There was an unnamed fear in the Lothrop household. Emily could see the signs of it clearly, though Mother and Father made every attempt to hide it from their girls. It had been building for weeks and finally became unbearable the night Mr. Higginson had come to dinner. Though he was one of Father's good friends and came often, this night was different.

Tall and serious seeming, this man had once glared at Emily with intense dark eyes and demanded, "Do you know how to read, Miss Lothrop."

Drawing up her shoulders stiffly to show the offense taken at the question, she answered with the wisdom of her seven years, "Of course I do, Mr. Higginson. I read very well indeed."

"Are you sure?" his eyes bored into the depths of her being where she was sure he saw some flaw of which she herself was not aware.

She knew it was some kind of a joke, because she saw his whiskers twitch ever so slightly, but she wasn't sure what it was about. Mr. Higginson teased all the Lothrop girls, but there was always a sharp edge to the teasing. It was some days before she had the courage to ask her father what he had meant.

"There is more to reading than recognizing words on a page. You will need to learn how to read critically, to balance the things you read against each other and against the world in which you live. Do you remember the newspaper articles I showed you about the Fugitive Slave Act? How, though each appeared to be telling the truth, they contradicted each other?" Emily nodded remembering how he had cut the articles out and arranged them on his desk for her.

"Reading this way will become a natural and easy thing for you in time, as it is now for Anna. Susan, I'm afraid, will never learn how."

Professor Lothrop said of his three daughters that Anna was talented, Susan beautiful and Emily intelligent. Of the three complements, Emily enjoyed hers most, thought at times she wished she, too, were talented and beautiful.

On this particular evening there had been no teasing between Mr. Higginson and the Lothrop girls. Father sat in stony silence. Mother made vain attempts at conversation but always gave up mid-sentence. Mr. Higginson was filled with a nervous energy and could hardly keep still in his chair. Almost as much food went back to the kitchen as had been brought to the table.

After dinner Mr. Higginson and Father had shut themselves up in the study until long after Emily was in bed.

The next afternoon Father returned early from classes and took Mother to his study. When Mother and Father had a disagreement about household details or the girls education, they would go to the kitchen and settle it over cups of coffee, jokingly referring to the problem later by the number of cups it took to settle. Where to get the money to keep all three girls in private school had been a three cup problem, while deciding to send the professor to Europe two years ago for the summer and fall semester without his family had been a five cup problem.

The girls waited nervously in the parlor while their parents argued above. From time to time they could hear their mother's raised voice, but not what she said.

When the adult Lothrops finally left the study, they went to the attic rather than coming down stairs to talk to the girls.

Emily had finished knitting the cuff of a white linen glove before her mother finally came down the stairs, brushing the dust off her apron.

"Susan, Anna, your father would like to see you in the study. Emily, you stay here with me. Father will talk to you later." Mother took the cuff and looked at it critically.

"Look here, you have lost count. Rip it out and begin again."

Emily ignored her mothers harsh words and curled up beside her on the sofa. "Mother, what is happening? Why are you so afraid? Does it have to do with Mr. Higginson?"

If Emily had not been so afraid herself, she would not have dared speak this way to her mother. Adults were never afraid of anything, and always knew what was best for children. It was not a child's place to question that.

"Your father will tell you when he finishes with Anna and Susan."

The two sat quietly hand in hand until the other two girls came down the stairs.

"Emily," said Anna grimly, "Father would like to see you now."

Susan's excitement was in marked contrast to Anna's solemnity.

"Mother, there will be soldiers in Cambridge, isn't it grand!"

"Hush, Susan," said Anna sternly, "you don't know what you are talking about." Anna went to her mother and took Emily's place beside her, holding her hand as Emily had done. Something truly terrible must be happening.

Emily had never realized how long the flight of stairs to Father's study was until that moment. It seemed an eternity before she reached the room where her father waited to tell her what he had already told the others.

"Father, why is Mother so frightened?" Emily did not wait for her father to begin.

