American Challenge

by Susan Martins Miller

  Kate watched as Harry went back into the parlor and took down the old musket that hung over the fireplace. He ran a hand along the barrel. The musket had been there for as long as Kate could remember.

  “Do you think it works?” Colin asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure we can get ammunition for it. It’s awfully old. Our great-grandfather, Robert, carried it to war against the French in 1710. He fought alongside the British soldiers then. Now if we fight with it, we’ll be fighting against the British.”

  Kate saw Colin’s Adam’s apple jerk, as though he were fighting back a lump in his throat. “He was killed in that war. Our grandfather, his only child, was born while he was fighting, remember? He never even saw his son.”

  Harrison nodded, his eyes grave.

  Colin stuck his hands in his breeches’ deep pockets. “Do you think that might happen to your son, Paul, if you fight? If you were … if you were killed—”

  Kate gulped and fought back the tears that burned her eyes.

  “You’d never see Paul again,” Colin finished, his voice cracking. “He’s only six months old. He might not even remember you when he grows up.”

  “I know.” Harry’s words were so low that Kate almost didn’t hear them. Harry carefully hung the musket back in place. “I’ve joined the minutemen.” He turned and looked at his wife. “I have to do what I believe is right.”

  “I thought you would.” Colin’s voice was barely more than a whisper.

  “I talked it over with Eliza first,” Harry said. “I do think about Paul. I worry what will happen to him and Eliza if we go to war. But Eliza and I agreed that when Paul grows up, we want him to have the rights Englishmen have had for more than five hundred years—even if that means I have to fight.”

  Kate’s father moved as if to go out the door. She knew he didn’t want to hear any of this, that he did not want to be associated with what he considered treason. But she could tell by the look on his face that he also hated to leave. After all, Colin’s mother was his sister. They were family. No matter how much Father and Uncle Jack argued, Kate knew her father loved his family.

  “What about you?” Harry asked Colin.

  Colin frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “If war comes, will you fight with the Patriots?”

  Colin shrugged and kicked at a bit of ash on the floor with the toe of his shoe. “I won’t fight against them.”

  Harry grinned. “I didn’t think you would, but that’s no answer. You’re thirteen, almost a man.”

  Colin squared his shoulders. “I don’t know if I can try to kill anyone. I want to be a doctor and save lives.” He turned and looked at his uncle, then looked back at his brother. “Have you ever seen anyone die?”

  Harrison shook his head. “No.”

  “I have, lots of times. It’s terrible. Uncle Firth and I do everything we can sometimes—and yet people still die.” He pressed his lips together hard and spread his hands. “Do you understand? Life is precious. When I know how hard it is to save a life, how can I choose to kill? It’s much easier to take a life than save one.”

  Kate knew her father was proud of his nephew’s words. But would Harrison understand? She held her breath, waiting for Harry’s reply. Colin put so much stock in his brother’s good opinion. He would be crushed if this war came between him and his brother.

  Harrison sighed. “You have a good head on your shoulders, Colin. You don’t let anyone push you into anything you don’t believe in. That’s good.” He, too, glanced at his uncle. “I’ve heard Uncle Firth say more than once that each man has to make up his mind for himself. I respect that. But what if everyone refused to fight and let King George take away all our rights? What would our children and grandchildren say when they found out we’d let our rights be taken away without a fight? If war comes, you may not have a choice but to fight. The only choice left will be which side you fight for.”

  Kate’s gaze slid to the musket, almost hidden now in the room’s dark shadows. The dull gray metal on the musket’s barrel looked cold in the firelight—and a chill that was just as icy wrapped itself tight around her heart.

  “Come along, Kate,” her mother whispered. “It’s time for us to go.” The next morning, Kate looked out the apothecary window and saw Colin standing outside beneath the creaking sign with the mortar and pestle. His hands were bunched into fists at his sides.

  Kate pulled a cloak around her shoulders and ran out into the street. “What are you doing?”

  He shrugged, his face worried. “Does your father still want me to be his apprentice? After what happened yesterday … will he even want you and I to be friends?”

  “Well, you won’t find out standing in the street,” Kate replied. “Come inside and find out.”

