My mother cried, “Oh, Nathaniel!”

My father shook his head. “No! I’ve lived here all my life. It’s part of me. It’s in my blood. This land we’re on was granted to your greatgrandfather Peter Merrill by the town of Arundel for killing an Indian. My roots are in it. I can’t leave it. The smell of the sea and marshes and meadows is sweeter here than anywhere else in the world.”

My sister Susanah put her handkerchief to her lips and went suddenly from the room.

“What did you tell the Committee?” I asked, feeling choked myself.

“I told ’em,” my father said slowly, “that you were well disposed. They didn’t believe me. They—well—the men on these committees aren’t the sort of people you’d expect to find running things. So we’ve been watched—all of us. We have trouble buying necessities. Shopkeepers don’t like to sell to folks under suspicion: they might be suspected themselves. Some of ’em will, but only if we accept Congress money at par, when they make change for us, even though it’s worth less than the paper it’s printed on. We can’t complain, because if we did, it would mean we were spreading reports about the currency; and instead of being ruined gradually, we’d be ruined quick. Talking against the currency’s worse than having sons in England.”

The room was silent except for the soft sound my mother’s hand made against Nathaniel’s.

My father hesitated: his next words seemed irrelevant. “There’s been a drought. The crops last year were terrible, on account of so many men being away in the army. Theodore Lyman speculated in corn last fall, and now he’s selling it at two dollars a bushel to those in the village.”

Theodore had been clerk in the store of Waldo Emerson, a rich man and a kind one, but dead almost three years.

“That’s robbery,” I protested.

“We have to pay three dollars,” my father said. “He’ll only sell to us secretly, and only if we pay him in hard money. Theodore’s smart.”

“We’ll see about that!” I said. “We’ll see about that! I’ll step over to call on Lyman after supper.”

My father shook his head. “Don’t do it! Lyman’s a rich man. In a few months he’ll be richer, because he’s marrying Waldo Emerson’s daughter.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Waldo Emerson only had one daughter. She’s a baby.”

“Not quite,” my mother said. “She’ll be fourteen years old some time this year.”