Parents' Guide to Rebellion 1776

As REBELLION 1776 begins, 13-year-old (although she's passing for 16) Elsbeth Culpepper is working as a kitchen maid in the home of Judge Bellingham, a prominent supporter of the Loyalists. He's about to evacuate the city as it's now been taken over the Patriot army and this leaves Elsbeth wondering where she'll live and how she'll find another job. She'd come to Boston from Philadelphia with her sailmaker father after the death of her mother and siblings from smallpox. They'd hoped to make a new life, but they're still struggling. A note arrives from her father telling Elsbeth he'll be coming soon to pick her up, but he never arrives and Elsbeth has no idea what's happened to him. Fortunately, the judge's house has new tenants, the Pike family, and they agree to keep Elsbeth on as a maid. Mr. Pike also lets her only friend, Shuebel (Shube) Kent, have a bed and food, but doesn't pay him for the errands he runs. Along with the rowdy Pike children, the family includes 16-year-old Hannah Sparhawk, a rich orphan who's been sent to live with the Pikes by her guardian, Captain Hunter. Elsbeth's relieved she still has a job, but it comes with a tyrannical housekeeper and a raft of duties from milking the cow and doing the washing to tending fires and mending clothes. When a smallpox epidemic arrives in Boston, Mrs. Pike thinks inoculations are balderdash and hogwash until Elsbeth shares her story and she agrees to have the family inoculated. This means her duties now include caring for the large Pike family while they recover. As Elsbeth continues to search for her father, a mysterious and dangerous man offers her information (at a price), Hannah discovers that Captain Hunter is hiding a dark secret, Elsbeth is accused of being a spy, Shube joins the army, and someone close to Elsbeth dies.