My Brother Sam is Dead: Chapters 8–10

The boys slept out in the barn accept during the coldest weather, when they made up pallets on the floor in front of the kitchen fireplace.

He was angry. "Lawlessness has run wild, common decency between people has disappeared, every man is armed against his neighbor.”

“You’re fortunate. People have been tarred and feathered here, houses have been burned and livestock slaughtered. Both sides are doing it—one side burns a house and the other side retaliates. It won’t be long before they’re hanging people. I tell you it’s true, Life.”

“We heard that,” Ezekiel said. “Father got into a rage. He said that Sam was too smart a boy to be fooled by sedition.”

There were all kinds of boats going up and down or moored offshore.

Scattered along the river bank were docks and wharves with skiffs and rowboats tied up to them.

Scattered along the river bank were docks and wharves with skiffs and rowboats tied up to them.

There was a long wharf jutting out into the river, with some boats tied to it.

It was a good wagonload: two hogsheads of rum, a half dozen big sacks of salt, a couple of barrels of molasses; a large chest of tea, a sack of coffee beans, a dozen brass kettles and some tin pots; a chest of breeches and some brass buckles; some drills; knives, files, axes and spades; and small boxes of pepper, allspice, cinnamon, and white powdered sugar.

In the middle of the afternoon we reached a fork in the road. “Hold up the oxen,” Father said. I prodded them to a stop.

The oxen were balking at walking in that blowing snow.

They blinked and shook their big heads and bawled.

I would have to keep veering from side to side to touch the rail fences and then make a guess about where the middle of the road was.

As I slogged along I kept turning around and looking down the road behind me, trying to see around corners and through clumps of trees.

The road was all a turmoil of mud and snow marked with dozens of hoofprints.

I could always run up into the fields and save myself, but the point was to try to get the wagon home so we could earn our livelihood through the winter.

One of the horses stamped and his bridle jingled in the night.

A circle of hazy light spilled out into the night, showing bits of horses and faces and guns and the trampled snow.

Farmers were desperate for everything—shovels, plowshares, candle molds, churns, and all the rest of it.

Prices kept going up and up, and depreciation of the paper money took a lot of the profit out of it.

“Of course Sam could claim it was a hardship case—the father gone and only the younger brother left at home. But the fact that Mr. Meeker is considered a Tory won’t help.”

Naturally in church we had to pray for the King and Parliament and that was a nuisance because it made the prayers go on longer.

A couple of times Rebels had come into the church and pulled him down from the pulpit and pushed him around, but he didn’t care.

He made us pray for the King and Parliament just the same.

He scowled. “There aren’t enough Patriots in Redding to stop a pair of cows going through.” Then he went back into the house.

I watched, and all at once through the hedgerows I caught a glimpse of movement and things flashing. In a moment the vanguard appeared around the bend.

“Oh, ’tis a lovely place, all green and cool like—if you don’t mind a spot of rain. How is it yer not afroid of us, you tykes?”

Now my mother was standing in the doorway beside me. “The brutes,” she said. “What do they want with that little one? Can they think he’s dangerous?”

At first when the troops had arrived, swaggering around so bold and gay, I had really admired them.

There was a commotion in the British ranks, and a quick fusillade of shots.

There was a commotion in the British ranks, and a quick fusillade of shots.

The rider's horse was cantering off in a field, bucking.

I ran on, stumbling through the pasture stubble and furrows of the plowed fields.

I ran on, stumbling through the pasture stubble and furrows of the plowed fields.

The sword flashed in a bright arc, the fastest thing I ever saw move.