Toliver's Secret (10 page)

“Reckon you would,” Mr. Murdock said. “Makes me think of my father. He cut a hole in the bottom of a loaf of bread and put his money inside. That was a stupid thing. Anyone could see where the hole was.”

Ellen was glad the snuffbox had been put in the dough and baked inside. There was nothing that would show in case he wanted to look at it.

“H
old back the night! Hold back the night!” Ellen said over and over as they rode along. She watched the trees stand black against the dull red sunset. Slowly the sky faded into gray and then turned into night.

She thought anxiously of Mr. Shannon's courier and wondered how long he would wait. Was he watching the few stars that came out in the wintry sky? It must be a long, long ride from Elizabeth to Pennsylvania. If the General was to have the message tomorrow, the first courier would have to start soon. Grandfather
would have been there long ago, had he come.

It had grown very dark when Mr. Murdock turned his head to her and spoke over his shoulder. “It's black as pitch. You'd better sleep in the loft with my boys tonight.”

“Oh, no!” cried Ellen. “I couldn't do that.”

“How you going to get to Elizabeth?”

Ellen took a long breath. “Walk,” she said in a very low voice.

Then she remembered the coins in her pocket.

“Mr. Murdock!” she said. “I can pay you to ride me to Elizabeth.”

“We-l-l-,” the farmer thought it over, but he said no more.

“I have the money,” Ellen urged him. “I'll give it all to you.”

“Hm-m-m. Well—”

Would he ever make up his mind!

“You said it was only half a mile,” she reminded him.

“We'll see what Ma says first. I have to feed my two cows in the woods and they'll be bellowing to be milked. Then I have to round up my pigs and tie them up.”

“And then could we start?” asked Ellen.

“Well, Ma will be mighty mad if we don't sit down to her supper. Ma gets mad easy. But I reckon I can take you when I get through.”

Perhaps, Ellen thought, she'd better hurry on by herself. After all the trouble she had had today, it would be terrible if she missed the courier. But when she heard the lonesome howl of an animal far away she changed her mind. Surely the courier would not start this early. “It won't be so late,” she kept assuring herself.

She could smell the wood smoke from the chimney before she saw the shadowy house near the road. It, too, was tightly closed with no light showing from the windows.

“Well, we're here,” said Mr. Murdock as he turned through the gate.

He tied the horse to a ring in the wall. “Open up! I'm home again,” he shouted. The door was flung wide and two young boys ran out. In the dim light Ellen could see a big black pig tied by his hind leg to a stake just outside the door.

“Oh, Pa,” the boys shouted as they gathered up the baskets. “We found this mean old pig in the woods and tied him up.”

“Good,” said the farmer. “We'll turn him into
pork tomorrow.”

A tall lanky woman came to the door and held it open for them. Her eyes were angry and her face, beneath a ruffled white cap, looked as if it were hacked out of gray stone. She bounced a crying baby on her hip and slapped at a toddler tugging at her drooping skirt.

“You're back at last!” she snapped.

And then to Ellen's surprise she burst into tears. “Thank the Lord for that,” she said as she roughly brushed her tears away with the back of her hand.

Ellen followed Mr. Murdock and the boys into the house. The woman did not seem to see her. She was scolding her husband as she hurried to the fireplace and picked up a big spoon.

“In times like these it ain't safe to ride to Amboy to sell leather. If you're dead I got these four boys to raise.”

“The bootmaker paid me and we need the money.” Mr. Murdock lifted his yellow beard and took some money from the bag that hung from a cord about his neck. “Nothing to be worried about.”

“Worried!” cried his wife in a high shrill voice. “With all those redcoats around?”

She banged her spoon as she stirred the pot of stew
that hung over the fire. Her voice became low and firm. “Times were better before the war started. That's what I think.”

“Now, Ma, don't talk like that.”

Mr. Murdock pushed Ellen forward, but his wife paid her no mind.

As she stood waiting for the farmer's wife to notice her, Ellen looked around the log farmhouse. The whole house was just one big shadowy room lighted by a fire on the hearth at one side. Pots and ladles and kettles of iron hung on hooks near the fireplace. In one corner stood a huge spinning wheel and in another corner a big unmade bed with a trundle bed beneath it and a cradle beside it. When she saw that a ladder went up through a dark hole to the boys' beds in the loft, Ellen was glad she wasn't going to spend the night in that cold place.

Mistress Murdock was still upset as she put wooden bowls and earthen mugs on the table. “I said times were better before the war started. Everything was peaceful, and we farmed our farm and no soldiers bothered us.” She banged the pitcher of milk on the table. “I say King George was all right. He didn't bother us none. Why do we want to change things?”

Mr. Murdock pushed Ellen toward the fire. He
seemed to want to change the subject.

“I brought home a boy named Toliver who's mighty hungry.”

Ellen remembered to snatch off her cap and stuff it in her pocket before she nodded her head politely as a boy would have done.

The farmer's wife looked at her glumly. Then she looked into the pot of stew and gave it a quick stir. “There's enough,” she said, “if he ain't too hungry. Pa, go out and hide your horse in the woods. Supper has waited long enough.”

With his wooden milk pail in his hand, Mr. Murdock quickly pulled his cap over his bushy hair, hunched his shoulders and stomped out the door.

“Boys!” Mistress Murdock ordered, “go help your Pa.” She pulled a bench up to the fire. “Sit,” she said to Ellen.

Ellen hadn't known how hungry she was until she smelled that pot of stew—meat and onions and turnips. What a wonderful supper for someone who hadn't eaten anything but oatcakes since early morning.

She stuffed her mittens in one of her pockets and carefully untied the blue bundle. “This bread can dry out here by the fire while I eat supper. It's my grandfather's loaf of bread,” she explained to Mistress Murdock.
“It fell in the water.”

