Toliver's Secret (6 page)

“It must be getting near ten o'clock,” she said to herself. There were no church bells to ring the hour, for the wardens had hidden the bells when the British
came. She looked up at the hazy sun that struggled wanly in a gray sky. Grandfather always pointed out directions by the shadows the sun cast. “If the sun is on my left side—that must be the east. And the East River would be that way.”

Very carefully she picked her way through the black rubble flecked with white snow. And at last she came to streets lined with fine houses and beech and sycamore trees. These streets looked familiar and the breeze had the salty fish smell of the river.

As she stepped quickly along she had a feeling the trip wouldn't be so bad after all.

L
ong before she reached Front Street she heard the beat of army drums and the shrill piping of the fifes. Trim lines of redcoats marched up and down the streets and formed in squads and companies on all the wharves.

The East River bristled with the masts of small sloops and riverboats, while overhead white gulls circled with loud cries. But nowhere could Ellen see the fat broad-beamed boats of the farmers or the oystermen from Jersey.

Near the Market-house she stopped a spindly little man pushing a wheelbarrow with only two small pumpkins in it.

“Where are the oystermen's boats,” she asked anxiously, “or the farmers' boats from Elizabeth-town?”

“Oh,” he said, “not many of them came over today. Food is scarce and the oyster catch was poor. Those who came started back a few moments ago.”

“Back!” cried Ellen. “Why, they can't have gone yet. It's too early for them to leave.”

“Well, they have!” he said. “Only British boats here now.”

“You must be mistaken,” Ellen said. “They must be at another dock.” She'd have to hurry to find them.

“Look for yourself, boy,” the man called after her. “They say twenty boats are taking troops over to Elizabeth today.”

With her heart pounding wildly Ellen ran from one dock to another all up and down Front Street. She raced among the chests and barrels and great coils of rope as she looked at every boat tied up there. She darted among the soldiers and the seamen, but no one stopped her or noticed her.

The man was right. There were only British boats
filling up with soldiers, all along the waterfront. The men sat on planks and were crowded together as closely as kernels of corn on a cob.

“What can I do now?” she thought desperately. “There isn't even a fisherman or an oysterman to ask for a ride.” She jingled the coins in her pocket. “If I dared to ask.”

It was plain to see that nothing could be done. She felt as gloomy as the dark water lapping at the end of the dock where she stood. “Those redcoats! They think they own the whole world!” She'd tell Grandfather what rough men they were—with hard faces and loud voices. They pushed and shoved and cursed as they climbed on board the sloops. She'd tell Grandfather the docks had not been like this when she came here with him on Sunday afternoon. Surely he would understand there was nothing she could do.

But he'd never understand why she was late when she had started out at nine o'clock. “I can't go home and tell him I dropped the bread,” she cried. “He told me to hang on to it. He'll never forgive me for letting those boys grab it away from me.”

Perhaps she could get to Elizabeth-town on one of the redcoats' boats. It was probably dangerous, but it would be better than going home to face Grandfather's
disappointment. Perhaps, since no one seemed to notice her now, she could slip on board quietly and hide herself under a seat. No one would find her there.

“You could do it,” she said to herself. “You could make yourself do it.” As she stood there staring at the boats, trying to get up enough courage to start, she was surprised to see one of the redcoats lean across the side of the boat and grin at her.

He was a husky man with a dirty fringe of scraggly hair beneath his black hat. She couldn't take her eyes from his large nose. It was as big and red as a sweet potato.

“What you huggin' so tight?” he asked her. “It smells right good.” His fat cheeks shook when he spoke, but his nose looked as if it were anchored fast.

“Oh, don't pester the boy, Dow,” said the sad-faced soldier who sat slumped over beside him. His mouth drooped at the corners and looked as tired and woebegone as his eyes. Then he leaned across Dow and said, “I've got a boy back home in London who looks like you. What's your name?”

“Ellen Toliver, sir,” she answered.

“How's that?”

Ellen gasped. She had forgotten how she was dressed, but with all the noise he apparently had not
heard her. Raising her voice she said, “I said my name is Toliver, sir.”

“My boy's name is Tom. But he looks like you. Same pale face. Same big eyes. It makes me homesick to see a boy who favors Tom,” he said forlornly.

Ellen could see by his sad face that he really was homesick. But he also looked kind. Perhaps she dared ask him if she could just ride across the Bay with them.

But these were British soldiers. How could she trust an enemy?

Before she could decide what to do, she felt a tug at her blue bundle. “Smells like fresh bread there,” she heard the big man say. Quickly Ellen snatched the bundle away. Then suddenly she, herself, was seized around the waist by two big red hands and whisked across the side of the boat. She was too surprised and frozen with fear to make a sound.

The man with the red cheeks and the sweet potato nose laughed as he squashed her down on the bench beside him and clapped a big hand over her mouth. It smelled of fish and salty biscuits and almost smothered her. “No noise from you,” he muttered. The shoulders of the two redcoats closed the space above her head.

What was happening to her? This wasn't what she
had meant to do. She felt as if a hummingbird were caught inside her chest, her heart was beating so fast. She stared at the wet brown planks of the deck and the row of black boots and white leggings that stretched to the other side of the boat.

The man bent down and grinned at her. Under his bushy eyebrows his blue eyes were laughing at her. “Surprised, be ye?” he asked.

Ellen could hear the homesick soldier on her other side say impatiently, “What you doing that for, Dow?”

“Because I'm hungry as a bear in spring. That's why. Nothing but salt biscuits and dried herring, day after day.”

Hungry! Ellen gasped at the thought of it. She kicked her legs and pushed her elbows and tried to pull her mouth free.

