The willow knows what the oak does not. The story of Willow Oak begins on the eve of the American Revolution and concerns two young girls, sisters in a New York city family who are loyal to the British crown. As war threatens, their father decides the family must flee to Montreal. This does not sit well with his daughters, who have no experience with the dangers of war. They depart for Canada anyway, sailing up the Hudson River and befriending along the way a free-born black boy who is an ardent patriot. However, their progress is halted in Albany, and there begins their real introduction to the conflict between the Tories and the rebels, or patriots, as they call themselves. The sisters are chosen as most suitable to deliver an important message to people in Skenesborough (now Whitehall) who are crucial to the Loyalist cause. On their way there, however, they are pursued by would-be patriot kidnappers, they run afoul of Green Mountain Boys, and are aided by a Mohawk sachem, only to be abandoned in the wilderness of the Adirondacks. Willow Oak shows us two young women who, in questioning the attitudes of the adults in their lives, also begin to search for their own guiding principles.