“And what will you do? Don’t you mean to go with me?” asked Faith.
“Oh, yes! I’ll tell my mother I am going to spend the day with you. Then we’ll start off in good season, and we’ll get home before our mothers miss us,” said Esther.
“Faith! Faith!” and Mrs. Carew’s voice sounded through the clear air.
“I must run back now. I’ll write the letter to-night and be over near your house as early as I can in the morning,” said Faith.
“Hide behind the big pine,” said Esther, and the two friends, greatly excited over their project, separated and ran toward their respective homes.
It was not easy for Faith to write the letter, for she would have to ask her mother for the quill pen, and the bottle of ink, made from the juice of the pokeberry. But in the early evening, while her mother was busy, Faith secured the quill and ink and a sheet of the treasured paper and wrote her letter:
“Dear Mr. Colonel Ethan Allen,” she wrote. “Will you please send the English soldiers away from Fort Ticonderoga? Nathan Beaman, who lives at Shoreham, will show you how to get in. Please send them soon, or more will come.
“Respectfully your friend,
“Faith Carew.”
She had time to fold and seal the letter with the big stick of red wax, softening the wax before the sitting-room fire. A moment later and her mother came in, saying she had best go to bed and get a good night’s rest.