"Sit down, Emily. I spoke with your sisters before you because they are older and understand things differently. Do you know what slavery is?"

"Yes Father, people own people like they own horses or oxen." This was not the first time she had discussed slavery with her father in this room.

"And war, do you know what that means?"

"Susan says there will be soldiers in Cambridge. She seems pleased. But she is wrong, isn't she? War is very terrible." Though they had never discussed war, everyone knew it was coming. She had been with her parents to hear every prominent abolitionist who came to Boston or Cambridge to speak. Several times the family had gone to hear sermons from Theodore Parker, rather than to their own church, First Parish in Cambridge. Once her father had come home late from a meeting with blood on his face.

"Father will you be a soldier?"

"No, not with a gun and a uniorm and all. We will all be soldiers in our own way. That is what we must talk about now. I cannot be a soldier if my women will not be soldiers as well. We Lothrops must stand together in this enterprise, or it will go very hard for us all. Your mother and I have talked about this very seriously and I have agreed with her that we must all do this together. I will not be able to do it alone. We will be our own little troop of fighters. The Lothrop Brigade." He smiled to himself at the words as though they pleased him greatly.

Emily wanted very much to be part of the Lothrop Brigade, and nodded her assent.

"No, you must listen carefully to what I tell you and then think about it before you decide. It will be very difficult for us all. I think it will be most difficult for you because you are so curious about everything."

Emily sat silently waiting for her father to tell her what he wanted of her, trying to keep her hands still in her lap, but they betrayed her fear and excitement by winding themselves into a ruffle along the front of her skirt.

"Sometimes," her father continued, "one is convinced that something is right, so convinced that one is willing to do anything to help, even break the law. Do you remember when Mr. Parker married that couple and fought with the police to do so because they were breaking the Fugitive Slave Law?"

Emily nodded. She thought Mr. Parker was very brave. She could imagine him standing with a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other.

"Mother and I have made a hiding place in the attic. People will come in the night, stay a day or two and be gone, all in secrecy. We will take them food and give them as much comfort as we can, but we will never see them, nor talk to them or know who they are. They in turn will not know who we are. Most important we will never tell anyone that they are here. Not so much as a hint. No bragging to your friends, no telling the Stevens next door about it, we will not even mention it among ourselves. I will be as though it isn't really happening. Do you understand?"

Emily nodded. If Father would not tell his friend Henry Stevens, Emily knew she could keep it a secret as well.

"What we are doing is against the law. It might even be considered treason. Do you know the punishment for treason?"

"Death. Would they hang you, Father, for protecting these people?"

"Not very likely, but we must consider it as a possibility. Do you understand how important this is, Emily?"

"Yes, Father, I do. I want to be part of the Lothrop Brigade. I will be the best soldier I know how to be." Emily stood up, squared her shoulders and marched out of the room.

None of the Lothrops mentioned this again, but as soon as she was able to, Emily snuck up to the attic to see what her parents had done there. Blankets hung from the rafters defined a small square room with a mattress on the floor, a small writing table with a chair, a wash stand with mismatched basin and pitcher, and a chamber pot. An old oil lamp with a crack in the chimney graced the table. Linens and blankets were folded on the bed. Emily sat on the bed and tried to imagine what it would be like to live in a room like this. Thick curtains covered the windows so one could not see out, nor could anyone in the attic be seen from outside.

The room seemed barren and cheerless. Emily found a discarded bureau scarf with a brown stain which she put on the table to give it a more festive and elegant look. Behind a trunk she found a framed print of Durenstein Castle where Richard I of England had been imprisoned. It had been given to the Lothrops by Mother's maiden aunt, but the print was water stained, the frame chipped, and, though Mother and Father had accepted it graciously, it had found its way to the attic almost as soon as Aunt Kate left. Emily hung it from a nail that had been driven into a beam for some long forgotten purpose. Hand on hips she surveyed the room with its newly added amenities. They didn't seem to help much.

