My Brother Sam is Dead

by James Lincoln Collier

  “Not at all, Tim, I’d have been pleased to help had I been able to find suitable clothes.”

  I pointed Old Pru’s teat at him and gave him a squirt. Milk splashed on the knee of his trousers.

  “Damn,” he said, jumping back. “You little brat.” He wiped off his trousers.

  “Help, then,” 1 said.

  “All right. I’ll collect the eggs. What on earth happened to this basket?”

  I’d stepped on it once when I was mad. “It got broken,” I said.

  “I can see that,” he said. “How did you manage to do that?”

  “Old Pru stepped on it,” I said. “Just put some hay in the bottom.”

  “God, can’t you do anything right, Tim?”

  “Don’t curse,” I said. “It’s a sin.”

  He picked up the basket. “How am I supposed to collect eggs with a hole in the basket?”

  “Stop complaining,” I said. “I have to do this every night while you’re down at Yale scoring telling points and getting drunk with those girls.”

  “You know I wouldn’t do anything like that, Tim. Drunkenness is a sin.”

  I giggled. “So is—what’s that word for girls? Lasviciousness.”

  “Lasciviousness, stupid, not lasviciousness. I have a new song about girls, but it’s too lasvicious for you.”

  “Please sing it to me,” I begged.

  “No, you’re too young.”

  “No I’m not. Besides, if you don’t sing it to me, I’ll tell Father how many times you got drunk.”

  “Ssshh, all right, I’ll sing it later,” he said. “This basket is hopeless. Isn’t there another one someplace?”

  “There’s a new one hanging up over there, but we’re not supposed to use it.”

  “Why not?” Sam said. “What can they do to me?”

  I didn’t like it when he talked like that. It bothered me. “Listen, Sam, why do you always have to get into a fight with Father?”

  “Why does he always have to get into a fight with me?” Sam said. He had got some hay in the basket and was hunting eggs under the hen roost.

  “That isn’t fair. He pays for you to go to Yale and sends you money for books; you ought to be nicer to him. You knew he’d get into a rage when he saw you in that uniform.”

  Sam stood there staring at me with the broken egg basket in his arms, and I knew he was trying to decide whether or not to tell me something. I had enough sense to keep still. Sam pretty usually blurts things out if you pretend you’re not interested and don’t beg to him to tell. I went on milking Old Pru.

  Finally he said, “Suppose I told you I had to wear the uniform for a reason.”

  That gave me a shiver. “I don’t believe it,” I said. I did believe it, but the best way to get him to tell was not to get all excited.

  “It’s true, Tim. I’m going to fight the Lobsterbacks.”

  That scared me, but it excited me, too. I wondered what it would be like to shoot somebody. Still I said, “I don’t believe you, Sam.”

  “Oh you’ll believe it soon enough. Tomorrow I’m walking up to Wethersfield to meet my company. Then we’re going up to Massachusetts to fight the Lobsterbacks.”

  I believed him all right. “Won’t you be scared?”

  “Captain Arnold says it’s all right to be scared; the true brave man is always scared. At least that’s what the sergeant said he said.”

  “You seem to be pretty proud of Captain Arnold.”

  “Oh, he’s a marvelous horseman, and brave, and doesn’t take any nonsense from anybody. He’ll lead us through the Lobsterbacks like a hot knife through butter.” He started collecting eggs again.

  “You’re really going to Massachusetts?” I asked. It seemed like a long way to me. “To Boston?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I think we’re supposed to go to Lexington,” Sam said. An egg fell out through the bottom of the basket. “Damn it, Tim, why don’t you fix this thing?”

  “I did fix it, but it broke again.” I didn’t say it was a month ago and I was too lazy to fix it again. Laziness was sloth and sloth was a sin. “Tell me about the war,” I said to change the subject.

  “I told all I know at dinner.”

  “Why did you come home?” I asked.

  He stopped hunting for eggs, and stared at me again. Finally he said, “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’ll tell Father.”

  “No I won’t, I swear I won’t.” I shut my mouth; with Sam it was the wrong thing to beg.

  “Yes you will.”

