Bunker Hill, Battle of, Boston, Mass., 1775 -- Juvenile fiction; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Juvenile fiction
“I guess it’s no use,” she murmured, reluctant, almost tearful. “You’ll
just have to go and tell Gerry I’m sick, or something. Tell him to come
back tomorrow night. I’ll surely be there.”
Kitty hesitated. She didn’t know quite why. Was it because Gerry
was British and she disapproved of the British? Or was it a deeper,
stranger thing--a sort of foreboding? A fear, and yet an eagerness, too.
“Are you sure you want me to, Sally Rose?” she asked.
Sally Rose stamped her foot, or tried to, then writhed as a whalebone
jabbed her. “Of course I do,” she cried. “Go quickly, do, and come back
and tell me what he has to say. Then we’ll have to get the shears and
cut me out of this thing. Oh Kitty, go now!”
And so it was that Kitty Greenleaf slipped away to Charlestown’s old
graveyard that night to meet her country’s enemy, her cousin’s exciting
young man.
* * * * *
An eerie little wind was blowing through the town that night, a warm
wind, and it had the tang of sea salt in it, and the heavy sweetness of
the new mown hay on Bunker Hill. It ruffled Kitty’s hair and cooled her
hot face as she walked through the empty streets, past the Two Cranes,
the courthouse, and the meeting house with its tall white spire rising
against the dark. Few of the windows were lighted, but down by the
docks she could hear the familiar cry of the watch, and over the bay
the lights of Boston shone out bright and clear. It was hard for her to
remember that Boston was no longer a friendly town.
When she reached the graveyard she felt her way along the low wall that
protected it from the street. Shadow lay thick about the grassy mounds
inside, and crooked elm boughs meeting overhead shut out the thin glow
of the starlight. There was no moon.
Leaving the wall she blundered forward, now and then brushing against
one of the old headstones. She knew what they looked like well enough:
short thick slabs of greenish slate with a death’s head at the top;
some of reddish sandstone; beyond them the granite tombs where the
great families lay. But she could not seem to find the path that would
lead her through. And then, somehow she did find it, and groped her
way to the wall on the far side with the open fields beyond. He was
standing there, just as she knew he would be.
He carried a dark lantern, half open now to let a little light shine
through, and he wore the rough shirt and breeches of an American
farmer. Sally Rose would have been disappointed had she hoped to see
the scarlet coat. As he heard her footstep on the worn grass he drew
in his breath sharply.
“Ah, Sally Rose!” he whispered, and turned the lantern full upon her.
“I--I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I’m her cousin Kitty. She sent me to
tell you--”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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