Within days of the formation of the Lothrop Brigade, news of John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry reached Cambridge. Men discussed it in the streets, women in their parlors. Emily and her sisters held their peace about the room in the attic, though they openly discussed their family's views on abolition and the coming war. Harvard students began to drill on the common, though Professor Lothrop said they were children playing at war. The implication, Emily felt, was that the Lothrops were the real fighters, though they might never lift a gun.

Emily, who usually slept well, lay awake nights listening for the sound of cannon fire in the Cambridge streets. She had studied her father's maps and understood how far Harpers Ferry and "the South" were from Cambridge, but she knew in her heart that the distance was hardly anything and that wars went where they would, heedless of what might be in the way.

So it was that one night, as she lay awake listening, she heard the sound of a carriage pulling up, not in front of the house on Dana Street, but around the corner on Cleveland Street. There was only the briefest pause before it rattled away in a hurry. She heard the back door open and the sound of men's footsteps on the stairs. No one spoke, but the attic door opened and someone hurried up the stairs to the room above. She fell asleep to the drone of men's voices from Father's study.

Emily was the first of the girls in the kitchen in the morning. She had been trained well enough by her parents to keep quiet about what she had heard, but such an occurrence could not be ignored entirely. On the table was deep basket into which mother was putting the earthenware pitcher that she used to take coffee to Father in his study when he was working on a manuscript. It kept the coffee hot for a longer time than the beautiful silver pot did. She laid a napkin over the top to conceal the contents of the basket.

"Emily, take this to the attic stairs, set it on the third step up, then close the door and come back at once." She thought her mother sounded tired, and her eyes were red.

The narrow basket would fit on a step, while a tray would have to be carried up the stairs. Anyone seeing Emily carrying a basket up the stairs would think she was carrying up anything but someone's breakfast. Mother stopped what she was doing and gazed at Emily as though trying to decide if one so young was capable of such a dangerous task.

When she opened the door at the foot of the attic stairs, Emily fully intended to do as she was told, but as she set the basket down on the third step, she thought it would be easier for the person in the attic if she carried it to the top. When she reached the top step, she realized that she could not see the occupant of the makeshift room. She knew she would not be able to go back down until she saw the face of the stranger, so without another thought she carried the basket around the edge of the blanket that served as a wall and set it on the table.

The bed had been slept in, but not made up. Sheets and blankets were spread out every which way. Emily had expected the man in the attic to be an escaped slave, and was surprised to find herself staring into clear blue eyes above a blond beard.

She was even more surprised to find herself staring into the barrel of the revolver the blond man was pointing at her.

"Do you have to kill me because I have seen you?" asked Emily, her voice sounding braver than she felt.

"It's not considered polite to kill the children of the man who is trying to save your life. You must be Emily. Your father said I might be seeing you, but I didn't expect it to be so soon."

He tipped the gun so that it was aimed at a spot above her head and she heard a click rather that the resounding boom she had expected.

Emily set the basket on the table and busied herself by taking food out of it. She didn't want the man to know how frightened she had been. She set the table nicely and poured coffee from the earthenware pitcher into the heavy mug that had been provided.

"Now that you have seen me," said the man, stuffing a biscuit into his mouth hungrily, "it wont hurt if you stay a while. There isn't much to do in an attic, even one as comfortable as this."

"What's your name?" she asked, knowing at once she shouldn't have.

The man paused for a long time and, glancing at the picture she had hung on the wall, said, "Why don't you call me Richard."

"Coeur de Lion," whispered Emily.

"Thank you very much, Miss Emily. You know that the trouble with hiding like this is that not only are you kept safely away from your enemies, you are kept safely away from everyone else as well. I'm glad you came."

Emily was not usually at a loss for words, but she didn't know what to say to the man, so she simply refilled his coffee cup. She wanted to ask him dozens of questions, where had he come from, did he have a family, where was he going. What had he done that had caused him to need hiding now. Did he know Father or was he a stranger to everyone here. She also knew that she had broken the trust her parents had in her by bringing the basket up the stairs instead of doing as she was told. She knew she must not carry the disobedience any further.

