in Hamilton’s creed.  He had perfect faith in the future, and announced it persistently.  He assumed the mission of keeping the family in good cheer, and they gave him little time for his studies.  As for Washington, even when Hamilton was not at his desk, he made every excuse to demand his presence in the private office; and Hamilton in his prayers humorously thanked his Almighty for the gift of a cheerful disposition.  It may be imagined what a relief it was when he and Laurens, Meade, or Tilghman raced each other up the icy gorge to Lafayette’s, where they were often jollier the night through than even a cheerful disposition would warrant.  Hamilton, although he had not much of a voice, learned one camp-song, “The Drum,” and this he sang with such rollicking abandon that it fetched an explosive sigh of relief from the gloomiest breast.

There were other duties from which Hamilton fled to the house on the hill for solace.  Valley Forge harboured a heterogeneous collection of foreigners, whose enthusiasm had impelled them to offer swords and influence to the American cause:  Steuben, Du Portail, De Noailles, Custine, Fleury, Du Plessis, the three brothers Armand, Ternant, Pulaski, and Kosciusko.  They had a thousand wants, a thousand grievances, and as Washington would not be bothered by them, their daily recourse was Hamilton, whom they adored.  To him they could lament in voluble French; he knew the exact consolation to administer to each, and when it was advisable he laid their afflictions before Washington or the Congress.  They bored him not a little, but he sympathized with them in their Cimmerian exile, and it was necessary to keep them in the country for the sake of the moral effect.  But he congratulated himself on his capacity for work.

“I used to wish that a hurricane would come and blow Cruger’s store to Hell,” he said one day to Laurens, “but I cannot be sufficiently thankful for that experience now.  It made me as methodical as a machine, gave my brain a system without which I never could cope with this mass of work.  I have this past week dried the tears of seven Frenchmen, persuaded Steuben that he is not Europe, nor yet General Washington, and without too much offending him, written a voluminous letter to Gates calculated to make him feel what a contemptible and traitorous ass he is, yet giving him no chance to run, blubbering, with it to the Congress, and official letters ad nauseum.  I wish to God I were out of it all, and about to ride into battle at the head of a company of my own.”

“And how many widows have you consoled?” asked Laurens.  He was huddled in his cot, trying to keep warm.

“None,” said Hamilton, with some gloom.  “I haven’t spoken to a woman for three weeks.”

It was a standing joke at Headquarters that Washington always sent Hamilton to console the widows.  This he did with such sympathy and tact, such address and energy, that his friends had occasionally been forced to extricate him from complications.  But it was an accomplishment in which he excelled as long as he lived.