  “All right, don’t tell me then, I don’t care. I don’t believe any of it anyway,” I said. I had Old Pru nearly empty and began stripping her teats to get the last drops of milk out, as if I’d forgotten all about what Sam was saying.

  He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he said, “Will you really swear you won’t tell?”

  “I thought you said you weren’t going to tell me.”

  “All right, I won’t,” he said.

  “I swear,” I said.

  “On your honor?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is serious, Tim.”

  “I swear on my honor.”

  He took a deep breath. “I came to get the Brown Bess.”

  That shocked me more than him saying he was going to fight. The Brown Bess was the type of gun most everybody around Connecticut had. It was brown, and got its name from Queen Elizabeth, whose nickname was Bess, because they first used that type of gun a lot during her time. The gun was about as long as I was tall, and had a bayonet about twenty inches long. Father kept the bayonet hanging over the mantelpiece. He used the Brown Bess for deer and sometimes when he went out with the other men to go after a wolf that was getting into the livestock. And he took it with him every fall when he went over to Verplancks Point to sell cattle and buy supplies for the store. He’d never met up with any trouble going over to Verplancks, but people he knew had sometimes been held up and robbed. So you can see that the gun was important to us. It was one thing for Sam to say he was going to fight the British; they were a long way from here. But to take Father’s gun was pretty bad; Father was right here and he seemed a lot more real to me than the British did.

  “Sam, you shouldn’t do that,” I said.

  “I told you it was serious,” Sam said.

  Now I wished he hadn’t told me. “You oughtened to do it, Sam. Father’ll kill you.”

  “If I don’t have the gun, some Lobsterback will kill me. Besides, it belongs to the family, doesn’t it? I have as much right to it as anybody, don’t I?”

  I knew that was wrong and I shook my head. “It doesn’t belong to the family; it belongs to Father.”

  Neither of us said anything for a minute. Then Sam said, “You swore, Timmy. You swore an oath.”

  I wished I hadn’t. I was afraid to go back on my oath, but I was just as scared of Sam stealing the Brown Bess, too. “Let’s finish up with the stock and go to bed.”

  I figured if we went to bed he’d fall right asleep because he’d walked thirty miles up from New Haven that day. In the morning we’d all have to go to church—it was the law to go to church on Sunday—and it would be hard for him to steal the gun with people milling around and coming over to the tavern the way they did after church.

  I finished milking Old Pru. Sam took the eggs up to the house and came back, and we fed the stock and watered them. We didn’t say much. I knew that Sam was sorry he’d told me, and I was thinking of ways to stop him from doing it. Finally we were through. “Let’s go to bed,” I said.

  “All right,” he said. “Go on up, I’ll be up in a minute, I want to talk to Father.”

  “Please come right up, though.”

  “Don’t worry, Tim. Just go on up to bed.”

  I didn’t want to leave him; but I knew there wasn’t any use in arguing, so I said goodnight to Father and Mother, said some prayers, and went upstairs. There are four bedrooms on the second floor
of our house, where lodgers stay when we have them. We get a lot of people traveling through between Stratford and Danbury, and Litchfield and Norwalk, or even going over to New York, and they need places along the way to sleep. Above the second floor is the loft where Sam and I sleep. There isn’t much in it—just a couple of beds. There are no stairs up to the loft—just a ladder. I climbed up, not bothering to take a light. I knew where everything was. Besides, there are cracks in the floor which let little pieces of light through, so you can see a little if you have to. I undressed, got into bed, and pulled the blankets over me. I was always pretty tired by the time I went to bed, with all the chores I had around the tavern every day, but I wanted to stay awake to wait for Sam, so he could tell me some stories about telling points. To keep from falling asleep I lay on my back staring up at the black and watching the dots shift around in front of my eyes. But my eyes kept closing. So I began reciting all the books of the Bible from first to last, and I got to somewhere around Obadiah before I fell asleep.

  When I woke up somebody was shouting. I sat up in bed. It was Father. I couldn’t hear the words, but I could hear the sound—his heavy, hard voice going on and on. Then there was Sam’s voice and he was shouting, too, and then Father again. I got out of bed, climbed quietly down the ladder, and crouched by the top of the stairs.

