“Abner, I want you to go a message for me after breakfast.”
“Yes, mother. Is it to Four Corners?”
“No; you are to go to the Blands, with a basket for old Mrs Whiting.”
“Why, that’s in Canada, and they’re our enemies.”
“Our governments are at war, but we old neighbors are not.”
“But the Indian guard may catch me.”
“If they do, they’ll not harm a boy like you.”
“Yes, they would, mother. They’d scalp anything that’s Yankee, and I hate them and every Britisher. I don’t see why you want to do a good turn to those who’ve been trying these two years to cut our throats and burn our houses.”
“Abner!” exclaimed Mrs Smith reproachfully.