Boston. Don’t know how General Ward would run Cambridge Camp without
him. Figures out how to get supplies, and men, and money, and all. He’s
got book learning and can talk to anybody. More’n that, he’s a good
doctor.”
“Where are the prisoners, I wonder?” asked Sally Rose.
Kitty nudged her, and she subsided.
After the phaeton came two British officers, splendid in white
and scarlet, and riding sleek horses; then another officer in a
chaise; then a handful of officers on foot. They were escorted by a
blue-uniformed guard that Timothy said looked to him like Connecticut
men. By now the drummer had turned into Ferry Street, heading for the
wharves at the waterside. Here and there stood a little cluster of
men, here and there a woman’s head appeared at a gable window, but the
spectators were few. At the very end of the procession a farm cart
rattled along, drawn by two plow horses. A group of men sprawled on
the floor of it, men in tattered British uniforms, pale and unshaven,
unable to walk, apparently, because of wounds or illness. They looked
so forlorn and miserable that Kitty felt tears start to her eyes.
“Oh,” she whispered to Sally Rose, “I’m sorry for the poor lads. I
don’t care if they are British.”
“If they hadn’t come out shooting at us, they wouldn’t be in this
pickle now,” growled Timothy. “Wonder where is our boys we’re supposed
to get back in the exchange.”
“Mr. Bassett says they’re aboard the _Lively_,” said Sally Rose.
“Oh--oh--Kitty--” She clapped her hand over her mouth.
For a moment Kitty did not see anything to exclaim about. The cart full
of prisoners trundled slowly by. Close beside it walked a young man in
a rough woolen shirt and homespun breeches. He carried a knapsack, and
a large wooden bottle was slung from his shoulder by a leather strap.
Just then the procession halted a moment. Up ahead, the drummer turned
down Ferry Street on his way to the docks to meet the boats from the
_Lively_. The phaeton bent its wheels sharply to round the corner. In
the pause the young man unstoppered the wooden bottle and held it over
the side of the cart so one of the prisoners could drink. The rear
guard, another group of blue-coated Connecticut men, halted too. They
were apparently the last of the procession.
Kitty glanced again at her cousin. Sally Rose stood up proud and
smiling. The long lashes about her hazel eyes flickered provocatively.
Sally Rose was watching the young man with the bottle. For that reason,
and that reason alone, Kitty looked closer at him herself.
He turned just then and smiled at them. He had dark hair, she saw, and
deep-set blue eyes. My, he was certainly handsome! Living all her life
in Newburyport, she hadn’t realized how many handsome men there were
in the world--drifting down the Merrimack on a log raft, walking the
road that ran past Bunker Hill. They were everywhere, now that she had
suddenly grown up enough to look at them. Sally Rose had always known.
Sally Rose was born grown up.
She cast a sudden look at Dick, and knew instinctively that she would
never kiss him good night again, or if she did, it would be with a
difference. Their kissing days were over. Dick was an old friend now,
and only that. Never again would he stir in her that strange tremulous
feeling that went with a new moon and apple blossoms and the first warm
nights of spring. She knew, but she did not know how it was that she
knew.
The young man in the leather breeches was still smiling. He lifted his
hand, oh so slightly, and motioned toward the docks. Then the cart
wheels began to turn again, and the procession plodded on. The little
group around the door of the Bay and Beagle watched until the last
straggler was out of sight.
“Well, that’s over,” said Gran briskly, “It’s well past noon, and I
expect we’ll have custom. If you’re leaving us, Master Dick, you might
as well be off, and good luck to you--the same as I’d wish to the son
of any neighbor. Timothy, you better bring up another keg of brandy
from the cellar. You can tend the taps for awhile, Kitty, and Sally
Rose--why, where is Sally Rose?”
They called and called and searched the bedrooms and the attic and the
back garden, but the girl was nowhere to be found. Dick left, after a
bit, taking his spare shirt with him, a small ham, and a hunting knife
proffered by Timothy. The old man went on his errand to the cellar,
and Kitty returned to polishing glasses. A few men drifted in to drink
beer and cider and talk about the exchange of prisoners. Gran muttered
a few dark words about the flightiness of the younger generation and
went into the kitchen to put the bread to rise and make pease porridge
for supper. Bread and beer and pease porridge folk had to have, thought
Kitty, no matter if wars came about, and handsome young men went out to
be killed in them, and girls grew up all too late.
* * * * *
Trade got brisker during the long hot afternoon, and Kitty was kept
busy filling mugs and glasses. She learned from the talk of the men who
happened in that the British prisoners had been sent out by boat to
the great, threatening man-o’-war that swung at anchor in the channel,
halfway to Boston. The officers in charge of the business had all come
into town to take some refreshment and expected shortly to return to
the dock to receive the American lads whose delivery would complete the
exchange. Everything had been conducted in an orderly and courteous
fashion.
