Free My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier Page B

it away from me. I began kicking around with my feet trying to catch her someplace where it would hurt, but she kept wriggling from side to side on top of me and I couldn’t get in a good kick. I hit her on the back but in that position I couldn’t get much force. “Get off me, Betsy.”
    â€œNot until I get that letter,” she said. She jerked at my shirt, trying to pull it up. I grabbed at her hands and twisted my body underneath her to turn over so I would be on top, but she pushed her whole weight down on me, grunting. So I slammed her as hard as I could on the side of her head.
    â€œYou little bastard,” she shouted. She let go of my shirt with one hand and slapped me as hard as she could across my face. My nose went numb and my eyes stung and tears began to come.
    â€œDamn you,” I shouted. I let go of her hand where she was clutching my shirt and grabbed her by the shoulders, trying to push her off me. She jerked my shirt up, grabbed the letter and jumped to her feet. Without rising I kicked out with my feet at her ankles. I got in a good one; she stumbled, but she didn’t fall. By the time I got up she was running down the Fairfield Road as hard as she could, opening theletter as she went. I started to run after her, and then she flung the letter over her shoulder onto the road and disappeared out of sight around the next bend. I ran up to the letter and picked it up. It was rumpled and dirty. All it said was, “If this message is received, we will know that the messenger is reliable.”

T HE SUMMER OF 1776 CAME AND WENT. I TRIED TO KEEP away from Mr. Heron. If I saw him coming into the tavern, I’d go out to clean the barn or down to the woodlot to do some chopping. But a few times he took me by surprise before I could get away. He never said anything about the letter at all. He’d just say, “Hello, Timothy,” or “It’s a fine day, isn’t it, Timothy?” and I’d say, “Yes, sir,” or something like that and get away as soon as I could. I couldn’t figure out what he thought about the whole thing, and finally I just forgot about it.
    The war went on. It didn’t seem to have much to do with us most of the time, aside from Sam being gone. Of course food was short, and other things, too. The men who still had their guns had trouble getting powder and shot. Cloth was getting scarce, and leather, because the Continental troops needed them for clothing and shoes. But nobody was really desperate.
    Sometimes we’d be reminded of the war when militiamen marched through. Or we might see a soldier who had been wounded or whose enlistment was up walking back to his home. But mostly the war stayed away from us.
    Twice we got letters from Sam. Or rather, Mother did. One came in August of that year and another one in September. The first one told about the fighting in New York. The Rebel troops had been beaten there, and the British had taken over the city, but the way Sam wrote about it, he made it seem like a glorious victory for the Rebels. He said that his regiment had made a magnificent retreat, and the British were lucky they’d got out of it alive, but it sounded the other way around to me. The second letter didn’t tell so much, except that they were encamped someplace in New Jersey and probably would stay there for the winter. He was living a hard life. A lot of times they were on very short rations, eating just hardtack and water day after day. They didn’t have proper clothing, either. Some of the men had no shoes and went barefoot: in cold weather they wrapped cloth around their feet to keep from freezing. I guess there wasn’t much glory in it a lot of the time, but Sam said that their spirits were high.
    Mother and Father had a fight over the letters. When the first one came Mother decided to answer it. Father said no, she shouldn’t encourage Sam in his recalcitrance. Mother argued with him, but he