Fire by Night by Lynn Austin

leave …and you had your pack with you. I was afraid you were going home or something.”
    “Why would I do a fool thing like that?”
    “I don’t know. You said you were sick of drilling. I was afraid …They shoot deserters, you know, and I didn’t want anything to happen to you.”
    Phoebe couldn’t reply. She was surprised—and touched—to find out that he cared. “Naw, I’m just using the latrine,” she said after a moment. “I think …um …I got the trots. You know?”
    “Yeah …everybody’s got them.”
    “Anyhow, I promise you, the last thing I plan on doing is running off. We got a war to fight, remember? Go on back to bed. I’ll be there in a minute.”
    Ted nodded and made his way back through the bushes.
    Alone again, Phoebe was dumbfounded to feel tears filling her eyes. She wondered why. Part of the reason, she decided, was because having a friend like Ted was such an amazing new feeling. Nobody had ever cared where she went or what happened to her before. Back home, she had once gotten herself lost in the woods for two days and her pa had never even thought to look for her. Her own brothers had traded her to Mrs. Haggerty like a bushel of corn when they had no more use for her.
    But the other reason for Phoebe’s tears was fear. She liked her new life as a soldier, in spite of all the drilling. And she was scared to death that she would lose it all if they found out she was a girl. For the next week or so she would have to get up early every morning to make sure she had privacy. But as Ted had just proved, sneaking around in the dark was risky, too. What if someone else followed her? Or what if she forgot the password one morning and a nervous sentry shot her for a Rebel spy?
    If only they would hurry up and start fighting. Then everybody would be too busy to notice that she was a girl. Like she had just told Ted, there was a war to fight, and Phoebe Bigelow was determined to be part of it.

Chapter Five
    Philadelphia
December 1861
    “Are you going to work in this boring booth all night, Julia? Will I never get to spend a moment with you?”
    Julia looked up from the pile of hand-rolled bandages she’d been counting. Arthur Hoyt, her escort for the evening, leaned against the trestle table with his arms crossed, as if commanding her to leap over and join him on the other side. His voice had the demanding tone of a spoiled child.
    “I’m chairman of the organizing committee, Arthur. I’m sure I explained to you that I’d have to work tonight.”
    “But surely not all evening …and not three times harder than everyone else.”
    It had been Julia’s idea to organize this Christmas bazaar to raise funds for the United States Christian Commission. She had convinced some of her friends to help her, and they’d spent the past few weeks begging merchants for donations to award as game prizes, asking churches and charity groups to contribute items for the soldiers’ care packages, and decorating the hall and the booths. The hard work had eased Julia’s conscience and helped release some of the aching restlessness that had drummed through her ever since Bull Run. It had also earned the gratitude of Reverend Nathaniel Greene, cofounder of the Christian Commission’s Philadelphia branch.
    “You could help me with these bandages, Arthur,” Julia said with a smile she didn’t feel. “Then I’d be finished sooner.”
    His expression told her how ridiculous the suggestion was. He grabbed her hands so she couldn’t continue her work. “Enough. You’re my date for the evening, and I claim you. Now.”
    “But I can’t leave the booth.”
    “Nonsense.” He released her hands and strode over to speak to Nathaniel, who was working at a table piled with hand-knitted items for the soldiers. “Excuse me, Reverend Greene. You need to find someone to take Julia’s place. I’m laying claim to her.” Arthur was all smiles, his attitude jovial and good-natured, but something about the way he