It was too late to get back to the dock. She could tell the sloop was casting off, for she could hear the sails being hoisted, and flapping loudly in the breeze, then smoothing out as the boat came about in the river and turned into the wind. She felt it rock as it headed into the waves.

The man took his hand away from her mouth. “No squawking!” he warned her. “You can sit up now.”

As she sat up cautiously and looked around, the
thin man with the sad face peered at her sharply. “Are you all right, boy?” he asked with concern. “My friend is a joker.”

“A joker!” snorted the other. “I'm hungry.” Then he turned to Ellen. “Dow's my name. And this here is Higgins—him who's homesick for his boy in London. And you're Toliver, you say.”

Ellen nodded her head. She craned her neck to look at the ships in the harbor. They were sailing past seven great warships anchored there—the seven British warships that she and Grandfather had seen from the Battery. He said the British had brought seven hundred ships all told, last summer. And thirty thousand soldiers who had camped on Staten Island. Thirty thousand soldiers! That was almost twice as many men as there were people in New York.

“Are we going to Elizabeth-town?” she asked the homesick Mr. Higgins.

He shrugged. “That's what our orders are,” he said. “You are the picture of my boy Tom, I swear.”

Dow smiled at her as he took a knife from his belt and pulled it from its case. “Now that we are friends”—he coughed politely—“now that we are friends, I'll just share your fresh bread with us.”

He leaned down and quickly snatched Ellen's blue
bundle from her mittened hands.

“Oh, sir!” she cried as she clung to the blue kerchief, “I can't share it. It's for an old man's birthday present!”

His thick red tongue ran around his lips. “I could smell that good fresh bread when you stood there on the dock,” said Dow as he slapped her hands away. “I said to myself, ‘That boy will be happy to share his bread with a soldier of the King.' ”

“But it's for my grandfather's friend!” cried Ellen. “Please give it back to me.”

“Too bad for your grandfather's friend,” Dow grunted as he fumbled awkwardly with the knot in the kerchief.

Ellen stared at his knife. The bright gleaming blade in Dow's rough hands seemed more awful than a sword at her throat. In a moment he would cut into the bread and find the snuffbox. Then he'd open the snuffbox and find Grandfather's message to General Washington. Soon he'd know that she was a spy's messenger. Grandfather had told her to say she didn't know anything about it. But they'd find out where she lived and who she belonged to and Grandfather would be caught! She knew well enough what would happen then.

Suddenly, without thinking what she did, she
snatched the blue bundle from Dow's hands so quickly he lost his grip. In an instant she tucked it under her jacket, doubled up, and locked her arms beneath her legs.

The sad-faced Higgins laughed so hard his tall black hat almost fell from his head. “You're a quick one, Toliver.”

Dow's fat jowls shook with anger. “Why you little rascal,” he snarled as he tried to pry her arms loose. “Give me back that bread!”

“No!” said Ellen stubbornly. Her arms were locked in fear so tightly she could not have moved them if she'd tried.

“Give me that bread!” Dow grunted as he pulled at her pigtail.

“No,” said Ellen. She winced from the pain at the back of her head.

“I haven't had fresh bread for weeks,” Dow complained, tugging at her arm with his fat red hands. “And so I mean to have it!” He pulled harder on her arm.

Ellen's arms felt like an iron clamp. “You won't have my bread. I won't give it to you,” she muttered. And then she remembered the corncakes her mother had given her. “There are some good corncakes in my
pocket, sir. Take both of them.”

The redcoats sitting on the bench in front of them turned around and started to laugh at the sight of a small boy defying big old Dow.

“Hang on, boy!” they shouted.

Ellen hung on. “Take the corncakes, sir. They are just as good. Right in my pocket beside you.”

She could hear Higgins laughing until he began to hiccup and gasp for air. “He's like an oyster shell!” Higgins could hardly catch his breath. “You'll have to pry him open.”

From the stern of the boat a voice roared at them. “Stop that ruckus amidship! You'll send us all into the waves!”

The men became quiet at once. In the silence Ellen heard only the waves banging along the sides of the sloop. And Higgins's muffled hiccups.

She held her breath as she sat doubled up over the bread. If the officer had seen her that would be the end of her. She was grateful the broad shoulders of the men covered her.

At last Dow shrugged and said from the side of his mouth. “You little scamp. I'll take those corncakes.”

“They're in my pocket. Take them all. And welcome.”

Dow cut a piece of corncake and put it in his mouth on the end of his knife. “That bread is squashed flat by now. So keep it! I hope the old gizzard likes squashed bread.”

Higgins nudged her with his sharp elbow. “Not bad, Toliver! You're a spunky little rogue—just like my Tom back home.”

Ellen glanced up at Higgins. He seemed to mean what he said. No one had ever called her spunky. She eased the blue bundle up under her jacket, and kept her arms tightly locked across the bulge as she cautiously sat up.

G
randfather had said that the trip across the Bay to Elizabeth-town would take about two hours of good sailing. But with a cold blustery wind in her face it seemed longer to Ellen. As the sloop plowed through the rough green waters she watched the chunks of floating ice that had come down from the north. She shivered as she heard the boat crunch through them. High above the white sails she could see that the sun had come out among ragged patches of clouds. But it had no warmth.

The tall mast made her think of the gallows. She had walked past the gallows in New York, holding fast to her grandfather's hand as she stared at it. Thieves and murderers were hanged there—and spies also, she now knew.

Ezra had gone to a hanging once. Her father had been so angry he whipped him for it—just for looking. No son of his could gape at a hanging, father had said. Only grown-ups could do that, Ellen thought. And now his daughter might be part of a hanging—if the officer found she was a spy.