
The story opens on a quiet Newburyport dock, where three boys—Eben, Dick, and Johnny—spend their evenings swapping jokes and dreaming of excitement. Their small town feels stagnant, but rumors of British troops gathering in nearby Boston begin to stir a restless energy. When Johnny mentions the return of Sally Rose Townsend, the girls’ presence adds a spark of longing and a hint that life may change soon.
As the boys watch a log raft drift into the harbor, they sense that the calm is only temporary. The militia drills, powder is being hidden, and whispers of impending battle grow louder, pulling the youngsters toward a larger world than their familiar streets. Their friendship and youthful bravado will be tested as the looming conflict forces them to choose between staying safe and stepping into the unknown.
Language
en
Duration
~5 hours (292K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
United States: Duell, Sloan and Pearce,1962.
Credits
Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
Release date
2021-10-27
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1911–1965
Known for vivid historical fiction set in colonial America, this mid-20th-century novelist brought early New England to life with a storyteller’s eye and a librarian’s feel for detail. Her books mix romance, conflict, and a strong sense of place.
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