with her mending still in her hand. “Choose a sock and begin to darn. Our brave soldiers need these clothes to help them stay warm.”

  I didn’t know how to darn a sock. I could barely sew. Once my mom had shown me how to put on a button, but this was different. There aren’t any buttons on socks.

  I took a sock out of a basket near Mrs. Washington’s feet. It was clean, but stained gray. There were six big holes in it.

  Mrs. Washington could easily tell I didn’t know what to do. Using the sock she was working on, she quickly taught me how to thread the needle and make a stitch. I knew I didn’t have much time, but again, I felt like what I was doing was important, so I paid careful attention. Some soldier would have one warm foot tonight thanks to me!

  My stitches were horrible. Crooked and too big. Even so, I managed to close one hole and began to work on the second.

  “So, how long have you been in Valley Forge?” I asked Mrs. Washington. I was really curious to learn more about her. Since the boys were still off gathering wood, I had a few extra minutes to chat.

  “I arrived a little before George’s birthday. We had a small party for his forty-fifth year, but with food in such short supply, there was little to eat.” She sighed. “Life here is much more difficult than we ever imagined.”

  “Did you know,” Mrs. Washington asked me, “that George takes no pay for his work in the Continental Army? The soldiers get paid. The officers, too. But not my George. He pays for everything himself with the hope that he will be paid back after America is truly its own country.”

  I didn’t know that. “George Washington will long be remembered for the good work he does,” I said, afraid to tell too much about the future. “You’ll be remembered too.”

  “There is nothing special about me,” Mrs. Washington noted as she finished the sock she was working on and looked over at my stitches. “Tuck them a bit smaller,” she advised. I thought about telling her that she was going to be the first first lady of America, but knew down deep she wouldn’t believe me. So I simply nodded and got to work on the last big tear instead.

  When I was finished with the sock, I put it down and asked, “Where is the general now?”

  Mrs. Washington took her time replying, glancing over my shoulder at the soldiers gathered around that pitiful fire, trying to keep warm. Apparently Jacob, Zack, and Bo hadn’t returned with firewood yet.

  “We live in Virginia,” she told me, not answering my question at all. I knew a little about George Washington’s home. It was called Mount Vernon.

  Martha turned her head back from the cold, starving soldiers and said, “We have over eight thousand acres of farmland. A stable, a greenhouse, a smokehouse, a wash house, and a mansion. Nearly three hundred people work at our home. It is a gentleman’s life.” She nudged the basket of socks with her booted toe. “A fine life.”

  She wasn’t getting to the part we needed to know. We needed to find GW.

  “I heard that General Washington wants to leave Valley Forge,” I remarked as if it were common knowledge.

  “Shhh . . .” Mrs. Washington quickly put her finger to her lips. “Do you want everyone to hear?” She moved closer to me and whispered, “So many soldiers are already deserting. If they hear George and I are going home, many more will run away. The Continental Army will get a new leader in a few days. Someone else can handle the problems. George and I are taking Nelson and Blueskin and going back to Tarter, True Love, and Sweet Lips.”

  “Huh?” Had Mrs. Washington suddenly started speaking a different language?

  “Nelson and Blueskin are GW’s horses.” The soft tone of Bo’s voice came from behind me. “Tarter, True Love, and Sweet Lips are his dogs.” I turned to find Bo and Jacob headed my way. Zack was out of breath, rushing up behind them. All three had wooden boards piled in their arms.

  “Where’d you get all that wood?” I asked, jumping up so fast, I nearly spilled the basket of holey socks.

  Bo and Jacob started to speak, but Zack caught up and answered. “On the far side of camp they are making new cabins. Unused hunks of wood are just lying around, but that’s not what’s important.” He rushed on to say, “Wait till you all hear who I saw! I was behind a different cabin from Bo and Jacob. I was collecting boards when—”

  “You stole the wood?!” I cut him off, totally surprised. “How can you burn the boards the soldiers need to make their cabins?”

  “Calm down, Abigail,” Zack told me. “We only took the scraps. Problem around here is that there is so little wood.”

  “So little of everything,” Mrs. Washington put in.

  I introduced Mrs. Washington to my friends. The boys were as awed to meet Martha Washington as I was, especially Bo. He got all red faced and he kept staring down at his feet.

  “Abigail,” Zack whispered to me while Mrs. Washington was saying hello to Jacob. “Don’t you want to know who I saw?”

  “Not now, Zack,” I said. “We have serious business to do.”

