Sally Rose smiled sweetly. “I’m sorry you feel so, Cousin. Perhaps I do wrong to make a jest of everything, but that is my way. Have you never thought, when you hear all these preparations for war, that there is work for us as well as for the lads? Who’s to cook and wash and sew for them, and bind up their wounds when the fighting is over? I’m going where I can be of use to my country. If you’re afraid to come with me—well, you can stay here and sleep in the sun by the Frog Pond every afternoon. You’ll surely be safe enough—unless a horsefly bites you, or the dry rot settles in.”
She took a quill pen and inkpot from the mantelpiece, sat down at the dressing table, and began to write.
Kitty jumped from the bed and took a few turns up and down the room.
“Do you really think we ought to go, Sally Rose?” she asked. “Do you think—we might be needed there?”
“I certainly do think so,” said Sally Rose. “Don’t bother to pack any clothes, Kit. At home in Charlestown I have more than enough for two.”
Under Sally Rose’s urging, Kitty opened a top drawer in the old mahogany chest and began slowly to sort out the few possessions she wanted to take with her, if she did go; an ivory comb, a pleated linen fichu, her mother’s cameo brooch. Her fingers flew faster every minute, as her heart warmed to the plan.
Her throat grew tight, and she felt tears of eagerness and excitement sting her eyelids. She was going to serve her country, like Tom and Johnny and Dick, and all the Newburyport lads, all the lads of the Bay Colony, and maybe other colonies, too. She was going to take part in a serious, and a mighty, and a very grown-up thing. Wars were history, and she was going to help make history. It had been done before by other girls who were just as young. She was glad, she thought, that she was to have a chance to do it in her time. Her heart stirred just as it did in church when one or another of the old warlike hymn tunes rose on the air.
“You’d better take a cloak, Kit, for it’ll grow cold after sundown, and we may ride late,” advised Sally Rose, pulling her own fleecy shawl from the carved old press. “Come, let’s be off to the wars in Boston!”
On her way to follow Sally Rose’s bidding, Kitty caught sight of her cousin’s note as it lay open on the dressing table.
Dear Granny, the note began, in dainty, pointed script, Forgive me for leaving you so suddenly, and practically forcing poor Kitty to go along. But I dare not travel by myself, and I find that a sudden yearning to see my father takes me....