Gradually the excitement died down. Gran put on her second best straw
bonnet and went out to look for Sally Rose. Timothy had trouble getting
the brandy keg up the cellar stairs. Bees droned loudly in the
hollyhocks, and gulls cried from the harbor. Slowly the sun moved over
to the westward side of the roofs and gables. It was a summer afternoon
like any other summer afternoon.
And then, all of a sudden, Sally Rose was back. She slipped in quietly,
like a shadow. On her face was that cat-stealing-cream look that fitted
her so well. She went straight to the kitchen.
Kitty hastily served a waiting customer, that same Mr. Bassett who had
come back to Charlestown to cut his hay, and then she followed her
cousin. Sally Rose stood by the water bucket, the dipper lifted to her
mouth. She drank thirstily.
“My, that tastes good,” she said, licking her wet red lips. “It was hot
down by the dockside. Not a sea breeze anywhere.”
“You’ve been to the docks?” asked Kitty curiously.
“Of course. Didn’t you see Gerry wave to me to follow him?”
“Gerry?”
“Oh, of course, Kit!” Sally Rose’s voice had a ring of impatience in
it. “I tried to make signs to you. I thought by the look of your face
you understood me. You were surely staring at him.”
“Staring at whom?”
“Oh Kitty! You saw him! Gerry was the lad in the homespun breeches who
marched beside the prisoners’ cart. He was the only one able to walk,
and so he had to wait on them.”
“But--but that lad--he looked like an American. His clothes--I
thought--”
“Of course! Gerry was pretending to be an American when we captured
him. That’s why he was looking so shabby. You should see him in his
captain’s uniform! He’s been kept in a tent in Cambridge--a tent made
of old sailcloth that the rain came through, and guards all around
him. But he was exchanged this afternoon. I went down to the dock
and talked to him while the boats were putting off. He’s gone safe to
his own regiment in Boston now. But he says he’ll come back to see
me--another day.”
“That’s nice,” said Kitty. “That’s very nice indeed.”
She felt cross suddenly. It must be the heat, or because she had been
working so hard, or because she had forgotten to eat any dinner. It
might be the outrageous behavior of Sally Rose. There are many ways to
explain such a thing.
“And you know he said ...” Sally Rose rattled on.
Suddenly there was a hoarse cry from the cellar stairs--a burst of
strong language, then a deep groan of pain. The girls looked at each
other.
“Oh, it’s Timothy!” gasped Kit. “He was trying to bring up a brandy
keg. He must have fallen.”
The groans continued. She ran to the head of the cellar stairs and
looked down. Sure enough, the old man lay on the dank earth that served
for a flooring, the heavy keg on top of his right foot, his left leg
bent beneath him.
“We’re coming, Timothy,” she called. “We’ll help you.”
She gazed desperately around the taproom, but it was empty. The last
customer had gone. Again she and Sally Rose stood looking at each other.
“He’ll need a doctor,” murmured Kitty. “He’s sure to need a doctor.
Whether there’s one left in town or not, I don’t know.”
Suddenly her cousin’s face lighted. “Of course there’s one in town,”
she cried. “Timothy himself pointed one out. That kind-looking man who
rode in the phaeton with Old Put. Dr. Warren of Boston.”
“Oh--of course I remember. But he’ll be dining with the British
officers. He’s an important official, I think, like a minister or a
judge. He was wearing a fine coat, Sally Rose. He won’t want to leave
his wine and go down in a dirty cellar to tend a poor old man.”
“You can’t tell,” said Sally Rose. “You can’t tell at all. He looked
kind. I’m going to try to find him.” She ran through the doorway.
Kitty stepped gingerly down the cellar stairs to see if she could help
the old man. He could only moan and grunt and utter inarticulate sounds
when she tried to talk to him, but she managed to roll the heavy cask
off his foot and drag him into a sitting position against the roots of
the massive chimney. It seemed hours before she heard footsteps on the
floor overhead, but later she realized it could not have been very long.
A moment later the fair-haired doctor in his neat coat and breeches
stepped nimbly down the stairway. Four of the blue-coated Connecticut
lads swarmed after.
Dr. Warren looked around him in the dim light, at the cobwebbed depths
of the cellar: at the empty vegetable bins waiting for this year’s
harvest, the shelves of preserves and jellies in stone crocks, the
casks that held the stock in trade of the tavern above. He smiled
briefly at Kitty, then he went down on his knees on the earth floor.