"Are you comfortable in our attic?" That would be all right to ask.

"It's a fine attic. By far the best I have ever seen. Will you come and visit me again, Miss Emily?"

"I am supposed to pretend you are not here. Father said that would be my part as a soldier in the war. I wish to be a good soldier, but, yes, I would like to visit you again if Father says it is all right."

Emily refilled the basket and carried it back down the stairs wondering what her punishment would be for her disobedience. At the bottom of the stairs her father was standing with his arms folded and a very stern expression on his face.

"What have you done, Miss?"

"Father, I disobeyed." She dropped her eyes to the tip of her shoes and waited for sentence to be pronounced.

"Take the basket downstairs. Remember your promise to hold your tongue. I will decide what is to be done and talk to you when you come home from school this afternoon. You might make a start by cleaning his chamber pot, so your mother doesn't have to."

In the end, the punishment Emily received was to act as maid to the man in the attic. She would carry him his food, and clean his room each morning before she went to school. She was not big enough to carry the heavy pitcher of hot water up the stairs so Father did that while she carried his breakfast to him. After each visit her father questioned her to make sure that she had neither told the man anything about the Lothrops nor found out anything about him.

Emily and Richard discussed the things she was reading, what she studied in school, and the mood of the Cantabrigians.

"I am going to be a scientist when I am grown. My father says I am smart enough, but that I must work very hard because it is difficult for a woman to become a scholar."

"Don't you want to find yourself a grand husband?"

"If I do, he shall be a scientist, too. Perhaps I won't. Mother says I am too young to make such decisions."

"How old are you, Miss Emily?"

"Seven. I will be eight in May. Father says there is a war coming and we must be very brave or something bad could happen to the family."

"Your father is very brave and I can see that you are much like him." The man was silent for a very long time before he said, "I have a daughter your age. I wonder if I shall ever see her again."

That afternoon, Emily went to her sewing basket and found a small scrap of silk and blue and yellow and green silk floss. Binding the scrap in yellow blanket stitch she planned the blue flowers she would embroider there.

"What's that supposed to be?" jeered Susan who was by far the better needlewoman. "It's too small to be much of anything."

"An apron for my doll," Emily lied.

"Why?" asked Anna. "You never play with your doll?"

Emily shrugged and went on stitching. She had to hurry because she did not know when Richard would move out of the attic and on to another hiding place. She worked on it all afternoon and late into the evening. First thing in the morning she added a few more stitches until it was done to her satisfaction, then putting it in her apron pocket, she ran downstairs for the breakfast basket.

"I thought you might like to pretend that your daughter made this for you. I'm sure she would have if she had had time." Emily laid the little silk square in front of the man and then started setting out his breakfast. Suddenly the little square looked incredibly shabby, she could see all the errors in her stitches, and wished she could snatch it back, but it was too late. The man blinked hard at the sight of the poor little square.

"I..I..." she didn't want to apologize for the square, but she wanted him to know it was all right if he didn't like it. "You don't have..."

The man took out his watch and, opening the back, slipped the tiny piece of embroidered silk into it and snapped it shut.

"Look, it just fits. Thank you, Miss Emily. You are very kind." He blinked again.

That night Emily again heard the carriage on the side street and the steps on the stairs. This time the men were not so silent, and Emily recognized the voices of two of the men, discussing a ship that would leave Boston with the tide in the morning.

Mother hushed the men, "You will wake the girls."

Emily heard the man in the attic thank Mother for the hospitality. "And thank that grand girl of yours as well. She made a difficult time almost pleasant."

Then as quickly as they had come, they were all gone and there was silence in the Lothrop house again.

There were others who came to stay in the attic room. Emily, though curious about them, carried their food and cleaned the room with out much conversation. When war finally came the members of the Lothrop Brigade, under the command of General Professor Lothrop, did their part, along with most of the women of Cambridge, knitting socks and bandages, sending supplies and writing letters. But Emily felt she had never been a better soldier than she was the day the man in the attic closed the embroidered forget-me-nots in the back of his watch.