Toliver's Secret

Content Warning: The novel briefly alludes to stereotyped depictions of Indigenous Americans and refers to this group using the undifferentiated term “Indians,” which this guide reproduces in quotation marks. The novel contains depictions of bullying. There is a nonsexual scene where an adult woman uses physical force to try to take Ellen’s trousers off, which some readers may find disturbing.

Ellen Toliver accidentally sees her mother and grandfather baking her grandfather’s silver snuffbox into a loaf of bread. Grandfather says the loaf has a “long way” to travel. When they see Ellen, Grandfather makes her promise to never speak of what she saw. Mother urges them to be quiet, as the Toliver family have been unwilling hosts to three “redcoats” since Britain took control of New York three months ago. Grandfather’s barber and wig-making shop is also often filled with British officers.

Grandfather asks Ellen why she is late getting the morning’s water from the pump. Ellen says that Dicey, a rowdy girl, guards the pump and threatens her, and Ellen needs to walk to a pump further away. Though Grandfather wants Ellen to talk back to Dicey, Mother says, “Ellen’s not a boy” (10), so she cannot behave that way.