"There was no mistake about the sign, though," replied Jacob. "There's something wrong, or we shouldn't have seen the white flag. That means there's something going on up the Navesink."
"All the more reason for going home then!" said Benzeor. "Who was on the lookout to-day? Does any one know?"
"Yes, 't was Peter Van Mater," said Tom, who up to this time had taken no part in the conversation. "He told me yesterday that he was to be in the tree to-day."
"What! Little Peter?" demanded Benzeor quickly.
"Yes," replied Tom. "I saw him out by their cornfield yesterday. He was there driving away the crows and blackbirds."
"Little" Peter was so called to distinguish him from his father who bore the same name; and although his son, a well-grown young fellow of eighteen, towered more than a half head above "Big" Peter now, the distinctive names given several years before this time still clung to them both.
The Van Mater place joined the Osburn farm, and for years Tom and Little Peter had been the best of friends. On those rare occasions when a brief break in the arduous labors on the farms had come, together they had gone crabbing, or had sailed down to Barnegat, where the sea-fowl gathered in great flocks when the proper seasons came.
Tom's heart had gone out to Little Peter as it had not to any other person. Peter's round face shone with an expression of good nature which nothing but the mention of a tory or a pine robber seemed to be able to ruffle. A reference to either of them never failed to arouse the dormant anger of the lad, and with all the intensity of his quiet and strong nature he hated both. For the Van Maters, even to the mother and the girls, were patriots of the strongest kind, and now Big Peter was away in Washington's army and had left his eldest son and namesake to protect the family and manage the farm in his absence.
And Little Peter had accepted the task with an outward assent that deceived even his own father. Only to Tom had he mentioned his true feelings, and expressed his determination to buy up his time, so that he, too, might be enrolled in the patriot army.
Tom Coward well knew that the words expressed Little Peter's feelings and desires rather than his purpose, for he was satisfied that nothing would induce his friend to desert his mother and the children in their time of need. But he had fully sympathized with Peter in his desire to buy up his time, and there were special reasons why the words meant much more to him than they did to his friend.