OLD BILL SMITH, THE SILENT HUNTER. 223 
Mattie, to provide for now, and her precious little ones; 
there was to be no more trifling. He became a rigid econo- 
mist, or rather, Mattie economized for him, and all his ex- 
penditures were left entirely to her frugal and patient 
housewifery. He neither gave nor spent now without first 
taking counsel of his heart-elected monitress, and how skill- 
fully she managed may be shown in the fact that in twenty 
years after their marriage Smith was accounted one of the 
wealthiest men in the province. With this change came 
another, which was accounted quite as droll by the wiscacres. 
As a young man, he had shown great ambition for political 
distinction, his prospects were extremely flattering, but he 
withdrew after serving one term,-and steadily refused ever 
afterwards to be drawn into public life again. 
But now that the great struggle for freedom was fairly 
entered upon, the William Smith of twenty-five was waked 
up again suddenly, after having slept the charmed sleep of 
domestic love and happiness for twenty years. Now again 
his contempt foragold, but as a medium of good, a mechanical 
means, exhibited itself as strikingly, but in a more rational 
and consistent manner than before; now his carefully hoarded 
wealth flowed like water, and the gentle Mattie saw it go and 
said never a word nor shed a tear. So long as her beloved 
was spared to her the gold might go. They had no right to it 
when the blessed Congress and brave army needed it. They 
had no right to keep William selfishly at home with them, to 
sleep in a warm bed when so many of our brave people were 
tracking the snows with the blood of their bare feet, and when 
General Washington himself was glad to sleep upon a snow 
bank with only his cloak for covering. “Let the gold go! 
let the gold go!” the brave woman was wont to say,—“it 
is all for liberty, and the children will be better for that 
than for all the wealth of the province!’ and the gold 
did go! 
Aye, there was no keeping back of: the tribute there! 
