180 Singing Valleys 



had any of them tasted anything more delicious. They ordered 

 cakes from Christopher Ludwick for all their parties. 



Within ten years the baker had piled up a fortune which 

 more than equaled that which his father had left him. He had 

 nine houses in the city and a farm at Germantown, and 

 thirty-five hundred pounds in the bank, when a number of 

 grave-looking gentlemen began to arrive in Philadelphia from 

 all of the colonies and went into session in the city hall. The 

 atmosphere in the city grew tense; rumors went round. Would 

 the delegates dare to oppose His Majesty's laws? Could the 

 colonies exist as a free and independent nation? 



In those last days of June 1775, the heat in Philadelphia 

 was intense. But none of the well-to-do families left the city 

 for their country homes. They stayed on, waiting on tenter- 

 hooks for the decision which the delegates should make. And 

 meanwhile Christopher Ludwick baked his loaves of bread, and 

 his cakes and his gingerbread to be eaten by men and women 

 who talked anxiously of the future. "If it comes to war . . ." 



"If it comes to war . . ." thought the baker. And with in- 

 stinctive German thrift he set about securing a supply of 

 flour to be stored in his cellars. He went about buying wheat 

 and corn before the prices should go up. He bargained with 

 farmers for that fall's harvest. War meant men leaving the 

 fields to fight. It meant increased demands for food. If Eng- 

 land sent an army to quell the threatening revolution, that 

 army would require to be fed. 



The bell in the city hall began to peal. It was the signal 

 the city had been waiting for. "Freedom . . ." "An independ- 

 ent nation . . ." "And now, for a certainty there will be 

 war. . . ." 



Men who had been waiting with horses ready saddled to 

 ride with the news to Richmond and to Boston and to New 

 York set spurs to their mounts and galloped over the bridges, 

 away. Quaker merchants came home from their counting 

 offices and told their wives to have the doors and windows 

 locked and barred, and to buy supplies for a long emergency. 