“A bad mishap, Timothy,” he said, bending over the old man. There was a
note of cheery courage in his voice. Kitty felt it, and she knew that
Timothy felt it too. The old man spoke weakly.
“Aye, sir. All the brandy in the house be not in that blasted keg
there. Have the lass to fetch me a swig, if you will, sir.”
Kitty did not need to be told again. She ran upstairs to fetch a glass
of brandy. When she came back, the doctor had cut Timothy’s boot away
and bared the flesh beneath it. He shook his head, and there was a
sober look on his face.
“’Tis somewhat crushed I fear. Drink up your brandy, sir, and I will
patch it as best I can. Then the lads will carry you upstairs--where
there should be a bed waiting.” He looked questioningly at Kitty.
“There will be,” she assured him tremulously. “I spoke to my cousin,
Sally Rose. She’s getting it ready.”
She held the brandy glass to Timothy’s mouth, and the old man sipped
feebly. Sometimes he flinched, as the doctor worked at the broken foot,
reshaping it, applying splints and bandages. He did not utter a word,
but his breath came in painful gasps, and he was shivering. The young
soldiers stood looking on.
Dr. Warren talked as he worked, hoping, perhaps, to distract the old
man’s attention.
“Well, sir,” he said, “to tell you the truth, sir, I was glad enough
when the young lady came to fetch me here. I was in the act of
quarreling with Old Put as we partook of a roast goose and glasses
of claret. Somehow, in spite of the present triumph of more cautious
gentlemen, I fear the General may yet have his way.”
Timothy grinned faintly. “I be sorry for ye,” he whispered, “if ye
quarreled with Old Put.”
“Yes, and I felt I was getting the worst of it, though it seems that
at the moment all the greatest powers in our Great American Army be
on my side. Steady, Timothy! This will take but a minute. There! As I
was saying, the whole camp has been in an uproar the past month, as to
whether or not we should fortify Bunker Hill and make a stand against
the British there. Some say we must fight them, and it better be soon
rather than late. Old Put and Prescott go with that way of thinking.”
“Fortify Bunker Hill?” whispered Timothy manfully through his pain.
“Why, that be close by!”
“Very close,” said the doctor. “General Ward and I have talked much
about it. I have been housed at his Cambridge headquarters of late,
where I can easily visit the Provincial Congress in Watertown. He and
I think our men are not yet ready to make a stand. We are against such
an incautious display of valor. Later, perhaps, but not until we have a
better equipped and conditioned army.”
“I wisht,” muttered Timothy, “I had displayed less incautious valor
with that brandy keg. In God’s mercy, I do, sir.”
Dr. Warren tightened the last bandage and got to his feet.
“Take him up carefully, lads,” he said, “and carry him above stairs.
The little golden-head will show you where.”
Kitty thought fleetingly that even the great doctor had been enough
like common men so that he had an eye for the beauty of Sally Rose. She
had hardly noticed what he said about a battle on Bunker Hill.
But she thought about it later when she was standing at the tavern door
in the hot dusk, looking past the roofs of Charlestown at the green
countryside rising behind it. Gran was at home now, alternately tending
Timothy and scolding Sally Rose. The doctor and the soldiers had long
since gone, and the exchange of prisoners was probably complete.
Bunker Hill rose smooth and round and green. Breed’s Hill, not so tall,
was nearer the point, and the third hill, away to the southeast, she
could not see. The hills were criss-crossed with rail fences and stone
walls, divided into orchards, gardens, and pasture land. Daisies and
buttercups bloomed all white and gold in the hayfields. The locust
trees rose tall, and the elm trees taller. Hard green fruit clung to
the apple boughs, and tassels were coming on the stalks of Indian corn.
Gulls cried from the harbor, and a bat swooped down from the eaves
above her head, and darted off, winging its way from side to side of
the crooked street.
Away to the eastward a low-lying cloud bank merged with the dim sea.
There were clouds in the west, too, and thickening round the hills and
steeples of Boston. But over Bunker Hill the sky was clear, lighted
with one pale star. She took it to be a good omen--that there would be
no battle there.
It seemed to Kitty the most peaceful landscape she had ever seen in her
life. And yet, the talk was, “Fortify Bunker Hill! Make a stand against
the British there!” She was glad Dr. Warren did not favor it, and she
hoped he would have his way. She thought maybe she would have liked the
young man by the prisoners’ cart, if she had ever come to know him. But
then, she had never dreamed that he was not an American. And he had
turned out to be her cousin’s British Gerry. He probably wouldn’t have
looked so handsome to her if he had been wearing his red coat.