The woman looked at it. “It's right soggy,” she said. “Not good for much!” She picked up the wet kerchief and spread it out to dry on a pile of firewood.

“Your feet are soggy, too,” she said as she bent down to look at Ellen's shoes. “And your breeches! Faith! You're wet to the skin!” she cried, wiping her hands on her apron. “Take off those breeches, Toliver,” she ordered. “We'll hang them by the fire, too.”

Take off her breeches? And risk that woman finding out she was a girl? Ellen was alarmed. How could she explain why she was dressed as a boy? Only spies and criminals went around pretending to be someone else.

“Oh, no!” she cried in dismay. “I'm going to Elizabeth-town tonight.”

“Elizabeth!” The woman stared at her. “Tonight? In the dark—and in this kind of weather! You'd freeze to death!”

“But I must go! Mr. Murdock said he'd ride me there.”

“Ride you to Elizabeth! On a night like this!” The farmer's wife clapped her hands to her head. “What now! That man must have lost his wits.”

She gripped Ellen's shoulder roughly in her strong
hand. “Take off those breeches, boy! You're chilled to the bone. What ails you? Are you bashful?”

Ellen drew back. “Someone is waiting for me—” she began.

Suddenly the woman picked her up, tossed her on the bed and started to peel off the wet breeches. Ellen kicked her legs and tried to squirm away.

At that the woman's face went white with anger. “There will be no riding out where those soldiers are tonight!” she said through her tight lips. “If he gets shot I've got four boys to raise! So you can take off those breeches and let them dry. He's not going to Elizabeth—and neither are you.”

In desperation Ellen pushed the woman's hands away and, grabbing the top of her breeches and kicking her feet, she worked her way to the edge of the bed. Mistress Murdock stepped back and looked at her. “What's wrong with you, Toliver?” she cried.

Quickly Ellen scrambled from the bed and ran for the door. She was glad to find it was not bolted. She flung it open and darted out into the night, pulling up her breeches as she ran. Thank goodness she had not yet taken off her jacket or shoes.

She flew through the gate and across the road and
hid among the trees. It was not until the door swung closed and all was dark around her that she remembered.

The loaf of bread. She had left it on the hearth.

A wild fright came over her as she stood shivering in the dark cold night. What could she do now? She couldn't tell Mr. Murdock. He was suspicious about the bread anyway. And she couldn't go back to the door. That stubborn woman might take away all her clothes and give her a cornmeal sack for a nightdress.

She was shaking with cold and fear and anger. How could she have forgotten the bread that she had guarded so carefully all day? How could she have been so stupid?

Then a square of light broke into the darkness and there stood Mistress Murdock in the open doorway. “Here, pig,” the woman said as she flung Ellen's loaf to the pig. “Turn that soggy old bread into pork!” The door slammed shut and all was dark again.

Ellen could hear the pig grunt and snuffle around. When he found the bread he would gulp it quickly, and in his greediness he would swallow the snuffbox, too.

Ellen was afraid of pigs. She always walked clear of those lean hungry public pigs who wandered about
the New York streets and ate the garbage. She remembered the mean look of the pig who had chased her this morning.

But now there wasn't a second to lose. She had to get the bread. She could feel her kneecaps shaking and she couldn't make them stop as she raced across the road. If only there was more light from the pale stars overhead. She put out her hands to grope for the pig's prickly back and when she felt it she ran her fingers down to his lowered head. But the thought of his sharp teeth made her snatch them away. The smell of him—the awful smell of him made her gag.

Again she reached out her hands. He rumbled in his throat and gave her a shove with his hips. She ran her hands along his back again and he snorted angrily. Now her eyes had grown used to the dark and she could tell that the bread was already in his mouth. She must grab for it. There was nothing else to do.

Quickly she snatched her cap from her pocket and swished it across his eyes, back and forth across his eyes. The pig tossed his head and snorted in rage. It was a terrifying sound! But when Ellen saw the bread fall from his mouth she scooped it up quickly and darted out of his way. She was glad he was tied to the stake and couldn't charge her.

As she raced through the gate and down the road, her feet barely touched the ground. She heard the door open and Mistress Murdock call out, “You all right, Pa? You got the boys there with you?” But Ellen didn't turn to look.

Mistress Murdock couldn't see her running down the road, for she was out of sight with the loaf of bread in her trembling arms. She knew Grandfather's snuffbox was safe inside. She could feel with her fingers that there was only one bite gone and not a very big bite at that. Since she had no kerchief to wrap around it she tucked it up under her jacket where it sat like a lump of ice on her stomach.

A
nd now there was only a half mile to go. Mr. Murdock had said that his house was only a half mile from Elizabeth-town. But how in the world could she ever walk on legs that were shaking like saplings in a windstorm? And how could she ever find her way in the great loneliness of the night? She could hardly see the road at all. It was only the rough hoof-marks of horses that had passed by that helped her feet find the way.

She stumbled along choking down the fear that
made a lump in her chest. “I fought a pig,” she kept telling herself, “so I can do this, too.”

On either side of the road the trees stood black against the dark sky. It seemed to her that their branches were arms—moving, groaning, bending low to grab her. She tried to remember the friendly look of the trees in the late afternoon light. But these were more frightening. Each hair seemed to stand up straight on her head, and she put on her cap to hold them down.

“They're only the trees and they can't hurt me,” she said over and over. “And that moaning sound—it's only the wind.” With sharp lashes, it whipped angrily around her cold wet legs.

Ellen was all alone but she was filled with a stubborn will. Nothing was going to stop her now that she was only half a mile from Mr. Shannon's tavern.