Sarah Bishop Read Online Free PDF Page B

would ask at the fort and let me know. I needed work,
for I had no money, but the real reason I was here at the tavern was to find out about my brother. I could think of little else.
    We were standing at the kitchen window, a big one with a dozen small panes, one of them broken and papered over.
    "A bird tried to fly in. Poor thing; thought it was flying through air," Mrs. Pennywell said. "The world is full of surprises, my dear, things that seem what they ain't. We have new glass ordered, but the way things are now, there's no telling when we'll get it."
    The militia officers I heard before I saw them come riding out of the dusk. The hoofs of their horses struck fire on the stone. They shouted as they galloped up to the inn. The sounds were the same ones I had heard on the night that Birdsall and his mob came to destroy our farm. Suddenly I felt pale and fearful.
    "Don't mind the clatter," Mr. Pennywell said. "They're just trying to keep their spirits up."
    He pointed down the hill at a stretch of water I had not noticed before. It was swarming with tall-masted ships.
    "Admiral Richard Howe sailed in this morning early," he said. "There must be a hundred ships out there, lying snug up to Staten. Twice that many boats. You can see them scurrying about between the ships and the shore. They're landing soldiers, British soldiers. You can see tents going up on the island. If you look close, you will
see a hundred flags flying. That's why the rebels shout and wave their hats. They're scared but don't want anyone to know how scared they are."
    I set another batch of bread to rise and carried trays into the dining room. Before I went in, Mr. Pennywell cautioned me to keep my opinions about the war entirely to myself.
    "Today," he said, "we are in the hands of the rebels, who sit up there on Brooklyn Heights. Tomorrow, it may be different. We may be in the hands of the British and the fort may be full of British soldiers. Also, there is usually a spy or two loitering around, on one side or the other, with ears cocked. Remember, the Lion and Lamb is neutral."
    I served the food and kept my mouth closed tight, but still I listened to what was said, hoping that my brother's name would be mentioned. I hoped in vain. I planned to ask the officers, as I had asked the soldiers, if they had ever heard of Chad Bishop and where I could find him.

9
    M Y ROOM WAS high up under the eaves. It had a small window that looked out on New York Bay. When I went up to bed that night I could see the lights of the
British ships. There were hundreds of them twinkling in the dark night.
    I lit a candle and read from the Psalms. I knelt down and prayed to the Lord that there would never be a battle. And if there was, that Chad would not be in it. And if he was in it, that he would not be hurt.
    Drums and the far-off sound of marching feet awakened me at dawn. When I went down to the kitchen, Mr. Pennywell told me not to be alarmed.
    "There'll be much drum beating and soldiers marching," he said. "But there won't be any battles for a week or more. Perhaps not then. I hear that Benjamin Franklin is coming up from Philadelphia to talk to Sir William Howe, the British general, about making peace. Let's hope they do."
    "Let's hope," I said.
    There was a lot of talk that night among the officers and soldiers from Brooklyn Fort about the chances for peace. Most of them didn't want peace. They wanted to fight and sink every British ship in the bay and kill every British soldier that dared set a foot on American soil. They never seemed to think that they might be killed, too. It was curious to me that they didn't.
    Mr. Pennywell said, "Young men never think about death. That's why they make good soldiers."
    Not so many of them came to the tavern that day, and every day fewer and fewer came. I kept asking about Chad, asking those I had asked before and those
I hadn't. Then one night at the end of the week I was serving four soldiers a bowl of Jamaica punch. One of