  Colin took a deep breath and went inside.

  Kate’s father looked up from his account book. “Colin, I’m glad you’re here! I was afraid your father might not let you come after last night.”

  Kate heard Colin let out a long breath of relief. “He didn’t tell me I couldn’t come, but I was afraid you might not want me.”

  Dr. Milton laid down his quill. His gaze met Colin’s. “My argument is with your father, not with you. I count you not only my apprentice and nephew, but my friend.”

  “Thank you, sir, but I–I’m a Patriot, too, like Father.”

  “Do you think King George is a tyrant?”

  “I’m not sure. When I hear you talk about what you believe about the king and our rights, what you say sounds right. But I think what Father believes is more right, and I believe what Father believes.”

  “At least you listen to both sides. You aren’t encouraging anyone to fight like your father is.”

  “No, sir.” Colin frowned, and Kate knew he was uneasy with her father’s words. What would Father say if he knew she had promised to help spy for the Patriots?

  “Your father is a stubborn man.” Her father grinned. “But your aunt Rosemary says I’m one, too. Don’t worry yourself over your father and me. We’ve been angry at each other before. We’ll work things out eventually. Now, let’s get to work, you two. There are some plants in the medical garden that need to be picked and dried.”

  In spite of her father’s assurances, Kate wasn’t convinced the men would work things out. The two had quarreled a lot through the years, but Kate had never seen them as angry at each other as they were now. At least Father still wanted Colin to be his apprentice. She was glad this one thing in life was the same. She couldn’t imagine life without Colin.

  At eleven o’clock, Kate ran home and brought back lunch for her father and Larry.

  “I know you brought your own lunch,” she said to Colin, “but I brought you a piece of apple pie.”

  “Great!”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Not too great. It’s Boston Tea Party apple pie. We’re out of sugar and good flour, so I sweetened it with honey, and the crust is of cornmeal.” All the women in town were using substitutes in their cooking. With the port closed, many of the foods they were used to using couldn’t be found in Boston or were too expensive to buy.

  “Mother and I try to make a game of it, figuring out how to make our favorite dishes using different foods. Some things turn out better than others.” Kate sighed. Two days later, when Kate stopped at Colin’s house, she noticed the musket was gone from over the fireplace. She didn’t ask where it went. Patriots were collecting weapons in case of war. But the thought of Harry with a gun in his hand made her shiver.

  But something else pushed all thought of the musket from her mind. She and Colin were given a spy assignment!

  Kate’s father had asked Colin to take Larry home to his farm near Lexington, and Kate was going to ride along. When Harry and Paul Revere heard, they told Colin to take some copies of the Boston Observer to Buckman’s Tavern in Lexington.

  “There’s a hidden message in the newspaper,” Harrison had said, stacking the single sheets into a pile.

&nb
sp; Colin laughed. “You can’t hide anything in a newspaper!”

  “The best place to hide anything is right in plain sight.” Harry’s eyes twinkled with fun. “The message becomes clear when the reader uses a mask to read it.”

  “You’re funning us,” Kate giggled. “How can wearing a mask help?”

  “Maybe the mask has spectacles with magic glass,” Colin teased.

  “It’s not that kind of mask. The reader doesn’t wear the mask. He lays the mask over the newspaper. Like this.” Harry showed Kate and Colin a cutout of the picture that was always printed at the top of the Boston Observer. It was a man looking through a telescope. The inside of the picture had been cut out. Harry laid the mask over the covered page. “See for yourself.”

  Colin grinned. “You’re just waiting for me to make a fool of myself and try to find a secret message where there is none. Like the time I was six and you told me there were fish in Mill Pond that could walk. I fished and watched for those walking fish for weeks before Susanna told me you were only teasing!”

  Harry crossed his arms over his vest and chuckled. “This is no walking fish, I promise. Look.”

  Kate and Colin looked. The mask was small. The opening only covered ten lines of the tiny type, and two of the six narrow columns. The message inside the cutout included words from more than one column. Kate’s mouth dropped open as she read them. “Why, this says—”

  Harry clapped a hand that smelled strongly of ink and leather over Kate’s mouth. “Never repeat a message aloud, even when you think you’re alone or with someone you can trust, like now. You only need to be wrong one time to get in a lot of trouble.”