  “This isn’t a joke,” Zack said back to me. “I saw—”

  I turned away from him to face Martha Washington. “Mrs. Washington,” I began. “I’m not a volunteer and the boys aren’t really soldiers. The truth is we’ve come a long way to meet your husband.
”

  “We need to convince him not to leave Valley Forge.” Jacob shuffled the wood boards in his arms as he spoke. “The future of America depends on him.”

  As Jacob spoke, Zack just tapped his toe and stared at me. “Now? Can I tell you now?” he asked impatiently.

  “Not yet,” I said, feeling a bit frustrated with Zack. “Before we do anything else, we have to convince Martha Washington to take us to her husband.”

  Bo turned to me, asking, “Abigail, do you have a dollar bill in your backpack?”

  “I don’t think so,” I replied as I pulled off my pack and checked the outside pocket. I didn’t have a dollar, but I did have a quarter. I knew it would work just as well. I handed the quarter to Mrs. Washington.

  “What does this mean?” She looked from Jacob to Bo to Zack to me. “The man on your medal looks like my husband, George.”

  “It is George Washington,” Jacob explained, shifting his load of wood around some more. “We time-traveled to come here. In our time, his face is engraved on our money.”

  Mustering his courage, Bo added, “If George Washington quits and leaves Valley Forge, he’ll never become the first president of the United States.”

  “What is time travel? What is a president? Where are the United States?” Martha Washington handed me back the quarter.

  I opened my mouth to explain, but Zack interrupted, saying, “These boards are heavy. My arms are breaking.” He paused. “Plus, I really need to tell you all who I saw down by the log cabins.”

  “You can tell us later.” Jacob quickly cut off Zack’s complaining. “We still have about sixty-two minutes left to complete our mission.” Jacob nodded toward his pocket where the time-travel computer was stashed. “First let’s drop off this wood so the soldiers can have a warm fire.” He looked at Mrs. Washington. “After we do that, will you take us to see your husband? We can explain everything when we find him.”

  Martha stared at us for a long moment, then said, “It will not do any good. He is at the Pottses’ house writing a letter and packing our belongings. I came down to the river to volunteer for the last time.”

  “Please, take us to see him.” I was practically begging. I flipped the quarter in the air. George Washington’s silver etched face glinted at her as the quarter spun. I caught it in my fist. “We have to try.”

  “Fine.” She reluctantly changed her mind. “But I fear you are too late. He is firmly convinced that he should quit.”

  Her announcement was punctuated by the crash of Zack dropping his firewood. He barely missed my toes. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell all of you! Over behind the log cabins, I saw Babs Magee!”

  The Future

  “Who is Babs Magee?” Mrs. Washington immediately asked.

  “She’s this woman who tries to convince people to quit their dreams,” I replied.

  “She wants to be famous,” Zack put in. “If George Washington leaves Valley Forge, she’ll try to take over being general, and then”—Zack gasped as he realized what Babs was doing—“she’ll become the first president of the United States.”

  I wasn’t sure how she planned to do it. We haven’t had a woman president in our time yet. And there still aren’t very many women generals, either. But knowing Babs Magee, she’d already figured out how to solve those problems. She was sneaky, not dumb.

  “I wish I could figure out how to tweak the time-travel computer,” Jacob muttered. “Just once, I’d like to get somewhere before she does.”

  “Mr. C said it’s just one of those computer glitches. We have to deal with her now that we know she’s here,” I said.

  “I cannot believe anyone convinced my George to quit,” Mrs. Washington insisted. “He’s a very stubborn man. No,” she said firmly, “George has been thinking about going home for a long time.”

  “I bet she just helped him make the decision,” I said. “She’s tricky like that. She probably reminded him of all the reasons he should quit.”

  “Like no uniforms, no food, runaway soldiers, the Continental Army continually losing battles, the freezing cold, and how he has a nice house waiting for him in Virginia.” Zack listed all the reasons GW might quit, then said, “Now that I am thinking about it, if I were GW, I’d quit too.”

  “That’s nothing new.” Jacob rolled his eyes. “You quit everything.”

  It was true. No one was as good of a quitter as Zack. In just the past few weeks, he’d given up pottery club, math club, and Ping-Pong. Zack was still searching for his thing. . . . Sometimes I wondered if quitting might just be his thing.

  “It is true that there is much work to be done at Valley Forge and much need for supplies,” Mrs. Washington told Zack. “However, all those things you mention can get better. I have faith that George can turn these soldiers into a good, strong army.”

