Toliver's Secret (2 page)

Perhaps she should tell him why she was late every day. She knew he would think it was not very important. But it was important! To her, it was!

“I'm late because of that tough Dicey at the pump,” she said.

“What's a dicey?” asked Grandfather.

“Dicey's a girl. Everyone is afraid of her. She says she's going to wring my neck and I think she means it, too.”

“Is that the way she talks to you, Ellen?” Mother asked.

Whenever Ellen thought of Dicey, she could almost hear her rowdy laughter. It gave her a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. “She screams at me and I have to go to another pump farther away.”

“Fiddlesticks!” said Grandfather. “Just stand up for yourself, Ellen. That's what I did—when I was a boy and small for my age.”

Ellen doubted she could stand up for herself when Dicey went blustering about like a tough butcher-boy.

“Ellen's not a boy,” Mother said quietly. “She can't roister about like a boy.”

“Oh, double fiddlesticks!” said Grandfather impatiently. “She could talk back to that little girl at the pump.”

“Dicey's not a little girl,” Ellen protested. “She's bigger than I am and she's mean.”

“Talk back to her anyway, Ellen,” Grandfather urged her. “Don't be so meek and mild.”

Mother seldom spoke sharply to anyone, but now she folded her arms and looked at Grandfather. “Her father wanted Ellen to be ladylike,” she said. “You remember my husband was a schoolmaster, college-educated. He knew all about training children.”

“Yes, I suppose he did,” said Grandfather.

“Indeed he did,” Abby said firmly. “He was very pleased with Ellen's quiet ways and her pretty manners.”

Grandfather looked puzzled as he watched her put the loaf of bread on a long-handled shovel. It was plain to see that he didn't understand his daughter. She looked so much like him—and yet they were so different. “Well, Abby,” he said, “your husband was a good man, a very good man indeed. But,” he reminded her, “Ellen can have pretty manners and still be bold when she needs to be. She can learn to stand up for herself!”

“Not like a boy,” Ellen repeated her mother's words. “You know I can't fight back like a boy!”

“You don't have to fight back with your fists,” said Grandfather impatiently. “Use your brains, Ellen. You're a smart girl. Bluff her. Stare her down. Get your friends to join you and chase away the bully.”

“I just don't see how I could do that,” Ellen said. Her big brother, Ezra, often said to her, “Don't be so scared, Ellie. Just talk back to people. You're too polite—or timid—or something.” Ezra was a carefree boy with auburn hair and a wide smile—like Grandfather's. He'd talk back to anyone—even the captain of the village militia.

“Well,” said Grandfather, “you're a smart girl. You'll think of a way.”

Now that the oven at the back of the fireplace was hot, Mother raked out the coals and slid in two long loaves of bread. She took a last look at the mysterious round one before slipping it in too.

Grandfather unlocked the kitchen door and went into his shop at the front of the house. The tail of his wig turned up jauntily as he straightened his coat and picked up his cane.

“Why in the world did Grandfather put his snuffbox in that loaf of bread?” Ellen whispered.

“Best not to ask any questions, Ellen, “Mother said.

Grandfather came back to the door of the kitchen and winked at Ellen. “Just go and stand up to that Dicey,” he urged her. “You have more of your Grandfather's spirit than you think, Ellen. And now, Abby, I'm going to the Tavern for breakfast. And to hear the news. I'll be back when the bread is baked.” He glanced up at the little square clock that hung on the wall of his shop with its pendulum swinging slowly back and forth. “You remember the shop is closed for the day,” he reminded her. “I've given my shaver a holiday.”

The young man, Alexander, who lived in the attic and who helped Grandfather in the shop while he learned to be a barber, had gone off last night to visit his family.

Grandfather gave Ellen a big smile. “That girl, Dicey, sounds like a bully,” he said. “She'll back down if you just stand up for yourself.”

Ellen wasn't so sure of that. It may have been true when Grandfather was a boy, but she knew it wouldn't work now, with a tough girl like Dicey.

E
llen dreaded that trip to the pump. It would be good to stay in the safe warm kitchen and never go out.

A crackling fire on the hearth made bright lights on the copper pans and on the blue china plates in the cupboard. It made the quilt on the big bed look like a field of bluebells and shone on the bunches of dried herbs that hung from the shadowy rafters overhead.

Ellen looked around. “This kitchen makes me feel
happy,” she said.

“It makes me happy, too,” Mother said wistfully. “I used to sew and knit with my mother here by the fire. She taught me my lessons here at this big table by this very window.”

On the table was a basket of clay curlers and combs and brushes as well as a wigstand covered with a net and a half-made wig. White hair spilled from a wooden box.

“We used to sit here and curl and dress the wigs for my father's customers. And help him make some of the wigs, too,” Mother added.

“And now you and I dress the wigs for the redcoat officers,” said Ellen.

“Yes,” said Mother sadly. “Here we are curling wigs for the soldiers who have come to defeat us. And there's not much you and I can do about it. These are terrible mixed-up times, Ellen.”

Ellen knew that well enough. Ever since the British army came to New York last summer. She remembered the night in August when the alarm had come to their village. The British had landed on Long Island! Her father's thin face had been grim when he locked up his schoolhouse and rushed off with his musket to join the other men in the village militia.
That very night the militia had marched off to Brooklyn Heights to help General Washington's army defend Long Island and New York. In spite of all her mother's pleading, Ezra went with him. He was only fifteen, but he could shoot as well as a man. “We'll send those cutthroats back to old King George,” he had boasted.

Everyone knew the brave Patriots could drive the British out. Washington had driven them out of Boston last year, hadn't he?

