That will be work for Tom and I, mother!" his eyes lighting up. "We will make it our object in life to rescue father and get him back home here, with you, mother."
The poor woman was not greatly comforted, however, and she shook her head, at the same time saying, in a hopeless tone of voice:
"What could you do, you are only a couple of boys? You could not possibly rescue father. It is useless to think of such a thing. Oh, I greatly fear I shall never see my husband again in this world! Oh, those terrible, cowardly Tories!" The good woman gave way to an outburst of uncontrollable grief.
"Yes, you shall see father again, mother," declared d.i.c.k, decidedly.
"Don"t worry. He is safe from personal harm, and sooner or later we will succeed in getting him located and will rescue him. Tom and I will make that our object in life."
"Yes, yes, mother," said Tom eagerly. "We"ll join the patriot army, if need be, to further our ends, and while fighting for Liberty and Independence, and aiding our country in that manner, we will at the same time be on the lookout to find father and rescue him."
"Yes, that is what we will do," said d.i.c.k. "Father would have joined the patriot army if he had not been captured and taken away by the Tories, and now that he is not able to do that, we will do it in his stead. I know it is what father would wish us to do, and as Tom says, it will give us a better chance to find and rescue father."
"Oh, my sons, my sons! How can I spare you, too?" murmured Mrs. Dare.
"How can I let you leave me, now that I have lost your dear father!"
"It will be only temporary, mother. You can see, when you give the matter more thought, that it is the best thing to do."
"Perhaps so, d.i.c.k, darling," acquiesced Mrs. Dare, "but it is hard!"
Throwing their arms about their mother"s neck, the youths kissed her, and presently she grew more calm.
Chapter III
Ben Foster Brings Important News
"Oh, d.i.c.k, is it true that you and Tom are going to enter the army and fight for liberty?"
"Yes, it is true, Elsie. Aren"t you glad?"
"Y-yes, d.i.c.k," replied Elsie Foster, hesitatingly. "I"m glad you are to be a soldier, but I-well, you might get killed you know, and-and-"
"Would you care, Elsie?"
Elsie Foster was the daughter of Robert Foster, the nearest neighbor of the Dares. Mr. Foster was a king"s man, but he was different from the other Tories of the neighborhood, in that he was an honest, honorable man, and was a friend of the Dares. He had had nothing to do with the capture of Mr. Dare, and was outspoken in his denunciation of his Tory neighbors for the deed they had committed.
d.i.c.k had gone over to the Foster home to borrow something for his mother, and had met Elsie out in the yard, and the girl had greeted d.i.c.k as above. The truth was that d.i.c.k and Elsie were great friends.
They were school-mates, and whenever there was anything going on in the neighborhood, such as spelling schools, skating parties, etc., d.i.c.k was Elsie"s companion. Elsie was seventeen, and she had a brother, Ben, he being her twin, and a sister, Lucy, aged fifteen. The three young folks of the Dare family and the three of the Foster family often got together of evenings and had a pleasant time, but now that d.i.c.k and Tom were going away to the war, it would break into this arrangement.
When d.i.c.k asked Elsie if she would care if he should get killed in battle, she blushed and looked confused at first, and then she looked him frankly in the eyes and said, softly. "You know I would, d.i.c.k."
"I"m glad to know that, Elsie," said d.i.c.k, earnestly.
At this moment Ben Foster came running up. He was a manly-looking youth, and was lively and jolly as a rule. But now he was very sober-looking, for he realized that d.i.c.k, whose father had been captured by the Tories only the day before, was in no mood for jollity. There was an eager expression on Ben"s face, however, and after greeting d.i.c.k, he asked:
"Are you really going to join the Continental army, d.i.c.k, you and Tom!"
"Yes, Ben," was the reply.
"Well, say, I"m going to go with you," declared Ben.
"Oh, Ben!" exclaimed Elsie. "What will father say?"
"Father"s all right, sis. He is a king"s man, everybody knows that, but he is reasonable, and lets other people think as they like. He knows that I"m a patriot, and he won"t object."
d.i.c.k"s face lighted up, for he liked Ben very much, and the idea of having him along was a pleasing one.
"That would be fine, Ben," he said. "But I wouldn"t want you to do anything contrary to the wishes of your father."
"Oh, that will be all right," Ben a.s.sured him. "He won"t care, I am sure."
"Goodness, what will Mary do if you go away?" said Elsie. Ben seemed to think as much of Mary Dare as d.i.c.k did of Elsie, and he flushed slightly at his sister"s words, and then retorted:
"I guess she"ll do about the same thing that you will when d.i.c.k goes-go up into the attic and have a good cry."
"You"re a mean brother," said Elsie in pretended anger, lifting her hand as if to slap him, "and if it wasn"t that I will likely soon lose you, I would box your ears soundly."
They talked awhile, and then d.i.c.k attended to the errand that had brought him there and went home.
"I guess we will have company when we go to war, Tom" he said to his brother.
"Is that so?" with an interested ear. "Who?"
"Ben Foster."
"You don"t mean it, d.i.c.k?"
"Yes. He just told me he intends to accompany us."
"But-his father"s a Tory!"
"Yes, but he is a reasonable man, and Ben says that he will not object."
"Well, that will be fine. I"d like to have Ben along."
"So would I. And I guess he"ll go."
"I hope he will. He"s such a lively, jolly fellow that he is good company, and will help keep us from getting homesick."
"I guess, Tom, that we will be kept too busy to get homesick."
"You think there will be lots of fighting, then? You feel certain that there will be war?"
"War has really existed for more than a year, Tom. You know the battle of Lexington was fought April the nineteenth of last year, and that was the first battle of the Revolution. And since that there has been more or less skirmishing between the "Minute Men" of New England and the British, the most important of all these being the battle of Bunker Hill, which took place on the seventeenth day of June of last year."
"Our soldiers defeated the British there, didn"t they, d.i.c.k!"