“Now look here!” I said. “Wait a minute! You can’t talk like that!”

Nathaniel’s voice trembled.

“Why can’t I? I’ll say what I please about people who leave me in Canada with nothing but dried peas to eat and no rum to warm me—no powder to put in my gun in case the British catch up with me—no clothes or shoes or medicines! Is there anything too bad to say about those that sit at home, with full bellies and in comfortable houses, putting incompetent muttonheads over me as officers, like this Dutch donkey Wynkoop—that expect me to stand up here sick and naked and fight the British with my bare fists? What should I call ’em? My friends? My government? I say they’re rats; and I say the British’ll tear us to pieces as easy as they’d tear a rotten sheet!”

“You’ll lower your voice,” I said, “or I’ll give you a thrashing!”

Nathaniel eyed me defiantly. “Can’t you see?” he pleaded. “Can’t you see that all we’ve got to do is wait—wait till we’re no longer shoeless, powderless, shipless, naked paupers—wait till we’re stronger, so we can laugh at England and turn our backs on her without forcing thousands to die of smallpox, and making other thousands starve to death, and standing still other thousands up to die in front of British muskets? That’s all we need to do: wait until these valleys are filled with settlers, and thick with villages and roads—wait till there’s enough mines and mills and stores to buy an army that is an army in place of this helpless rabble! When that’s done, ten Englands couldn’t stop us from doing as we pleased!”

I stepped off the boulder into the milk-warm water: doused myself in it to soften the shell that seemed to have stiffened on me at my brother’s words. I could hardly think, let alone speak. I climbed back on the boulder, somewhat clearer-headed, to study Nathaniel. What I had heard was bad—bad! Yet there was so much truth in it that I couldn’t let myself think about it.

“Nathaniel,” I said, “it sounds to me as if you considered going over to the British. In that case I’ve got this to say: I won’t have it! Before I’d—–”