James Collier - War Comes to Willy Freeman

JUMP SHIP TO FREEDOM
James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

WHO IS CARRIE?
James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

JOHNNY TREMAIN, Esther Forbes

ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS, Scott O'Dell

THE SIGN OF THE BEAVER, Elizabeth George Speare

THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND
Elizabeth George Speare

THE SLAVE DANCER, Paula Fox

THE SECRET OF GUMBO GROVE, Eleanora E. Tate

TROUBLE DON'T LAST, Shelley Pearsall

for Catherine Bromberger

W HAT I REMEMBERED most was the way the sun flashed and flashed on the bayonets. The British soldiers marched past our cabin in their red jackets, raising dust from the road, and the bayonets flashed and flashed, now this one, now the next one, as they turned just so in the morning sun. Oh, it scared me something awful, knowing that before too long they would march up to Fort Griswold and try to run them bayonets through a lot of our people, and maybe Pa, too, if they hadn't caught him already.

Ma, I'm scared for Pa, I said.

Hush now, my honey, she said. Your Pa'll be all right.

She was just saying that. Ma, she didn't like for me to be unhappy, and she was just saying that so's I wouldn't worry. We stood side by side in front of our little wooden cabin, the September sun still warm on our skin, smelling the dust raised up by the marching men dry in our noses. Their feet went clap clap clap on the ground, and the drums rolled, and the bayonets flashed. Sometimes a soldier would give us a quick look as we stood there, but mostly they just marched on, staring straight ahead in the dusty sunlight.

I wish Pa was here, I said.

Just as good he ain't, Ma said. He's bound and determined to fight. I'd rather he was out there on the water fishing than chasing up to Fort Griswold to get himself stuck with one of them bayonets.

Will he really fight? I said. But I knew he would. He was mighty brave. I'd seen him go out on Long Island Sound in the jolly boat when it was storming so fierce you could hardly stand up. There was nothing Pa was afraid of.

Oh, hell fight all right, Ma said. Hell fight. I told him until my jaws ached that there wasn't no use in us niggers fighting, we wasn't going to get anything out of it no matter who wins. But he says no, we're free now, and it's our country, too.

She looked mighty grim and bitter, like there wasn't nothing fair in anything. Pa'd got his freedom from Colonel Ledyard by joining up in the militia. That was the lawif a black slave was going to join up to fight the British, he had to be set free first. So Pa joined up, and then Colonel Ledyard gave me and Ma our freedom, too. Pa took the name of Freeman, so he was Jordan Freeman, and Ma was Lucy Freeman, and I was Wilhelmina Freeman. It was kind of a funny feeling having a last name all of a sudden, after nine years of not having one. But now I was thirteen and I'd got used to it. Besides, nobody called me nothing but Willy, anyway.

So the soldiers went marching past, raising up the dust, and I watched, wondering if one of those bayonets would go into Pa. Finally Ma said, Willy, war or no war, the cow ain't going to milk herself. You go along now.

The cow was Ma's. Mrs. Ledyard had given it to her once when she'd nursed the Ledyards little girl through the fever, when nobody thought she would live. Ma was mighty careful about that cow. We had a horse, too, down in the salt marsh, but it belonged to Colonel Ledyard.

We lived out on a little spit of land that bordered on the Thames River, where it ran into Long Island Sound. There was a salt marsh on the water side. On the inland side the land rose up into hills, with oaks and pines on them. Further up the Thames was the village of Groton, where Fort Griswold was. On the other side of the Thames was New London. It was a mighty big place, with docks sticking into the river, and hundreds of houses and six church steeples you could count if you went up into the hills.

I went into the house, got the wooden milk bucket, and came out again. Ma took a look at me. Put on them milking britches, Willy, she said. I ain't having no child of mine sitting on a milking stool with her skirt pulled up, and all them soldiers marching by.

That was Mashe didn't hold with anybody seeing a girl's legs. I didn't care one way or another, I just hated changing my clothes all the time, because I'd have to change back into my dress soon as the milking was donenaturally, Ma didn't hold with a girl going around dressed up like a boy, neither. Ma I started to argue.

She gave me a look. You do like I say, Willy.

I might have argued, too, but I was feeling terrible scared by the British, and I didn't have much mind for arguing like mostly I would. So I went into the cabin and put on the milking britches, and then I went down to the salt marsh behind the cabin and started to milk the cow, while the horse stood near and watched.

I'd just got started when there was a great boom from somewhere behind me. I jumped. Then there was a tearing sound overhead, and I knew they'd begun to fire cannon from Fort Griswold out onto the British ships.

That cannon ball tearing out to sea scared me even more, because Pa was out there somewhere in the jolly boat. If a ball struck the boat, it would smash it to smithereens and drown Pa for sure. Oh, how I wished he was back home with us, never mind what Ma said.

Mostly Pa worked for Colonel Ledyard, chopping wood, hoeing corn, and running and fetching. But early in the mornings he went out fishing, so as to make a little money to improve himself. I thought about him out there amongst the British fleet and I wondered if he was scared. Then I began to think about if he would really fight, the way Ma said, and what that would be like. What would it be like to get stabbed by a bayonet?

Thinking about that scared me so much I had to squinch my eyes closed and think about milking the cow. By and by I was finished, and I left the cow on her tether and carried the milk bucket up to the cabin. There was cannons rolling past now, and the dust was worse than ever. Just as I got to the door there came another boom and the tearing noise overhead. I jumped inside and shut the door, even though I knew if a ball hit, it would go clean through the cabin, door and all. Course, there wasn't much to our cabinjust a rope bed with a corn shuck mattress for Ma and Pa and a pallet for me, and a pine table and a cupboard and the fireplace and such.

Ma was fixing some cold pork and biscuits for breakfast. I said, How am I going to get the milk up to Colonel Ledyard's, Ma? We sold our extra milk to Colonel Ledyard, and most mornings I rode up there on the horse with it. I'd done it for years. I could ride pretty good. I wasn't supposed to race the horse, but sometimes I did anyway, when nobody was looking.