Toliver's Secret (7 page)

Her imagination ran wild and shivers went down her back. Of course, she could pretend to be surprised when they found the snuffbox. But they'd still find out about Grandfather, and they'd hang him as a spy. The British officers would take over his house. And what would she and her mother do then?

At the thought of it, tears came to Ellen's eyes. Higgins must have been watching her because he said, “What's a big boy like you crying about?”

“I'm not crying,” Ellen muttered. “It's the cold wind in my eyes.”

He patted her arm. “I'm right sorry we got you on this boat,” he said. “But you'll get yourself home all right. All you Yankees are plucky.”

“Plucky!” scoffed Dow. “Just plain fools. Foolish enough to fight the King. And in winter yet,” he growled. “Back home no army fights in winter!” He put up his hands and rubbed his red ears.

“Zounds!” cried Higgins. “This war will be over in no time.” A smile spread over his gloomy face. “And we'll be going home! Why, it's bound to be over soon. They can't hold out much longer. We took three thousand prisoners when we took Fort Washington up there on Hudson's River.”

“And a hundred and fifty cannon,” Dow reminded him, “when we took Fort Lee on the Jersey side. Sent them running like rabbits over to Pennsylvania! Ragtag army!” Dow laughed. “Some have hunting jackets with fringe—like Indians. Some have farmers' smocks—any old thing—all marching together. I been soldiering all over Europe and I never saw an army look like that.”

“They're sharpshooters, though,” Higgins said seriously.

“You know what!” said Dow. “They got only a band of cloth on the sleeve to show what regiment they're in.” He guffawed and slapped his knee.

“They can shoot, though,” Higgins said again, gloomily.

“Oh, they can shoot all right,” said Dow, “when they ain't running away. Like at Kip's Bay.”

Ellen remembered hearing talk about Kip's Bay. The Patriot soldiers had turned tail and run away. No one could believe it.

Dow gave her a nudge. “We never saw nothing but their backs. They are all a bunch of cowards!”

“No!” Ellen protested. “They are not cowards!”

Dow peered at her. “You know what! You're mighty pretty for a boy. Almost as pretty as a girl.”

“I am not!” Ellen ducked her head to hide her alarm. “But they are not cowards!” she said stubbornly.

Inwardly she gasped in horror. She had said too much.

“Oh, ho! A rebel we have!” said Dow as he looked at her from under his heavy eyebrows. “A hot little rebel boy.”

A burly soldier with a scar across his forehead turned around and snorted. “Throw the rebel overboard. There'll be one less rebel to fight.”

Ellen tightened her arms around the bundle inside her jacket and ducked her head to make herself as small as possible. She felt as cold as an icicle and yet her face was damp with sweat. If they threw her overboard she'd take the loaf of bread down with her.
They'd never, never get the snuffbox away from her.

Higgins threw back his head and started to sing in a loud twangy voice, “Come all you soldiers bold, lend an ear, lend an ear.” Immediately the men around him sang out a loud refrain, “Tend an ear, lend an ear.”

Higgins sang the next line, “Come all you soldiers bold, lend an ear—” And the men boomed back the refrain, “Lend an ear, lend an ear.”

Higgins sang verse after verse and the men joined in the refrain. Ellen was glad because it took their minds off her. By the time they had sung “Hearts of Oak” and “Old King Cole,” she felt more relaxed.

“They must have been teasing me,” she thought to herself. “They wouldn't really throw me overboard. Higgins wouldn't let them.” Feeling relieved, she began to smile to herself. She had spoken right up to those rough soldiers in their red coats and their big black hats. And with a secret message right under their noses. After all those weeks of bowing her head and curtsying politely to the redcoats at home, she had spoken up and said what she thought. As the men sang “The British Grenadiers,” Ellen began humming along too, very softly.

