Timothy Coffin, Granny’s hired man who tended the garden and split the firewood, came tumbling down from his tiny attic chamber. Gnarled and weathered, not much younger than his employer, his arms were half in, half out of his woolen jacket, and he carried an old flintlock, like himself, a veteran of the siege of Louisburg thirty years ago.
“Git out o’ my way, women,” he shouted, as he tore past them. “I’ll bet it’s them varmints. I knowed they was about to strike!”
Granny peered after him in bewilderment, as he fumbled with the lock of the heavy front door.
“Does he mean the Indians?” she asked. “When I was a girl I used to hear stories—but it seems they’re too scarce hereabout to cause any trouble now.”
Timothy finally got the door open and stood there, listening to a hoarse excited voice that spoke in the dark outside. Suddenly he turned around.
“I’m off, Ma’am Greenleaf!” he called to Granny. “Them British dogs has struck at last. I signed the pledge for a Minuteman. I swore to hold myself in readiness to march whenever I be ordered. An’ I be ordered now.”
“If you’re going far, you’d better take some food with you,” said Granny smartly. “Take all the bread in the cupboard, and the cold chicken—”
“And the plum cake,” interrupted Kitty. “We cut a plum cake yesterday.”
“Where are you going, Timothy? Where did the ‘British dogs’ strike?” asked Sally Rose, her eyes looking large in her white face.
Timothy did not answer her. Instead he ducked into the kitchen. The front door yawned open, and through it they could hear the terrible clamor of the bells, the lift of excited voices as the townspeople hastened by.