A soldier in a brown uniform with crossed belts came out of the darkness to stand on the far side of the fire. We recognized him for one of those who had accompanied Wynkoop from Ticonderoga. “Steven Nason,” he said. “Steven Nason hereabouts?”

Nason got up quickly. Phoebe moved close to him and stared at the soldier from behind her husband’s broad back like a child peering around a tree.

“Message from General Arnold,” the soldier said. He held out a letter. Nason took it, going down on one knee beside the fire to worry it open and read it. Phoebe leaned against him and looked over his shoulder.

When Nason rose slowly, Phoebe hooked a finger in his belt. “I could stay here till you got back, Steven. I could stay here and sail with the fleet. I can sail as well as anybody.”

He shook his head. “Start back early tomorrow morning. They need you at home.”

His eyes traveled from one to the other of us.

Whitcomb jumped to his feet. “I ain’t much of a carpenter, and seeing as how there’s so many Connecticutters coming up here, and seeing as how I’m a Connecticutter myself, it appears to me the thing to do is to get rid of a few Connecticutters, starting with me.”

Nason looked unimpressed.

“It was me that got you the boats for the ship timbers,” Whitcomb reminded him, “and I was told that if I came down here, I’d get to go out on scout duty. That’s what your letter’s about, ain’t it?”

Nason nodded. “All right: I’ll take you. Pack up. We’re starting north tonight.” He himself followed Whitcomb into the bunkhouse, and Phoebe went too, her finger still hooked in her husband’s belt.

The rest of us, silent around the fire, could hear Phoebe telling small, homely things: how Nason’s mother had a felon on the third finger of her left hand from jabbing herself with the scissors, but was otherwise well; how the dog Ginger had eleven puppies, and two had been saved, both black with white waistcoats: how six barrels of herring had been salted for fear the winter would be a hard one; how she had brought him a woolen shirt from his mother and woolen stockings from his sister Jane, and a package of needles, yarn and darning cotton from herself.

“It doesn’t seem quite right, Steven,” we heard her say, “for you to rush off like this before I have a chance to do your mending, even.”

Nason laughed. “You’ll have enough of that, Phoebe, before you’re through.”

“Well,” she said, “there’s generally something to be thankful for. Thank goodness I got here when I did! Thank goodness I didn’t get here two hours later.”