  “You are not having the gun,” Father shouted. “You are not going to Wethersfield and you are going to take off that uniform right now, if you have to go to church tomorrow naked.”

  “Father—”

  “I will not have subversion, I will not have treason in my house. We are Englishmen, we are subjects of the King, this rebellion is the talk of madmen.”

  “Father I am not an Englishman, I am an American, and I am going to fight to keep my country free.”

  “Oh God, Sam fight? Is it worth war to save a few pence in taxes?”

  “It’s not the money, it’s the principle.”

  “Principle, Sam? You may know principle, Sam, but I know war. Have you ever seen a dear friend lying in the grass with the top of his skull off and his brains sliding out of them like wet oats? Have you ever looked into the eyes of a man with his throat cut and the blood pouring out between his fingers, knowing that there was nothing he could do, in five minutes he would be dead, yet still trying to beg for grace and not being able because his windpipe was cut in two? Have you ever heard a man shriek when he felt a bayonet go through the middle of his back? I have, Sam, I have. I was at Louisbourg the year before you were born. Oh, it was a great victory. They celebrated it with bonfires all over the colonies. And I carried my best friend’s body back to his mother—sewed up in a sack. Do you want to come home that way? Do you think I want to hear a wagon draw up one summer’s morning and go out to find you stiff and bloody and your eyes staring blank at the sky? Sam, it isn’t worth it. Now take off that uniform and go back to your studies.”

  “I won’t, Father.”

  They were silent. It was terrible. My heart was pounding and I could hardly breathe.

  “Sam, I’m ordering you.”

  “You can’t order me anymore, Father. I’m a man.”

  “A man? You’re a boy, Sam, a boy dressed up in a gaudy soldier’s suit.” Oh, he sounded bitter.

  “Father—”

  “Go, Sam. Go. Get out of my sight. I can’t bear to look at you anymore in that vile costume. Get out. And don’t come back until you come dressed as my son, not as a stranger.”

  “Father—”

  “Go, Sam.”

  There were sounds. I could hear Father breathing as if he had climbed a mountain. Then the door slammed. I was afraid Father would come up so I slipped away from the top of the stairs and began to climb the ladder up to the loft. But then I heard some more sounds, some funny ones, sounds I’d never heard before. They puzzled me. I slipped back to the stairs and softly began to ease myself down them a step at a time. About five steps down I could see into the taproom. Father had his head down on the table, and he was crying. I’d never seen him cry before in my whole life; and I knew there were bad times coming.

  MY FATHER’S NAME WAS ELIPHALET, BUT EVERYBODY called him Life. My mother’s name was Susannah. Father was born in Redding where we have our tavern, but Mother was born over in New York. He had cousins over there where she used to live. Their names were Platt, which used to be Mother’s name. I’d never met them, but when Father went over to Verplancks Point every year to sell cattle and buy supplies he stayed with them and caught up on the news.

  Redding wasn’t much of a town compared with places like New Haven—although actually I’d never been to New Haven. About the only big place I’d ever been was Fairfield, down on Long Island Sound, where I used to go sometimes with Father and Sam to pick up sugar or rum that came up from the Barbados in big ships. There were thousands of people in Fairfield, at least it seemed like that, but there were only a few hundred in Redding.

  Redding was divided into two parts—Redding Center and Redding Ridge, which was where we lived. Our tavern was at a corner where the Danbury-Fairfield Road met Cross Highway. Across the Danbury-Fairfield Road from us was the church and the graveyard. Next to the church, on the other side of Cross Highway was an empty field where the trainband practiced drilling. Next door to us was the Betts’ house, and scattered around were a dozen more houses—the Sanford’s house and the Rogers’ house and Mr. Heron’s house and some others. Our tavern was finished with shingles, but some of the richer people, like Mr. Heron, had white clapboard siding on their houses.

