it would indeed be a fine treat; and
Mrs. Starkweather said that it reminded her of the times when she was a
little girl like Anne, and her mother made candy for her.

The molasses boiled and bubbled in the big kettle hung over the fire, and
Mrs. Stoddard and Mrs. Cary took turns in stirring it. The children
brought dippers of cold water for spoonfuls of the hot molasses to be
dropped in to see if it had begun to candy; and when Amanda lifted a
stringy bit from her tin cup and held it up for Mrs. Stoddard to see, it
was decided that it was cooked enough, and the kettle was lifted from the
fire and the steaming, fragrant mass turned into carefully buttered pans.

"We must set these out-of-doors to cool," said Mrs. Stoddard; so Jimmie,
Amos and Daniel were each entrusted with a pan to carry out on the broad
step.

"When it is cool we will all work it," said Mrs. Stoddard; "that means
pull and twist it into sticks."

It did not take long for the candy to cool, and then under Mrs. Stoddard's
directions each child was given a piece to work into shape. But the candy
proved too tempting to work over, and in a few minutes the long bench was
filled with a row of boys, each one happily chewing away upon a clumsy
piece of molasses candy.

CHAPTER XV

A SPRING PICNIC

Before the six weeks of school came to an end Anne could read, and could
write well enough to begin a letter to her father, although there seemed
no chance of sending it. She thought often of her visit to Newburyport,
and wondered if she would ever see Squire Coffin's little niece again. And
she remembered William Trull, and his little daughters of whom he had told
her. But no news had come to Province Town of how Boston was faring.

A few weeks after Captain Enos's trip to Boston another Province Town
fisherman had started out with a cargo of fish, hoping for equal good
fortune. But weeks passed and he did not return, and no tidings were heard
of him, and his family and neighbors now feared that the British had
captured his boat and taken him prisoner.

No word came to Anne from her father, and as the ice formed along the
shore and over the brooks, the cold winds came sweeping in from sea with
now and then a fall of snow that whitened the marshes and the woods, the
little settlement on the end of Cape Cod was entirely shut off from news
from Boston, and they knew not what the British were doing.

Captain Enos and the men of the port went fishing i