My Brother Sam is Dead
By James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
1. It’s a funny thing. 2. You’d think that if there
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was a war going on in your own country, it would
change everything, it would make your life different.
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3. You’d think that there’d be men marching and drilling
and people hurrying back and forth and lots of talk
about the fighting. 4. But it wasn’t that way at all; it
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wasn’t any different from usual, it was just normal.
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5. Of course there were battles. 6. There was a battle at
Bunker Hill where the Patriots massacred the British
troops before they were driven off, and the Rebels also
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took Fort Ticonderoga without much of a fight. 7. But
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these battles all seemed far away—they were just
things we read about in the Connecticut Journal and
the other newspapers. 8. Sometimes Father brought home
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Rivington’s Gazette from Verplancks. 9. It was a Tory
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paper and he wasn’t supposed to have it; it was illegal,
so he kept it hidden. 10. It made me wonder how the war
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was going to make us freer if you couldn’t read any
paper you wanted any more. 11. Oh, I don’t mean that we
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ignored the war. 12. There was always a lot of discussion
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about it around Redding, and sometimes people in the
tavern would get into arguments over it when they’d
drunk too much whiskey. 13. Once Father actually threw
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a man out of the tavern. 14. He was a stranger, and I guess
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he didn’t realize that Redding was such a Tory town
because he told somebody that the only good Lobster-
back was a dead Lobsterback and that King George was
a great hairy fool. 15. My father said, “That’s subversion
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and we don’t permit subversion here.”
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16. The man smacked his beer mug down on the table. 17. “I
thought I was among free men, not slaveys.”
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18. He hardly got the words out before Father jumped
over to the man, jerked him out of his chair and pushed
him through the door into the mud of the street. 19. The
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man lay there on his back cursing Father, but Father
slammed the door and the man left. 20. I guess he sud-
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denly realized that he was in Tory country.
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21. But leaving out things like that, the war didn’t af-
fect us much around Redding in that summer of 1775.
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22. Except for Sam. 23. Sam was gone and nobody mentioned
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him—not Father, not Mother, not me. 24. Father didn’t
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mention him because he’d kicked him out, and Mother
and I didn’t mention him because of not wanting to get
Father angry. 25. For all we knew, Sam could be dead.
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But I didn’t want to think about that, so I didn’t.
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26. So the summer went along and I lived my ordinary
life, which was mostly chores all day long. 27. Having a
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father who was a tavern-keeper was a lot better than
being a farmer’s son, like most boys. 28. Running a farm is
terrible hard work—plowing and hoeing and milking
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cows and such and being out in the fields all by your-
self with nobody to talk to all day long. 29. Being around
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a tavern is a lot more fun. 30. There are people coming and
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going, and a lot of them have been to the big towns like
Hartford or New Haven or even New York or Boston,
and they have stories to tell. 31. But still, it isn’t as much
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fun as people like Jerry Sanford think. 32. Mostly Jerry
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works on his uncle’s farm, and he thinks I have it lucky.
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33. He doesn’t realize that there’s an awful lot of wood to
cut to keep the fireplaces going for cooking and a lot of
water to come up from the well and if there isn’t anything else to do, there’s scrubbing the floors and wash-
ing the windows and keeping everything clean generally. 34. My mother’s strong on cleanliness. 35. “Food tastes
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better in a clean house,” she always says. 36. And of course
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there’s the livestock I have to care for, too. 37. Besides, the
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woodlot is two fields down the Fairfeild Road from the
tavern and we have to cart it up.
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38. So even if it was better than farming, it wasn’t all
that much fun. 39. Of course whenever I could I ducked
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out and did something with Jerry Sanford. 40. If it was
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hot, we’d go for a swim in the mill stream, or climb the
trees up in his woodlot. 41. We played mumble-the-peg or
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spin tops or play duck on the rock, which I usually won
because I could run faster. 42. Sometimes, if it rained we’d
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go up to Tom Warrups and get him to tell us stories
about the Indian wars and the brave things his grand-
father, Chief Chicken, did. 43. Or if nobody was watching
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me, I’d sneak up into the loft and look at the old alma-
nacs Sam brought back from college sometimes. 44. But
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mostly I worked.
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45. I saw Betsy Read a lot. 46. She came into the tavern
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pretty often to buy thread or cloth or something, and
I noticed that when she did she’d linger around on
some excuse and try to listen to what people were saying until my mother would say, “Betsy, I don’t think
your mother intended for you to spend the day idling,”
and she’d go. 47. I didn’t see what difference it made, any-
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way: I never heard anyone say anything important.
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48. Then one day in September she came down with a
jug to buy beer. 49. She sat down at the table, and when
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my mother had her back turned filling the jug, Betsy
gave me a wink and jerked her head towards the door.
