Page:Kościuszko A Biography by Monika M Gardner.djvu/110

 106 arming for war. Our blood is to make your happiness secure. Women! let your efforts stanch its shedding. I beg you for the love of humanity to make lint and bandages for the wounded. That offering from fair hands will relieve the sufferings of the wounded and spur on courage itself."

Kościuszko's appeals to the nation soon found their response. Recruits flocked to the army, and money, weapons, clothing, gifts of all descriptions came pouring in. Polish ladies brought their jewels to the commander or sold them for the public fund; men and women cheerfully parted with their dearest treasures. The inventories range from such contributions as four horses with a month's fodder from a priest, "five thousand scythes" given by a single individual, couples of oxen, guns and pistols, to bundles of lint, old handkerchiefs, and what was probably the most valued possession of its owner, set down in the list of donations as "the gold watch of a certain citizen for having distinguished himself at Kozubow," where on March 25th one of the Polish detachments had engaged the Russians.

In the course of these patriotic presentations there occurred an episode that stands out among the many picturesque incidents in the romantic story of Kościuszko's Rising. Three Polish boatmen came to the town hall to offer Kościuszko twenty of their primitive flat-bottomed barges. Hearing of their arrival, Kościuszko pushed his way through the crowds thronging the building, till he reached the ante-room where stood the peasants in their