“To-morrow I am to go with Father to the woods,” announced Anna as they came in sight of the comfortable log cabin which stood high above the river, and where they could see their mother standing in the doorway looking for their return. The girls waved and called to their mother as they hurried up the path.
“We have fine chips, Mother,” called Rebecca, while Anna in a sing-song tone called out: “Pineapples and sweet-smelling spices! Strings of pink coral and shells from far lands.”
Rebecca sighed to herself as she heard Anna’s laughing recital of their father’s words. She resolved to ask her mother to forbid Anna talking in future in such a silly way.
“You are good children to go and return so promptly,” said Mrs. Weston, “but you are none too soon, for ’twill take a good blow with the bellows to liven up the coals, and I have a fine venison steak to broil for dinner,” and as she spoke Mrs. Weston took the basket and hurried into the house, followed by the girls.
“Mother, what is a ‘liberty pole’?” questioned Anna, kneeling on the hearth to help her mother start the fire with the pine chips.
“What dost thou mean, child? Surely the men are not talking of such matters as liberty poles?” responded her mother anxiously.
Anna nodded her head. “Yes, Mother. There is to be a ‘liberty pole’ set up so it can be well seen from the harbor, for so I heard Mr. O’Brien say; and Father is to go to the woods to-morrow to find it. It is to be the straightest and handsomest sapling pine to be found in a day’s journey; that much I know,” declared Anna eagerly; “but tell me why is it to be called a ‘liberty pole’? And why is it to be set up so it can be well seen from the harbor?”
“Thou knowest, Anna, that King George of England is no longer the true friend of American liberty,” said Mrs. Weston, “and the liberty pole is set up to show all Tories on land or sea that we mean to defend our homes. And if the men are talking of putting up the tree of liberty in Machias I fear that trouble is near at hand. But be that as it may, our talking of such matters will not make ready thy father’s dinner. Blaze up the fire with these chips, Anna; and thou, Rebby, spread the table.”
Both the girls hastened to obey; but Anna’s thoughts were pleasantly occupied with the morrow’s excursion when she would set forth with her father to discover the “handsome sapling pine tree,” which was to be erected as the emblem of the loyalty of the Machias settlement to Freedom’s call. Anna knew they would follow one of the Indian trails through the forest, where she would see many a wild bird, and that the day would be filled with delight.
But Rebecca’s thoughts were not so pleasant. Here it was the fifth of May, and no sign of the Polly, and on the tenth she would be fourteen; and not a birthday gift could she hope for unless the sloop arrived. Beside this, the talk of a liberty pole in Machias made her anxious and unhappy. Only yesterday she had spent the afternoon with her most particular friend, Lucia Horton, whose father was captain of the Polly; and Lucia had told Rebecca something of such importance, after vowing her to secrecy, that this talk of a liberty pole really frightened her. And the thought that her own father was to select it brought the danger very near. She wished that Lucia had kept the secret to herself, and became worried and unhappy.