  Our church in Redding Ridge was the Anglican Church. “Anglican” meant English Church; in England everybody had to belong to it, or at least they were supposed to. In Connecticut we had freedom of religion so you could belong to any church you wanted, unless you were a Papist. But there were hardly any of them in Connecticut. Over at Redding Center there was a Presbyterian Church; naturally, if you were a Presbyterian, you built your house over there and if you were an Anglican, you built here on the Ridge, although of course there were lots of farmers all around who didn’t live near either church and just went to the one they wanted.

  Because our church was the English Church, the people here on the Ridge seemed to be more on the Tory side and wanted to be loyal to the King. To tell the truth, I didn’t exactly understand what the argument was all about. Ever since I could remember, all my life in fact, there had been these discussions and arguments and debates about whether we ought to obey His Majesty’s government or whether we should rebel. What kept confusing me about it was that the argument didn’t have two sides the way an argument should, but about six sides. Some people said that the King was the King and that was that, and we ought to do what he said. Other people said that men were supposed to be free to govern themselves and we should rebel and drive the Lobsterbacks out altogether. Some others said, well, they were born Englishmen and they wanted to die Englishmen, but that the Colonies ought to have more say in their own government, and that maybe we’d have to give the Lobsterbacks a taste of blood just to show the King that we meant business. Oh, people had all kinds of ideas—that we New Englanders ought to join together, or that all the Colonies ought to set up one big government or that—well I don’t know, I can’t even remember all the different sides there were to the argument. You can see how confusing it was when you realize that sometimes Sam’s side was called Patriots and sometimes they were called Rebels. I guess I’d been reading newspaper stories about it and hearing people shout over the whole thing for so long that I didn’t listen anymore—it just went in one ear and out the other.

  But now it seemed like it wasn’t going to be just arguments anymore. Around fifty of the Minutemen and lots of British troops had been killed on Friday at Lexington or Concord, or wherever it was, although nobody seemed to know how many for sure. And Sam was going to fight.

  Sunday morning was bright and sunny and warm. The rain had stopped during the night. Although the road was full of mud, the fields were dry
ing and the birds were singing. I couldn’t enjoy it very much, though; the fight Sam had had with Father the night before still hung around me the way a bad dream does sometimes. Sam and Father had had fights before, and they always got over them in a day or two. But this one seemed worse than the others, and it worried me that maybe they wouldn’t fix it up.

  I didn’t think Father would want to talk about it. Usually when something important happened he would just ignore it until he’d decided what to do. So I was surprised that he brought it up when we were getting ready to go to church.

  “Tim, did Sam say anything to you about going to the war?”

  I didn’t want to lie to Father, but I didn’t want to give Sam away, either. “Well, he said he was, but I thought he was probably just boasting.”

  “He wasn’t boasting, Tim. He’s going over to Wethersfield. The fools are planning to march up to Massachusetts to meddle in something that isn’t their affair.”

  “Is he really going to fight, Father?”

  “I hope not,” he said. Then he frowned. “What do you think of all of this, Tim?”

  “I don’t know, Father,” I said. “I can’t figure out exactly what it’s about.”

  “I suppose Sam’s been preaching rebellion to you.”

  I tried to think of something that wouldn’t get Sam in any more trouble. “He said we ought to be free.”

  “That’s just college-boy wind,” Father said. He sounded pretty scornful. “Who isn’t free? Aren’t we free? The whole argument is over a few taxes that hardly amount to anything for most people. What’s the use of principles if you have to be dead to keep them? We’re Englishmen, Timmy. Of course there are injustices, there are always injustices, that’s the way of God’s world. But you never get rid of injustices by fighting. Look at Europe, they’ve had one war after another for hundreds of years, and show me where anything ever got any better for them. Well, let’s go to church. It’s a time for prayer.”

  I decided to forget about the whole thing; it was too worrying. We went out across the muddy road to church, and I climbed up into the balcony where the children, Indians and black people sat. Redding Ridge being a small place I knew everybody there—all the kids, and Tom Warrups and Ned, the Starr’s black man. I sat down next to Jerry Sanford. Jerry was a couple of years younger than me, but he was the person closest to my age around and we did a lot of things together. And the first thing he said was, “We heard Sam ran away to fight.”