The Witch of Blackbird Pond - Elizabeth George Speare [83]
Happiness brimmed over into shaky laughter. "Captain Eaton, we'd be proud to have you dine with us."
"Then must we stay here any longer?"
She took the arm he offered, but still she lingered, looking back. "I want to see the ketch. Please, Nat, before we go! I can't wait any longer to see my namesake!"
"No," he said again, leading her firmly toward the road. "That ketch has a mind of her own. She's contrary as a very witch herself. All the way up the river she's been holding back somehow, waiting. Now you'll both have to wait. I'm not going to disappoint her. Kit. When I take you on board the Witch, it's going to be for keeps."
AUTHOR'S NOTE
The story of Kit Tyler is entirely fictitious. The house in which the Wood family lived, and all the adventures which took place there, existed only in imagination, but old houses much like it can still be seen in Wethersfield, one of the first settlements of the Connecticut Colony. The Great Meadows still stretch quietly along the river, and a relic of an old warehouse marks the once thriving river port. A few real people walk through the imaginary story. Sir Edmond Andros, the royal governor, Captain Samuel Talcott, the magistrate, Eleazer Kimberley, the schoolmaster, and Reverend Gersholm Bulkeley, the ardent royalist, were important men of their time, and the freemen's struggle to preserve their charter is known to every schoolchild in Connecticut.