Toliver's Secret (12 page)

“Is that a loaf of bread you are hiding in your jacket?” Mr. Shannon said.

“Yes-s-s,” Ellen answered slowly.

“Is it a present for my birthday?”

“Yes, it is,” she cried in surprise.

“From Van Horn, the barber in New York?”

Now she was sure. Only Mr. Shannon would know about her grandfather.

“Here it is, Mr. Shannon!” she said eagerly as she slipped the loaf of bread from her jacket. Standing
there in her stocking feet, she curtsied as she handed him the bread and said the words she had carried in her mind all day. “I have brought you a present for your birthday.” Then she added, “My grandfather hurt his ankle this morning and he couldn't walk at all. So he sent me.”

As she gave the loaf of bread to Mr. Shannon she felt as if a great load had been lifted from her shoulders. She had delivered Grandfather's message! In spite of everything, she had delivered the message! Her face was beaming.

“But how did you get here from New York?” Mr. Shannon looked puzzled. “You were walking, weren't you, when you came into the smithy?”

“I had to walk part of the way,” Ellen told him.

“Not from Amboy!” he exclaimed. “You couldn't have walked from Amboy!”

“Oh, I got a ride partway with Mr. Murdock. Most of the way. He was going to ride me all of the way, but—”

Mr. Shannon interrupted her. “How in the world did you get to Amboy?”

“On a British boat. A soldier—”

“On a British boat!” He stared at her in disbelief.

“It was because some boys stole my bread in New
York and made me so late I missed the farmers' boats.”

“But how did you get on a British boat?”

“Oh, a man grabbed me. He wanted my loaf of bread.”

Mr. Shannon stared at her in amazement. “And you worked your way through all those troubles to get the bread here to me! Well, we're very grateful to you, son!”

Ellen looked up at this very tall man who had charge of relaying the message to the night-riding couriers. He was smiling at her. She felt like telling him that she really had been scared all the time. But a man like Mr. Shannon wouldn't understand about being afraid.

“I'd like to stay and have supper with you,” he said, “but people are waiting to take this message on its way. Three different couriers will carry it across New Jersey and deliver it tomorrow. So I must hurry to give it to the first man, who lives not far from here.”

As he tied the bread in his own blue kerchief, he said, “Lucky it was that my horse threw a shoe when I started out to look for your grandfather. I got to thinking about you—there in the smithy—and I decided I'd better come back to see if you stopped here.”

Mistress Shannon hugged his arm to her cheek and
opened the door to the dark night. A cold gust of wind made her skirts billow out. “Be very cautious,” she said with concern. “There are redcoats everywhere.” After she had bolted the door she hurried to the hearth and poked at the fire until it blazed up enough to brighten the room. She pulled a small log from a box and added it to the fire.

When she turned to Ellen she was smiling. She put her hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Now tell me your real name, young lady!”

“Why,” cried Ellen in surprise, “I'm a—”

Mistress Shannon put her arms around her. “Never did I see a boy make such a pretty curtsy as you made a few minutes ago.”

Ellen gasped. Had she curtsied? How could she have been so stupid? It must have been her stocking feet that made her forget her disguise.

“I—just—don't know—” she stammered.

Mistress Shannon's eyes were shining proudly as she looked at her. “Tell me your name?” she begged.

“Well,” Ellen admitted, since there was no reason to be secret any longer, “my name is Ellen—Ellen Toliver.”

Mistress Shannon chuckled. And then she burst out
laughing and quickly covered her mouth with her hands.

“Oh, the things we do to fool those redcoats,” she giggled. “All day long I pretend I'm a loyal subject of the King—out there in the tavern singing away like a bird in a cage. And you pretend you're a boy with nothing but a loaf of bread in your kerchief.”

She patted Ellen's cheeks playfully. “But we fool them, don't we, Ellen? And we get important messages through the lines to our army.”

Ellen felt so good and so relieved, thinking how she fooled everyone, she began to laugh. She was carried away by such gales of laughter she had to stuff the green apron in her mouth to keep from being heard in the taproom. She felt silly with the apron in her mouth, but she just could not stop. Every time they looked at each other—the plump little woman with a flag in her white hair, and the girl in leather breeches and a boy's jacket—they burst out laughing again.

Mistress Shannon took time to bring Ellen a hot potpie from the kitchen to eat in front of the fire. Then she brought a mug of warm milk. And next a shawl to wrap about her legs after she had hung her
stockings by the fire. Every time she came back, Ellen told her more of the story—about Dow and his eagerness to eat the bread, and the pig, and how Mistress Murdock almost stole her breeches.

Now that she was safe, Ellen could hardly believe the things she told Mistress Shannon. They seemed so far away already. Suddenly she could hardly hold her eyes open. Mistress Shannon pulled a trundle bed from under the big bed and put a heavy blanket on it. She gave Ellen one of her nightgowns and a nightcap, and bustled about the room, carefully spreading out Ellen's clothes to dry.

“You are snug and safe now, Ellen,” she said softly. “We'll send you back home early in the morning.”

Ellen fell heavily into the comfortable bed. Sleep came so quickly she barely heard Mistress Shannon call to her from the doorway, “You've earned a good night's rest, Ellen Toliver.”

L
ong before sunrise, Mistress Shannon brought Ellen's dry clothes to her. The shoes were still wet, but her feet would be snug in an extra pair of woolen stockings.

“No more adventures today, Ellen,” she said as she stirred up a good fire and put a breakfast of hot porridge and sausages on the table.

Mr. Shannon came in and sat beside Ellen while she ate. “The courier left last night, Ellen,” he told her, “with the bread in his saddlebag. By now, the
second courier should be near the third man. It takes a chain of people to carry a message across the countryside quickly.”