But the British had three times as many men as Washington had—and all of them well trained in war. They defeated him at Brooklyn Heights and they captured New York City. They drove his army north and in November captured Fort Washington, where they took three thousand prisoners. People heard the news in stunned surprise.

Then the British took Fort Lee across Hudson's River with all of Washington's cannon. And finally they sent what was left of his army scurrying across New Jersey. The colonists could hardly believe such news. They had felt so sure that courage and the will to win would be enough to beat back the British.

“Where do you think Ezra is today, Mother?”
Immediately Ellen was sorry she had asked, for Mother bit her lip and was silent.

“Only the good Lord knows,” she said at last. “If he's alive—and isn't on a prison ship, he must have gone to Pennsylvania with Washington's army.”

Ellen knew that asking about Ezra had reminded her mother of the other news that had come to them after the Battle of Brooklyn Heights. Her father had been killed. Many men from their village had been killed that day.

She and her mother had been all alone. Mother was nervous and upset most of the time and worried about what to do.

When at last they had no more food in their storeroom—and no money to buy anything—and the November days were growing bitter cold, Mother had said, “Our neighbors can't help us, for they have as much hardship as we. There is nothing to do but to go back to my father, Ellie. Even if the town is in the hands of the enemy now.”

“How can we travel, Mother?” Ellen had asked.

“We must walk! There's naught else to be done!”

And so they had walked ten miles back to New York. Grandfather had welcomed them joyfully and
had given them the big kitchen to live in while he slept on a couch in his shop. The rest of his house was already occupied by British officers.

“Now remember, Ellen,” Mother had said, “we must be very careful here. Most of the people who have stayed in New York are friends of the British and want them to win the war. Not Grandfather, of course, nor any of his friends. Those of us who are Patriots, here in town, must lie low.”

“Just like rabbits in a rabbit hole,” Ellen suggested.

Mother shrugged her shoulders and sighed. “Well, rabbits know how to act when the enemy is all around them.”

“And I suppose even rabbits need water,” Ellen grumbled aloud to herself.

No longer able to put off the trip to the pump, she pulled on her stout leather shoes and picked up her red cloak. It was a good warm cloak that her mother had made, and it hung almost to the hem of her long wool dress. To stay safe indoors all winter would make her very happy. But of course, since the wooden bucket was quite empty there was nothing to do but pull her cloak around her, cover her head with the hood and start. She took a long breath. If she
went very slowly she might find that Dicey had gone home.

“Just go to another pump, Ellen, if Dicey bothers you,” her mother said. “Don't go asking for trouble.”

Walking slowly through the barbershop Ellen passed the counter that ran along the wall. On the counter were five china wigstands with painted gentlemen's faces beneath fancy white wigs. They looked, Ellen thought, as if they were smirking at her.

“Smiling like idiots,” she said. “And you don't even see that jar of leeches there beside you.” The dark slimy little worms lay quietly in the water that filled a big green jar. Barbers always had leeches handy to put on bruises and swellings. Ellen found them almost too horrible to look at.

From the kitchen she heard her mother call after her. “Mind the slippery steps, Ellen. And don't talk to strangers!”

Mother always said that—every time she went out. And Ellen never talked to strangers! It seemed to Ellen that Mother worried about everything.

With great care Ellen crept down the icy steps of the barbershop and out into the street. The air smelled of winter—snow and sweet wood smoke mixed together.
It was only half light in the early morning, but already the apprentices were sweeping the steps of the shops and brushing the snow from the signs overhead.

As nimbly as she could, she dodged out of the way of carts and wagons that rumbled along slowly while their horses slipped and slid on the icy cobblestones. It seemed to her that every man with a wheelbarrow barked at her to get out of his way. And every workman with a load on his shoulders seemed to give her a shove. People were cross on a nipping cold morning.

When she walked with Grandfather on Sunday afternoons, things were different, for he was friends with almost everyone in the neighborhood. Even when they walked down to the Battery or out Bowery Lane to the country, he always stopped to chat with friends.

“Jump aside!” shouted three girls as they sloshed along with full water buckets. Ellen hopped out of their way. Just in time to get hit by a snowball. Across the street the Brinkerhoff boys were knocking icicles down from the roof with snowballs. They hurled several at her, but she pretended not to notice.

She had not even reached the corner when a tall thin man with a tallow-spattered apron shouted at her roughly. “Look sharp now, girl!” he roared as he
pulled her against the wall, knocking her bucket from her hand and spilling his own baskets of candles. Down the busy street dashed three officers on big black horses. Without a glance to either side, they rode as if they owned the whole world.

“Drat those redcoats!” muttered the candlemaker. “The lordly way they push us around!” He knelt down to gather up his candles. “Did I hurt you, girl?”

“No, sir,” said Ellen politely. She began to help him pick up his candles. The more she delayed, the more chance there was that Dicey might have gone home by the time she reached the pump.

The neighborhood pump was only two blocks away, although it seemed like a mile to Ellen. As she came near, she could hear the old wooden handle creak and groan. A group of women and girls were waiting in line to fill their buckets. They huddled in their shawls, and stamped their feet to keep warm. Ellen looked cautiously to see whether Dicey was there before she took her place at the end of the line.

The women were talking about the same thing they talked about every morning. High prices! The high price of wool—the high price of firewood—the high price of cornmeal and flour and mutton. That kind of talk made Ellen worry about eating anything at all.

“Has Dicey been here this morning?” she asked the woman ahead of her. She was an old woman with a work-worn face, dressed in a man's coat instead of a shawl.