Rebecca was up in season to see her father start, but Anna, tired from the adventure of the previous day, had not awakened.
“Is the liberty tree safe?” Rebby asked a little anxiously, as she helped her mother about the household work that morning.
“Why, Rebby dear, what harm could befall it?” questioned her mother. “The traitor who set it afloat will not dare cut it down. ’Tis a strange thing that, search though they may, no trace can be found of the rascals.”
Rebecca’s hands trembled, and she dared not look up. It seemed to the little girl that if her mother should look into her eyes she would at once know that she, Rebecca Flora Weston, who had been born in Boston, and whose parents were loyal Americans, had committed the dreadful deed. She wished with all her heart that she could tell her mother all that Lucia Horton had said; but the promise bound her. She could never tell anyone. Rebecca knew that she could never be happy again. “Not unless I could do some fine thing to help America,” she thought, a little hopelessly; for what could a little girl, in a settlement far away from all the strife, do to help the great cause for which unselfish men were sacrificing everything?
Mrs. Weston was troubled about Rebecca. “The child has not really been well since her birthday,” she thought, “although I cannot think what the trouble can be.”
“Your father says that the honey is really yours, Rebby dear,” continued Mrs. Weston, “and that you may decide how it shall be disposed of.”
“I don’t care,” Rebby responded, a little faintly. “Only, of course, Paul ought to have half, because he helped.”
“Yes, of course; but even then your share will be a good quantity,” said Mrs. Weston. Before Rebecca could speak Anna came running into the room, her brown eyes shining, and her curls, now long enough to dance about her face, falling over her brown cheeks.
As she ate her porridge her mother questioned her about the adventure of the previous day, and for a time Rebby forgot her own worries in listening to Anna’s account of her journey in the leaking boat, and of her leap to safety.
“It was not mischief, was it, Mother, to try and capture Trit?” she concluded.