Free Toliver's Secret by Esther Wood Brady

Amboy instead.”
    â€œSo this is Amboy!” said Higgins, surprised. “How far away is Elizabeth-town?” he asked.
    â€œTen miles!”
    â€œWhew!” Higgins glanced up at the sun. “Must be three o’clock. That’s quite a march,” he said. “Butif you hurry you’ll make it all right.”
    Ellen was running to keep up with him. “But I’m afraid of going by myself.”
    â€œBeing afraid is nothing to hold you back,” said Higgins. “Just square your shoulders and start. Things aren’t so bad after you start.”
    He was fumbling in his pocket. “Hold out your hand, Toliver,” he said, and he pressed a coin into her mitten. “There. Go get on the stagecoach and you’ll be there long before dark.”
    Before she could tell him that she already had money in her pocket and there was no stagecoach, an officer on a big gray horse dashed up to her. “Be gone, boy!” he cried angrily as he flicked at her with his riding crop. “I’ll have no boys begging from my men!” the officer roared at her.
    Ellen ducked, but the horse kept edging her over to the side of the road and turned so she couldn’t dodge around him. She couldn’t even see Higgins as he marched away.
    Very carefully she opened her hand to look at the coin—a fat silver coin—bigger than she had ever seen. And she couldn’t even thank him for it. She might never see Higgins again, but she’d never forget him.
    He had given her something more important thanmoney. He had been her friend. Now she knew she could do it somehow.
    Back to the old woodcutter she ran to ask the way to Elizabeth-town. “I’m going to walk!” she said to the old man. “I’m going to walk to Elizabeth-town!” she said again when he did not seem to understand her.
    He looked at her with a faint smile on his face. “Well,” he said as he gulped down the last of the bread, “I did it myself many a time when I was young and had young legs—like yours.” He took off his cap and scratched his head as he squinted at the sun. “Must be nigh on to three o’clock. But it’s a good road. You can walk it at night.”
    â€œAt night!” cried Ellen. “I’m going to run most of the way to get there before dark. I’ve walked ten miles before,” she said to the old man. “I can do it again when there is naught else to be done.”
    She sounded bold. She sounded like a person who could run ten miles and never stop for breath. But inside she was trembling.
    â€œWell, start running then,” the old man said, and he turned back to his firewood.

Nine
    R
unning was easy enough at first. Swinging her blue bundle at her side, Ellen followed a company of soldiers stepping along in double time to the fast beating of the drums. And after the men had come to the end of the town and turned into the fields to their campgrounds, she trotted behind the wagon trains. She could see that the wagons were piled high with things for the soldiers’ camp—chests and canvas tents and great iron pots for cooking.
    On either side of the road, soldiers were setting uptents and building shacks. There was a bright red glow of campfires back in the fields as far as she could see. A pale blue haze of smoke drifted over the fields.
    â€œIt frightens me to see so many men getting ready to fight our army.” The thought of the message in her loaf of bread made her run all the more quickly. It kept her from thinking about how hungry she was now, and how the cold wind at her back cut through her wool jacket.
    But after she had passed the noisy hubbub in the fields around the camp, Ellen slowed down, for the road was rough and there were no drums beating a quick march to help her hurry. “If I can’t run all the way to Elizabeth,” she panted, “at least I can keep up a fast walk. I’ll get there