_Chapter Ten_
A TRYST WITH THE ENEMY
“But what makes you so sure he will be there, Sally Rose,” asked Kitty,
“if you haven’t had any word?”
She was curled up in the middle of the four-poster bed which she shared
with her cousin. Sally Rose sat at the dressing table. A candle burned
at each side of the mirror, and she was studying her reflection in its
glass. She wore nothing but a thin cambric shift, and her feet were
bare.
“He told me he would come in a week’s time, if not before. He promised
it wouldn’t be more than that. When he got aboard the boat to go to the
_Lively_, he promised me.”
Kitty stared past Sally Rose’s golden head into the dark street. Their
bedroom was over the kitchen, and she could hear Gran’s brisk footsteps
trotting about below. Gran was roasting mutton to feed tomorrow’s
customers, but she had sent the girls upstairs to get their beauty
sleep.
“I’ve slipped out to our old meeting place in the graveyard every
night, but he was never there,” she went on. “But tonight it’s Tuesday
again, so he has to be. He just has to be there tonight.” She pulled
on a pair of delicate thread stockings, and thrust her feet into
high-heeled slippers with roses on the toes.
Kitty eyed them disapprovingly. “As I remember the old graveyard, it’s
full of holes and hummocks,” she said. “You’ll trip and fall in those
shoes, if you go walking there.”
“I don’t expect to do much walking,” said Sally Rose.
Then a mischievous light shone out of her hazel eyes. “Kitty! Wait till
you see what I bought today. The shops are full of bargains, with all
the Tories gone out of town. You’ll have to help me, I think.”
She scurried to the clothespress, reached inside it, and brought out
the most hideous contraption Kitty had ever seen. It was a pair of
stays, she supposed, but what a pair! A long cruel case of whalebone
and stiff buckram, high in the back, very low in the front, pinched
and pointed like the body of some vicious insect. That it was covered
with white velvet and sewn with brilliants did not make it any the less
frightening. Kitty got a cramp in her stomach as she looked at it. Her
chest tightened, and for a moment she had trouble in breathing. But
Sally Rose had a gleam in her eye.
“I got this at the staymaker’s this morning,” she said. “He ordered it
for a rich Tory lady, but she fled away to join the British in Boston,
so he let me have it cheap.”
“I should think he might,” said Kitty. “Why it’s hardly a foot around
the middle. You’re slender, but not that slender, Sally Rose. How do
you think to lace it up?”
Sally Rose smiled engagingly and stepped into the dreadful garment,
dragging it over her hips and around her slight form. “Oh, you’ll have
to lace it for me, Kit,” she announced. “I’ll have a truly fashionable
figure now. I always wanted one. Remember, Gerry’s been looking at
those rich Boston ladies all the week long. I don’t want him to feel
disappointed when he sees me.”
Kitty climbed down from the bed and went to her cousin. She picked up
the ends of the lacings and began to weave them into the metal hooks.
Sally Rose stood there beaming, holding the stays in place.
“Hurry and lace them up, Kit,” she urged. “It will be easier if I can
slip out while Gran is still at her work. Before she comes upstairs, I
mean to be gone.”
With a great effort Kitty drew the stays together at the bottom,
clamping her cousin’s slim hips and belly into a frighteningly narrow
space. The garment had been designed for a much taller girl, and came
well down over the thigh, almost to the knee. It fastened at the bottom
with a tiny jeweled padlock, and Kitty noted a similar one at the top.
She hesitated.
“Does this unlock with a key?” she asked.
Sally Rose held up a tiny bit of gold on a satin ribbon. “Oh, it does,
Kitty, and I have the key here. Isn’t it all deliciously clever?”
“I don’t know,” muttered Kitty. “Hold your stomach in.”
Sally Rose compressed herself to the utmost and closed her eyes. Kitty
fastened the padlock and struggled with the lacings.
“Tighter! Tighter!” gasped Sally Rose.
Kitty pulled at the strong cord until it almost cut her fingers. It was
waxed, and it had a toughness about it that made her think of wire.
After a moment she shoved Sally Rose up against the wall, sat down in a
chair in front of her, braced her knees, and laboriously threaded and
pulled till the task was over and she could snap the jeweled padlock at
the top. Then she stood off to view her work.
Sally Rose looked like a long white worm standing up on its tail--or
like a white candle, if you wanted to be poetic--but more like a worm.
Her face was flushed, and she could take only the shortest, shallowest
breaths, but there was triumph in her eye.
“Now my dress and petticoat, Kitty, if you’ll be so good. Oh wait till
Gerry sees me! He’ll be so o’ercome with admiration he’ll scarce know
what to say!”
