“My soul and body,” said Gran, “I thought I’d learned to do without it, but a cup of tea would certainly taste good to me right now.”
Sally Rose smiled and her eyes sparkled in the candlelight. “I can get you tea, Gran,” she said. “Father has some hidden away. He says he keeps it for times of need among womenfolk. ’Twas bought long ago before tea-tax time. Put the kettle on, Kitty.”
She went flying into the taproom to the secret cache behind the bar. A little later they sat down again with steaming cups before them.
But Gran’s face was sober, and she spoke more gently than was her wont to do. “I hope that whatever happens tomorrow,” she said, holding her teacup in her hand, not tasting the fragrant liquid, “you girls will behave in a fitting manner, though it may not be easy. There is bound to be much danger about in a battle, and many horrible sights to be seen. When the soldiers came here first and warned us to go away, I thought I would do as they advised me. And then I remembered an old great-grandmother of mine. She lived in a lonely garrison and when the Indians attacked her home, she did not run away.”
“What did she do?” asked Sally Rose, her eyes wide.
“She poured boiling water out of an upstairs window and scalded the varmints,” snapped Gran, with all her usual severity. “And if she could do that, it came to me that I could stay here and do whatever it was needful I should do.”
“Do you think to pour hot water on the British, Gran?” asked Kitty, trying to suppress a giggle.
“Times change,” said Gran, her eyes fixed on the dwindling darkness outside, on the tall hollyhock stems becoming visible in the garden, “and that’s not what will be expected of us, most likely. Only—it comes to me—that sometime, a good many years from now, all of us, yes, even you, Sally Rose, will be great-grandmothers, too.”
“With gray hair?” asked Sally Rose plaintively.
“With gray hair—or no hair at all,” continued Gran. “And then, at that time, we wouldn’t want the young folk of our blood to say we were afraid and ran away when the time of danger came.”