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50. I wrinkled up my forehead at her to explain what she
meant, but she just nodded at the door again. 51. Then
Mother brought the bee jug back and put it down on
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the table. 52. “Off with you, Betsy,” she said. 53. “Idle hands
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make the Devil’s work.” 54. Betsy got up, picked up the
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beer jug and walked to the door.
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55. “I forgot to put away the pitchfork,” I said.
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56. My mother gave me a funny look. 57. “When were you
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using the pitchfork?”
58. “Did I say pitchfork?” I said. 59. “I meant the water
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bucket, from when I watered the chickens this morning.” 60. I went through the kitchen and outside and then
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ducked around the corner of the house. 61. When Betsy
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came out of the front door I gave her a low whistle,
and she gave me a serious look. 62. She wasn’t much taller
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than I, but she was fifteen and of course she was
smarter than I was. 63. “Tim, I have to talk to you about
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something serious.”
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64. It was a beautiful sunny day. 65. The birds were twitter-
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ing and the breeze was blowing and you could smell the
hay in the field next to us waving in the heat. 66. The
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wooden shingles of the tavern were warm. 67. It was too
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nice a day to worry about things. 68. I bent my head and
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touched my cheek to the warm shingles. 69. “It’s about
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Sam.”
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70. “Tim, if he came back to Redding, would you tell
your father?”
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71. “I wish Sam would give Father back the Brown
Bess.”
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72. “Tim, stop worrying about that; Sam needs the gun.”
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73. “I wish he would, though.”
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74. “Please stop worrying about it. 75. Just tell me what
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you would do if Sam came back for a visit.”
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76. “Why does Sam want to fight with Father?”
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77. “Please, Tim,” Betsy said. 78. “I have to go, just an-
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swer my question.”
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79. I still hadn’t made up my mind which side I was on
in the war, and I didn’t care whether Sam was a Patriot
or a Tory or what. 80. All I could think about was snug-
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gling up to him and listening to him talk about scoring
telling points. 81. Knowing Sam I was pretty sure he was
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trying to score telling points from the other soldiers he
was with. 82. “I won’t tell,” I said.
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83. “Promise?”
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84. “I promise.”
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85. “You swear on the Bible, Tim?”
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86. “I swear on the Bible,” I said. 87. “When is he com-
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ing?”
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88. “I don’t know exactly,” she said. 89. “Soon. 90. He sent me
a letter.”
91. I was disappointed. 92. “He didn’t even say when he
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could come?”
93. “No. 94. I have to go, Tim. 95. Remember, you promised.”
96. But he didn’t come soon. 97. At first I thought he would
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come in a few days, but he didn’t. 98. A week passed and
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another week and still he didn’t come. 99. When I saw
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Betsy at the tavern or in church I would look at her in
hopes that she would give me a sign or whisper to me
that Sam was coming soon, but she never did. 100. I guess
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she was scared of having the subject come up in front
of grownups, especially Father or the other Tories.
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101. Once I actually managed to speak to her when she came
into the tavern while Mother was in the kitchen getting
some bread for some travelers who were eating lunch.
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102. “When’s he coming, Betsy?” I whispered. 103. “When?”
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104. “Ssshh, Tim,” she hissed. 105. “Just shush about it.”
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106. So I shut up about it, but I couldn’t stop thinking
about it. 107. I wanted to have Sam there and listen to him
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talk about the fighting and everything. 108. I wanted to tell
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him about everything I’d done, too, all the things that
would make him proud of me and respect me, like
finally being able to throw a stone clear over the tavern,
which we weren’t supposed to do, and about being best
in school in arithmetic. 109. I never used to be very good at
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anything in school, but for some reason I suddenly got
good at arithmetic.
110. So September passed and then October. 111. The geese
flew south in long, wavering V’s. 112. The leaves went red
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and orange and then brown and fell so that they
crunched when Father and I walked around on them
out in the woodlot, where we were getting up the winter’s wood. 113. The sky went that low, November grey;
the puddles grew coats of ice overnight, and one morn-
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ing when I woke up the fields were white with snow.
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114. That morning Betsy came down to the tavern with the
beer mug. 115. Mother was out with the chickens, but Father
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was in the taproom sharpening the two-man saw, be-
cause we were going out to the woodlot.
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116. “Hello, Betsy,” Father said. 117. “How’s your family?”
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118. “In good health, sir,” she said.
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119. “I’m glad to hear it. 120. What can I do for you? 121. Beer,
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is it? 122. Well help yourself, you know where it is.”
123. “Thank you, sir,” she said. 124. She crossed over to the
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barrel. Father bent over the saw, the file making the
metal sing as he worked it over the teeth. 125. “Tim, are
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you going to school this term?” Betsy asked.
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126. “Yes,” I said. 127. I looked at her. 128. “We started last
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month.” 129. Then I noticed that she was nodding her head
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slowly up and down. 130. Sam was back.
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