“He’ll be o’ercome, I don’t doubt,” said Kitty. “Especially if he
tries to put his arm around you. You feel like a stick of cord wood.”
She fastened the gauze petticoat over the stays and then brought the
sky-blue muslin gown Sally Rose had laid out on a chair.
Was life going to be like this always, she wondered somewhat wistfully;
helping Sally Rose to dress, letting Sally Rose in when the evening
was over; herself never dressing up, never meeting anyone, never going
anywhere? She wished that Tom Trask the logger had the daring British
Gerry had. Gossip said that the New Hampshire men were in camp in
Medford, and Medford wasn’t much farther than Boston. But he had no
way of knowing she was so near him, of course. Perhaps when things got
quieter after Concord Fight, he’d gone back to Newburyport to return
her father’s gun. But now it seemed that battles were threatening
again. Perhaps--
“Now my gold gauze kerchief and my scent bottle,” panted Sally Rose.
Kitty brought them. “Are you ready now?” she asked, trying to keep the
envy from her tone. It wasn’t Sally Rose’s fault that she felt lonely
and neglected, not Sally Rose’s fault at all.
“Yes, I’m ready,” sighed Sally Rose. “I’ll go down the back stairs, I
think, and through the garden. Good-by, dear.” She held up her soft
cheek.
Kitty brushed her lips against it. “Good-by, Sally Rose,” she said.
“Don’t get into any trouble, and come home soon.”
Sally Rose laughed a little uneasily and made an awkward motion to
step forward. But she did not step forward. She stopped suddenly,
twisted her body, or tried to, and put her hand to her side.
“My, a bone jabbed me,” she said.
After a moment she tried again to move forward. This time she succeeded
in taking three little hobbled steps. Then she swayed clumsily,
tripped, and fell on the rag rug. There she lay like an overset turtle,
unable to rise.
Kitty stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth to choke back her
laughter. Then she ran forward and struggled to hoist Sally Rose to her
feet.
“I--I don’t think I can walk in this thing,” gasped Sally Rose. “It’s
like having two feet in one breeches leg. And the bones hurt me. And
it’s getting late. Take it off, Kit. Take it off at once. Here’s the
key.”
Still trying to keep back her laughter at the other girl’s ridiculous
plight, Kitty pulled off the blue dress and the petticoat and fitted
the tiny key into the jeweled lock. It refused to turn, and she twisted
it gently.
“You’ll be in a pickle,” she muttered, “if it should break.”
“Don’t you dare break it!” squealed Sally Rose.
Kitty worked the key this way and that. Below in the tavern kitchen
Gran’s voice lifted up the words of an old hymn. Through the open
window drifted the scent of garden flowers in the warm dark. Her hands
got sticky with sweat. She kept dropping the wretched little key.
“Hurry!” pleaded Sally Rose. “I’m afraid he’ll come and not find me.
I’m afraid he’ll go away.”
Desperately Kitty twisted the bit of metal.
“It’s no use, Sally Rose,” she said at last. “I can’t make it work.
What will we do?”
“Cut the lacings, I suppose,” sighed Sally Rose, “and I’ll try to
wiggle out through the gap in the middle. I don’t care much. I never
should have bought it. Maybe the staymaker will take it back. Get my
shears. They’re in the workbox in the top drawer.”
“But you left your workbox in the kitchen,” said Kit. “I saw it there
when we were scouring the pots after supper. All the other shears and
knives are there too, and if I went down, I’d have to explain to Gran.”
The two girls looked at each other in dismay. Sally Rose bit her lip.
“Yes, you would,” she said. “And whatever excuse you made, she might
come back upstairs with you, and then I’d never get away. Can’t you
break the lacings?”
“I doubt it,” said Kitty. “It’s the toughest cord I ever saw.”
“Try.”
So Kitty yanked and tugged and twisted, but the cord refused to break.
Sally Rose was hopelessly trapped.
They were silent for a moment. Then she clenched her soft hands and
stiffened her mouth. “I’ll have to go just as I am,” she said, and
tried to walk again. Again she fell.
Kitty helped her up and led her to a chair. “Sit down, Sally Rose,” she
said gently. But Sally Rose could not sit down.
“I guess it’s no use,” she murmured, reluctant, almost tearful. “You’ll
just have to go and tell Gerry I’m sick, or something. Tell him to come
back tomorrow night. I’ll surely be there.”
Kitty hesitated. She didn’t know quite why. Was it because Gerry
was British and she disapproved of the British? Or was it a deeper,
stranger thing--a sort of foreboding? A fear, and yet an eagerness, too.
“Are you sure you want me to, Sally Rose?” she asked.