  Kate and Colin both nodded, their smiles fading.

  Harry took away his hand. “Now that redcoats are checking everyone who comes into and leaves Boston, the Patriots are trying new ways to get messages to each other safely. Sometimes the messages will be true. Sometimes they will be false, used only to test whether people can be trusted or are spies for the British. You’re never to tell anyone you’re carrying a message or what it says.”

  “We won’t,” Colin promised.

  Harry glanced at Kate, and she nodded. “I give my word.” It was hard to speak past the lump in her throat.

  Harry grinned. “Your word is always good enough for me.”

  Colin was studying the mask. “How does the person who gets the message know what part of the paper to put the mask over so he reads the right words?”

  “That’s a secret you’ll never know.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Escape from Boston

  A few days later, Larry, Colin, Kate, and Liberty sat together in Dr. Milton’s carriage. Every once in a while, Larry’s leg bounced against the side when a wooden wheel rolled over a rock or rut. Larry would grunt and dig his teeth into his bottom lip, but he never complained. Kate admired him for that. She knew Larry’s leg was still mighty sore and would be for weeks.

  “Whoa.” Colin pulled on the reins, bringing Dr. Milton’s small bay mare to a stop at the town gate on the Neck. Redcoats were checking everyone who left town now. In front of them, a farmer with an empty cart waited patiently behind another farmer with an empty wagon.

  One of the redcoats knelt down and looked beneath the wagon, then stood and felt beneath the hard wooden seat the farmer sat upon. A moment later he waved the farmer on.

  “They’re lookin’ for guns,” Larry said in a low voice. “They’ve heard Patriots are sneakin’ guns out of Boston.”

  Goose bumps ran up and down Kate’s arms. Had Harry slipped the musket past the guards somehow?

  Woof! Liberty’s bark startled Kate. In a flash, the skinny dog scrambled across her lap and leaped from the carriage after a squirrel.

  “Liberty, stop!”

  Liberty ignored his mistress’s cry. The squirrel darted under the farmer’s moving wagon, and Liberty headed after him.

  Kate leaped to her feet. Liberty was going to be run over! “Stop, Liberty!”

  A farmer with a cart in front of them dove for Liberty. He caught his skinny tail and held tight. Liberty yelped a complaint, but the farmer yanked him back, saving him from the wagon’s rumbling wheels. He handed Liberty up to Kate with a friendly grin.

  “Thank you, sir. Guess you saved his life.”

  “A life worth saving, I’m sure. Have a dog of me own I wouldn’t trade for King George’s palace.”

  The soldiers were searching the farmer’s cart. It didn’t take long. When they waved the farmer on, he gave them a jaunty salute before starting.

  “Halt!” One of the soldiers pointed his musket at the farmer. “I know you! Deserter!”

  Kate’s heart seemed to leap to her throat. She watched, stunned, as the soldiers arrested the man who had cheerfully saved Liberty’s life.

  Kate and Colin looked at each other. A deserter! Larry shrugged nervously. “We’ve nothin’ to worry ‘bout. We’re not sneakin’ anyone or anything out of town.”

  Kate’s foot touched the pile of newspapers on the floor. Larry didn’t know they carried a Patriot secret.

  The redcoat who had checked the cart waved for Colin to move forward, and Colin clicked his tongue at the horse. The soldier looked underneath the carriage. Then he ordered Kate, Colin, and Larry to get out.

  Kate forced herself to not look at the newspapers as she climbed down.

  “Larry has a bad leg,” Colin told the soldier. “He hurt it working on the wall here on the Neck. Can he stay in the carriage? It still hurts him a lot to walk on it.”

  The soldier looked into the carriage and reached for Larry’s leg. His hand stopped above the bandages. Larry had no stocking on that leg. It was still too swollen and too heavily wrapped for a stocking to fit. “Stay where you are, then,” he told Larry.

  The soldier pointed to the pile. “Are those rebel Patriot newspapers or Loyalist newspapers?”

