The main protagonist, Ellen Toliver, is a 10-year-old girl who lives in lower Manhattan with Mother and Grandfather in late 1776. Ellen is initially a shy girl. She prefers to stay in her quiet house than to go outside, where British soldiers gallop recklessly on horses, people bustle about quickly, and bullies like Dicey haunt the nearby water pump. Though Grandfather encourages Ellen to stand up to Dicey, Ellen does not have the confidence to stand up to her bullies at the beginning of the novel.

The rising action begins when Ellen finds out Grandfather is a Patriot spy, and because he has a sprained ankle, he can’t carry an important message to a courier who will take it to General George Washington. Though Ellen doesn’t think she’s brave enough to go in his stead, Grandfather’s encouragement convinces her that she can do it. Subverting Traditional 18th-Century Gender Roles, Ellen cuts her hair and wears her older brother’s old clothes to masquerade as a boy while she takes the message, baked into a loaf of bread, to Elizabeth, New Jersey.

The challenges she faces on her journey necessitate that Ellen begin