At length they came to the narrow channel where the tide carried them swiftly along. With sails set
wide, like the wings of a white bird, the boat was skimming now instead of straining through the waves. Neither Dow nor Higgins noticed when she sat up straight and looked around. She watched the parade of boats as they filed down the channel. White sails ahead of them and white sails behind them. Twenty boats, the man on Front Street had told her. And all of them filled with soldiers.

On either side of them the shores were close enough to see. To the left were snowy fields and orchards and little brown farmhouses. That must be Staten Island. She remembered the map in her father's schoolhouse.

Once, Ezra had explained the map of Long Island and New York Bay and all the colonies along the shore. Her father had shrugged his shoulders and said that a little girl didn't need to know things like that—unless she was going to be a peddler. And he certainly didn't mean to have a peddler for a daughter.

“He didn't know he'd have a spy for a daughter,” Ellen said to herself.

She was glad that her brother had explained the map to her, for it was easy to guess that this swampy land on the right, with all the pine trees, would be New Jersey. And the end of her journey! Soon she'd be jumping off the boat and racing for the Jolly Fox
Tavern. She'd be safe inside with her grandfather's friends. At the thought of it she could feel the load of worry rise up from her shoulders and float away. She felt so happy and relieved she started humming to herself.

“What's amiss with you?” Dow growled at her.

Ellen shrank back. She didn't want any trouble with Dow.

“You scare the boy,” Higgins spoke up sharply. “He didn't ask to come along, did he?”

“What's he afraid of?” Dow asked. “Me? Are you afraid of me, boy?”

“No,” said Ellen quickly. It wasn't true. She really was scared of him, and she wished he would leave her alone. But Dow kept staring at her, and she had to drop her eyes. “Well, maybe—a little,” she confessed.

“A big chap like you shouldn't be afraid of anything,” sneered Dow.

“Talk right back to him, Toliver.” Higgins's face was red and his black stubble of beard looked dark across his chin.

“I can't,” said Ellen without looking up.

“Why”—Dow made his eyes look round and innocent
—“I'm as gentle as a morn in May.”

Higgins snorted. For a long time he sat staring off at the clouds in the sky. At last he said to Ellen, “When I was a boy I had a brother who pestered me like that. I had to learn to talk back to him. Funny thing was—when he saw I wasn't afraid of him, he didn't bother me any more.” He turned and smiled. “Bullies are like that.”

Ellen remembered Dicey and the way she had bawled when the Brinkerhoff boys washed her face with snow. Dicey's boldness seemed to collapse all at once like one of those balloons made of a pig's bladder when the air is let out.

After a long silence she said, “Are you ever afraid of anything now, Mr. Higgins?”

Dow overheard her and laughed loudly. “I'm never afraid of anything,” he boasted.

The soldier with the scar across his forehead turned around again and hooted. “Never? What about White Plains?”

Dow's face flushed red with anger. “Never!” he snapped.

“Yah! Yah!” shouted the other redcoats around him.

Higgins did not answer her question right away. At last he leaned down and said in a low voice that only she could hear, “Well, son, I'll answer you true as I would answer my own son back home. Sometimes.”

He nodded his head. “Sometimes I am afraid—as many men are. Being afraid is nothing to be ashamed of.” He threw a sidelong glance at her. “But when something has to be done,” he said firmly, “don't wonder and wonder about being afraid. If it's important to you—do the best you can.”

Ellen stared up at the white sails. This trip was important. At first it had been important to her because it was very important to Grandfather. But now she had seen the British soldiers with their guns and bayonets—hundreds of them—going to fight the Patriots' army. Now she was eager to help General Washington. Now she was glad to be part of the chain of people who wanted the Patriots to win, and would get information to him. Important information, her grandfather had said. She was impatient to get to the Jolly Fox Tavern and deliver the loaf of bread.