  She turned to all of us. “If you can convince George to stay, I am willing to stay and help as well. I’ve already warned you how stubborn he is. But after you speak to him, if he still wants to leave, we will go home immediately.” Mrs. Washington moved a few steps ahead of us and began leading the way to the Pottses’ house.

  As we walked, something in the distance caught my eye. I saw a glint of yellow coat and matching hat moving between the cabins. “Is that her?” I asked the boys.

  Bo took a long, hard look, and reported, “That’s definitely Babs Magee. She’s talking to someone.” He squinted at the pair, then said, “I should have known! Babs is hanging out with Benedict Arnold.”

  The name Benedict Arnold sounded familiar, and I asked Bo who it was.

  “Benedict Arnold was a friend of George Washington’s. But he became a traitor. Late in the war, he turned against the Continental Army and took sides with the British. He pretended to be on the side of America but really wasn’t.” Sometimes I think Bo has an entire encyclopedia stored in his brain.

  “What do we do?” I felt desperate. Obviously, Babs was going to get the traitor, Benedict Arnold, to help her take over GW’s life.

  “I say we forget about Babs,” Jacob suggested. “Let’s focus on getting George Washington to stay at Valley Forge.”

  Bo agreed with Jacob. “If we can get him to stay, she’ll fail.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to try to steal her time-travel computer? If I got it, she’d never be able to time-travel again.” Zack bent low, ready to run after her. “I could do it.” He stood up a little straighter and admitted, “Well, at least I could try.”

  “Leave her alone,” I said as we approached a large stone house. “Let’s talk to GW instead. We’ll get her another time.” I hopped a few steps forward to catch Mrs. Washington. “Is this the Pottses’ house?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Washington told me. “This is the Continental Army headquarters.”

  Suddenly Bo pointed at a flag hanging in front of the house. “Lucky for us, George Washington is still here.”

  “That flag is the commander in chief standard,” Mrs. Washington explained to us. “The background is blue with thirteen large pointed stars. This flag means that George Washington is the leader of all Revolutionary War troops.”

  “The important thing,” Bo added, “is that GW never goes anywhere without it!”

  “He wouldn’t leave without his horses, either,” Jacob said. He pointed out two horses tied to a post. A wagon sat nearby, ready to be hitched. I didn’t know which horse was Nelson and which was Blueskin, but I hoped that in the next few minutes, both horses would be back in the Valley Forge stable, right where they belonged.

  Inside the house, it was really quiet—too quiet, if you asked me. There was no sign of GW anywhere we could see.

  Mrs. Washington wished us luck and told us to go on upstairs to look for her husband. She needed to get something called firecakes from the kitchen. They would eat the firecakes on their journey home. She disappeared down a hallway.

  We hustled up the stairs and through the first door we saw. We were in such a hurry, we didn’t think tw
ice about barging into the room.

  “Oh my gosh,” I exclaimed as we entered GW’s bedroom. “We should have knocked.”

  It was totally embarrassing. General George Washington, the father of our country, wasn’t packing. He was sound asleep and snoring. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that he was wearing nothing more than a thin white gown, more like a girl’s dress than boy’s pajamas.

  GW was stretched out on top of his bed covers. And on top of him were scraps of cloth paper. A quill pen lay on the bed. A blue ink jar had tipped over. Ink was smeared everywhere.

  “What’s he doing?” I whispered to the boys. It looked like he was in the middle of a messy art project.

  “I’ll check it out.” Careful not to wake GW, Jacob snuck over to the bed and snatched a piece of paper off his belly. Jacob tossed it over his shoulder to Zack.

  Zack missed the catch, nearly stumbling back into a brass pot near the bed. I knew what that pot was for. It was called a chamber pot and was what people peed in on cold days when they didn’t go out to the outhouse.

  Luckily Zack missed the pot and Bo caught the paper. After a quick glance, Bo told us that it was part of a letter written to Governor George Clinton.

  “Didn’t we have a president of the United States called Clinton?” I asked the boys upon hearing the name.

  “That was Bill Clinton,” Bo reminded me. “He was the forty-second president. In 1778, George Clinton was governor of New York and a good friend of GW’s. When he felt most desperate, George Washington wrote Governor Clinton a letter asking if he might be able to help with necessary supplies. In this famous letter, GW asks for cattle to be driven down from New York.”

  In a hushed voice, Bo began to read:

  “To Governor George Clinton

  Head Quarters, Valley Forge,

  February 16, 1778

  Dear Sir: It is with great reluctance, I trouble you on a subject, which does not fall within your province; but it is a subject that occasions me more distress, than I have felt, since the commencement of the war.”