“There’s Dick and Eben,” cried Kitty. “Dick!” She lifted her voice. “Dick, come here and tell me where they are going. Dick, are you going too?”
But Dick and Eben were hurrying after the Minutemen. They looked at the girls and waved, and then ran on.
“Ah, here’s Mr. Cary,” Granny exclaimed. “Now we’ll see what all this uproar is likely to lead to.” She trotted over to the minister who was moving swiftly up the street, his wig not quite straight, and the linen bands at his throat somewhat disordered. “Mr. Cary, tell me now, what does all this mean?”
The minister paused, adjusted his wig, and mopped his brow with a lawn handkerchief. “I’m afraid it means war, Madame Greenleaf. It was bound to come. They’ve oppressed us too far. But about this latest outrage—I myself talked with the postrider, and he was there and saw it all. A frightful slaughter!” He looked at the girls and lowered his voice, but they heard him all the same.
“He says that when he left, the whole rout was fleeing back towards Boston, but he heard Captain Parker say that if they mean to have a war, let it begin here. ’Twould seem they so mean, and that it has begun.”
“Who were the redcoats?” asked Sally Rose in a small tremulous voice. “Did he say if it was the Twenty-third?”
Mr. Cary looked at her sharply. “Who knows one redcoat from another, and what does it matter?” he demanded. “But I believe he did mention the Twenty-third. It seems they were not in the thickest of the engagement, but posted out to help their fellow scoundrels home to Boston.”
Sally Rose let her breath escape in a little sigh of relief. Granny tapped her cane on a granite horse block nearby to get Mr. Carey’s attention again.
“Well, what do our lads think to do about it? Why get folks out of bed in the middle of the night? Must we fortify the Port and barricade ourselves in our houses because there’s been a fuss in Lexington? Are the British headed for Frog Pond Green?”
Mr. Cary started to smile and then bit his lip. “Hardly that, but our companies will assemble and march from there. The word’s been passed for such men as are able to bear arms to make their way to Cambridge with all speed.”