“Then there’s no knowing when they’ll be home,” answered Kitty. It made her uneasy to admit to herself, as she had been forced to do, that all her eagerness and anxiety were not for her long-time friend, Dick Moody, but for that other one, the thin lad from New Hampshire who had taken her father’s blunderbuss away.
“No knowing,” agreed Sally Rose. “Three weeks it’s been since Concord Fight, maybe more. More than a month since I’ve seen Gerry. I thought he might write to me, but he never has. Some of the Tory girls in Boston are very fair,” and she sighed. “I thought I might find someone to take his place, but I should have known I never could—here in this dull, stupid, country town.”
“You’re better off not seeing him, since he’s British,” said Kitty sharply. “I’m sure, most times, you’d find better lads than him, walking down Queen Street any day. But just now—well, you know where they’ve all gone. They’ve gone to fight for the rights of our colony, and you ought to be proud of them, Sally Rose.”
“Ummmm,” said Sally Rose, chewing a dandelion stem and then making up a face when its bitter white milk puckered her mouth. “Of course I’m proud of them. How old does one have to be before they’re an old maid, Kitty? It seems like I might be approaching the time.”
“Oh no,” cried Kitty. “We’re only sixteen. No one would think that of us—not for at least two years more!”
Sally Rose stood up and tossed her bright hair in the sun. “Two years isn’t long,” she said. “Well, you can sit here in the Port and wither if you want to, but I’ve got other fish in the pan.”
She started walking quickly in the direction of Granny Greenleaf’s weathered house.
Kitty watched her with apparent unconcern for as long as she could. Then she jumped to her feet and hurried after.
“Where are you going?” she panted.
Sally Rose smiled at her. “Why,” she said, “I think I’ll go back to my father’s house in Charlestown. If there’s a war in Boston, we’ll be in the midst of everything there. Why don’t you come along, Kit? Tom Trask may not be back this way, you know.”