  “Just newspapers, sir.”

  Pretend everything is normal, Kate commanded him silently.

  “The editor prints facts, not opinions.”

  The redcoat grunted. “I’ll be deciding that for myself. Let me see one of them rags.”

  Larry untied the twine that held the papers together and handed him one off the top. The soldier glanced over it. “Why, this tells all about that rebel Patriot congress in Philadelphia!” His eyes looked like small black beads as he glared over the top of the page at Colin. “Says the colonies should train their armies in case we attack them! What do you mean saying this isn’t a rebel paper?”

  “Only tells what the congress said, sir. Doesn’t tell the readers to do as the congress asks. Besides, there’s a Loyalist handbill we’re carrying as well.”

  Colin pulled out a handbill topped by a skull and crossbones and handed it to the soldier. It was the same handbill that threatened his father’s and Harry’s lives. “You see, the editor prints news for both Patriots and Loyalists.”

  “You the printer’s apprentice?” The soldier raised one black eyebrow and eyed Colin suspiciously.

  “Oh, no, sir! I’m Dr. Milton’s apprentice. This is his carriage. I’m taking his patient home to his farm.”

  The soldier grunted again. “Dr. Milton’s a good Loyalist.”

  “Yes, sir. Can’t find a man more loyal to the king.”

  “Sure wish I hadn’t hurt this leg.” Larry rubbed his knee and shook his head. “Wanted to keep helpin’ build that wall for General Gage. Lot more excitin’ than farmin’.”

  The redcoat handed Larry back the paper and handbill. “Have any good fishing streams on that farm?”

  “The best in Massachusetts, sir. I plan to take the children here fishin’ there today.”

  “Maybe you’ll bring a few fish back for me?” The soldier grinned, showing three of his teeth were missing on one side of his mouth.

  “Be glad to, sir.” Colin climbed back into the carriage.

  He and Kate waved and smiled at the soldier as they drove off. When they’d gone about
one hundred feet, Colin let his breath out in a whoosh. “I didn’t think he was going to let us take those papers with us.”

  “Me, either. Redcoats have good guns and cannons, but it’s words that scare them.”

  They both laughed at that.

  Kate hadn’t been out of Boston in months. She felt suddenly free out on the road.

  Once they reached Lexington, it was easy to find Buckman’s Tavern, a two-story wooden building with two chimneys. It stood by the town common, called Lexington Green. The road ran right past the green.

  The tavern master gave no hint that he knew the papers held a secret message. Kate wondered if he was the man who knew how to read the message. Or maybe it was one of the tavern workers or a stable boy who watched the guests’ horses. Could it be the craftsman who walked in and bought a copy almost right away?

  A spy could be anyone, Kate realized. She giggled. Who, for instance, would think she was a spy?

  “What’s so funny?” Larry asked her.

  “Just glad to be out of Boston for a change.” She exchanged glances with Colin, and they both grinned.

  The tavern keeper gave them each a mug of cold apple cider. They took their drinks outside and sat on the edge of the green beneath a large oak tree. The ground was covered with brown, musty-smelling leaves that crackled beneath Kate’s skirts when she sat down. The dampness from the earth seeped through the leaves and through her petticoat and skirt, but she hardly noticed.

  The Lexington minutemen were practicing on the green. Back home, the minutemen couldn’t practice on Boston Common, what with the redcoats living and training there.

  Watching the men, Kate’s good spirits suddenly deserted her, and her heart sank as fast as a rock to the bottom of one of Boston’s ponds. Lexington’s army looked like a ragtag group of boys playing at war compared to the redcoats. The minutemen were dressed in their everyday work clothes: craftsmen in leather breeches and rough shirts, farmers in frocks, storekeepers and town leaders in fancy greatcoats and long vests. No one wore a uniform. Not one carried a musket as fine as the redcoats’ muskets. Instead they held squirrel and duck rifles or old muskets like the one that had hung over the Lang fireplace. A few men who’d fought in the French and Indian Wars years ago had swords at their sides. No one had a bayonet like the redcoats had on the ends of their muskets.