Sarah Bishop Read Free Page A

called Thomas Paine.
    Father noticed the pamphlet, too. "How did you come upon that pack of windy nonsense?" he demanded.
    Chad and David were still grinning. They grew serious of a sudden.
    David said, "Since you call the writing nonsense, I doubt, sir, that you have read it."
    Father snorted. "I need not read it. I have heard it mouthed often enough. The colonies are English by birth. They enjoy English traditions and English law."
    Young Whitlock took the pamphlet from Chad, fixed his thick, eight-sided spectacles upon his nose, and read: "We may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat, or that the first
twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty."
    "But England is our parent country," my father said.
    David steadied himself on his skinny legs, turned a page, and continued: "Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young nor savages make war upon their families."
    He wet his thumb, steadied himself once again. "Europe, and not England," he said, quoting Mr. Paine, "is the parent country of America. This New World has been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe."
    David gave the pamphlet back to Chad and said from memory, moving his arms and speaking like an orator, "Hither have they fled from every part of Europe ... And the same tyranny which drove the first immigrants from home, pursues their descendants still."
    The boys stood together in the doorway, with the hot sun pouring down, David still posing like an orator, Chad clutching his dog-eared pamphlet. They breathed out strong odors of rum.
    Father's expression had not changed through all of David Whitlock's recitations. I doubt that he had heard them. Without a word, he walked over and took the pamphlet from Chad as if he planned to read it. Instead, he tore it into pieces and threw the pieces on the floor.
    Chad said nothing. He glanced at David. There was a long silence. Then David Whitlock stepped forward
and gave a salute as if he were a soldier in the militia.
    "Sir," he said to Father, who had gone back to his bench, "we have this day signed papers of enlistment."
    "We leave tonight for Brooklyn Fort," Chad burst out.
    Father put down the hammer he was getting ready to use and slowly turned around. "You what?"
    "We have enlisted," Chad said. "We are soldiers in the militia, and we shall fight the King until he surrenders."
    I don't think that Chad expected Father to clasp him to his bosom at this news, considering what Father had done to the pamphlet, but I am certain that he didn't expect what did happen.
    "Fool that you are," Father said. He said it again and in three long strides crossed to the doorway and there fetched Chad a cuff on the ear.
    My brother opened his mouth to say something but made only a small noise. David Whitlock backed away, acting as if he thought that his turn might come next.
    "You'll get more than that," Father shouted. "The King's men won't bother to box your ears. They'll fill your skin full of hot lead."
    David Whitlock spoke up bravely. "The King's men are on the run, sir. They have fled from Boston. It is said that they have scurried off to Nova Scotia."
    "They will be back one of these days," Father said. "And you'll be the worse for it. King George has the finest troops in the world. And the finest ships. Hundreds of ships."
    There was a short silence while David Whitlock was thinking up a reply. Chad mumbled a word or two that didn't make much sense. With his long hair tumbled in his eyes and his red face, he didn't look much like a soldier. I asked if there wasn't something I could fix him to eat.
    "Something to carry along, Chad. Like bread and cheese and some milk?"
    He shook his head. "The army will supply me."
    "More likely you'll live off the country," Father said. "Stealing goats and chickens and fruit from law-abiding farmers. Burning their barns down if they