“It's dangerous, isn't it,” said Ellen, “to ride through enemy country?”

“Well,” he admitted, “it is dangerous. But it's no more dangerous than fighting in the army. I'm too old to fight. Most of us are old men—or women who carry messages sewn in their clothes—or boys, too young to fight.” He leaned over and patted her arm as he smiled at her. “Or a girl like you! Your link in the chain didn't break, Ellen. We're all glad about that.”

It was worth going through all the troubles of yesterday to hear him say that.

Mr. Shannon carried a burning torch to light their way to the little river that went from Elizabeth to the Bay half a mile away. At the dock several boats were being loaded with barrels of food for the market-house in New York.

“We'll send you home with Grimsby, who is our good friend,” said Mr. Shannon. “He's taking a big load of Christmas greens to town.”

“But when the war is over,” Mistress Shannon added, “we hope you'll come back for a peaceful visit
to Elizabeth. Will you come and bring your grandfather?”

“Oh, yes,” Ellen promised. “You may be sure of that.” She felt the Shannons were her good friends.

Mr. Shannon spoke to the two leather-faced sailors, “Take good care of this youngster. This is a very special person.”

Grimsby and Gallop made a seat for her among the bundles of pine and spruce boughs. “There's a brisk breeze this morning,” they told her while they covered her legs with greens. “Won't take long to get back to New York.”

The sky grew pink and the torches sputtered out. They were off. In no time the boat sailed down the little river past the swampy marshes and the big wharves at the shore. It was not long before Ellen recognized the shoreline of Staten Island. “Why, we sailed past here yesterday,” she said to herself. “We must have been quite near Elizabeth before we sailed on to Perth Amboy.” She shrugged her shoulders the way Grandfather sometimes shrugged his. “But I never would have seen how the enemy is getting ready in Perth Amboy. Mr. Shannon wanted me to tell him about that.”

The day turned out to be a cheerful one with a great arch of blue sky and a bright sun overhead. Not at all like yesterday—except for the men's singing. Ellen liked to listen to the songs Grimsby and Gallop sang while they handled the sails and the tiller of the old boat.

“Sing right up, boy,” Grimsby called to her. “Oh, my name is Captain Kidd, who has sailed, who has sailed—” he sang out.

Ellen sang the refrain. “Who has sailed, who has sailed.”

At first she sang the refrains in a small voice. And then in a loud one as she began to enjoy the sound of her singing—even though she didn't understand some of the words.

They sang “On the Banks of the Dee” and “Yankee Doodle” and “The Revolutionary Tea.” It was exciting to sing Yankee songs as they sailed past the British ships anchored near the shores of Staten Island.

Ellen was standing by the mast singing at the top of her voice when their scow sailed up the East River and wound its way among the boats that were anchored there. Snow lay white on the roofs of the gabled houses and the sun glinted from the church spires.

“New York looks good,” she said to Grimsby, and she meant it.

Grimsby and Gallop waved to her as she hopped off the boat. She staggered about the dock until she got used to walking on land, while they stood and laughed. Then she took off her cap and waved to them.

Soon she was running along the street and pushing her way through the crowds. They were the same crowds as yesterday—the same noisy men with wheelbarrows, the same rowdy boys, the same grumbling workmen with heavy loads on their backs. But she felt different. She wasn't afraid of them. They were all going about their affairs—just as she was. She ran in and out of the crowds, laughing to herself. She wasn't a rabbit any more.

She felt like singing as she climbed up the steps and burst into her grandfather's shop. She pushed past two British officers and past her grandfather's shaver, Alexander, who had a big bowl of soapsuds in his hand. She was so happy to be home she would have smiled at the leeches if she had thought to. Grandfather's face lighted up when he saw her. Rising from his couch he hopped after her to the kitchen and locked the door behind him.

“I did it!” Ellen cried in a loud whisper as she kicked off her shoes and danced about the room. “I did it! I did it!” She grabbed her mother's hands and they whirled around together while Grandfather waved the crutch the carpenters had made him. He would have danced, too, if he had had two feet.

Over and over they hugged her and said, “We're so happy you are home.” Pulling chairs up to the big table by the window, they sat down to hear about her trip.

“You found the farmers' boats without trouble?” Grandfather asked in a whisper.

“Trouble!” Ellen groaned. “I had nothing but trouble. Trouble all day long.”

Mother and Grandfather looked at her in surprise. They could hardly believe the whispered tale she told them.

“Perth Amboy was filled with cannon and wagon trains and hundreds of soldiers,” said Ellen. “Mr. Shannon told me that General Cornwallis was there in Perth Amboy getting ready to finish off our army before winter sets in.”

“That's what we feared,” said Grandfather gravely. “But you did get the message to Mr. Shannon, didn't you?”

“Yes, I did,” said Ellen, “and now I understand why it is so important for couriers to take messages to our army.”

“I had no idea it would be so hard for you, Ellen,” Grandfather said. “I don't know whether I would have sent you had I known. But I, myself, never would have been able to get through the lines at all. No one would have smuggled a fat old man on a boat.” His eyes twinkled.

Mother leaned across the table and smiled at her. “I'm proud of you, Ellen,” she whispered. “But I hope you'll never have to do it again.”

“Well,” said Ellen as she thought that over, “I think maybe I'd do it again … I don't know … I guess I'd do it again if the boat was sure to go to Elizabeth-town.”

It seemed to Ellen that two good things happened to her after her trip to New Jersey. The first happened the next morning when she wrapped her red cloak around her and went to the pump early. Ellen took her place at the end of the line to wait her turn. The women were still talking about the high price of food and the high price of firewood. It seemed to Ellen she had been away a hundred years—and they were still
talking about the same old things.