At last she could see on the right the church spires and the frosty roofs of a town white against the pine trees. Some of the houses and taverns were built on
the street that ran along, the waterfront and some on top of the bluff behind them. Everywhere the lines of marching men looked like busy ants on an anthill. As the boat came closer she strained her eyes to see a sign of the Jolly Fox Tavern.

“I hope the Shannons have a crackling fire and a hot meat pie,” Ellen thought.

With sails flapping noisily, their boat headed toward a dock and glided in for a landing. Ropes were tossed to the dockhands who waited to pull them in.

“All ashore!” shouted the officer in the stern. “And step smartly.”

The men stood up and stretched. Ellen was glad the officer could not see her. She quickly scrambled up on the dock and when she was well out of Dow's reach she turned and grinned at him. “Goodbye, Mr. Dow!” she cried happily.

“Hold your tongue,” growled Dow.

“Goodbye, Mr. Higgins,” she called to him. “I'll remember the things you told me.”

“I'll remember you, Toliver.”

Ellen's brown eyes were sparkling and her cheeks were red as winter apples. She slipped the blue bundle out of her jacket and swung it jauntily around her head as she turned to run.

Dow grunted. “Pert little beggar,” he said to Higgins. “Too pretty for a boy, to my mind.”

But Ellen didn't hear that. She was racing to the Jolly Fox Tavern.

E
llen was so happy she felt like shouting, “Here I am! Here I am at last!” And she could have shouted too, and not have been heard at all—with all the noise in the little town. The cries of cannoneers, the rumbling of wagon trains, the pounding of the heavy boots of marching men filled the air of Elizabeth-town. And over it all sounded the drums, the screeching fifes and the wailing bagpipes.

She skipped down the street that ran beside the waterfront. One dock after another was filled with
soldiers climbing from the boats and hoisting up their knapsacks.

She looked eagerly at all the signs hanging above the shops and taverns that stood against the bluff on the opposite side of the street. Nowhere could she see a sign for the Jolly Fox Tavern. Ellen was puzzled. Grandfather said it would be here and not hard to find, for Elizabeth was a small town.

She began to feel anxious and decided to ask someone. Carrying her blue bundle behind her, she walked up to a big ruddy-faced workman who had stopped his oxen by a dock and was loading his oxcart with wooden army chests. His huge muscles almost burst the sleeves of his woolen shirt. Across his fat stomach was stretched a well-worn leather apron.

“Where is Mr. Shannon's tavern?” Ellen shouted above the noise of the drums and the bagpipes.

“Must be here somewhere.” The man's voice was as deep and rumbling as a foghorn.

“It's at the sign of the Jolly Fox,” Ellen shouted.

“Jolly Fox Tavern?” The man wiped his hands on his shirt sleeves. “Never saw it here in Amboy.”

“Amboy!” cried Ellen. “Isn't this Elizabeth-town?”

“Nay. It's Perth Amboy.” The man jumped up on his cart and started to push and pull at the army chests
to pile them up.

Ellen stared at him—speechless. Higgins had said their boat was coming to Elizabeth-town.

“Elizabeth is back there.” The man pointed with his chin. “Back along the shore—about ten miles or so.”

“But how can I get to Elizabeth?” Ellen cried in a high frightened voice.

“Swim—maybe,” he laughed. “But walk—likely.”

In her alarm, Ellen felt as if her head were about to spin off her shoulders. She couldn't think and she suddenly felt very hot. She must be in a nightmare. Grandfather had said there was only one thing to do when she got off the boat. Walk to the tavern of friendly Mr. Shannon. He hadn't said she might have to walk ten miles! In the winter! When it was getting late and without knowing the way!

When the man looked at her frightened face he climbed down from his cart and bent over her so she could hear him clearly. “Stagecoaches go to Elizabeth,” he said. “If you have money to pay.”

Of course she had money to pay. She had the coins in her pocket.

“See the big inn yonder,” he said kindly as he pointed down the street. “See the fenced-in yard
beside it. The stagecoach comes by there to pick up passengers.”