My Brother Sam Is Dead Visions of America Quotes

So the summer went along and I lived my ordinary life, which was mostly chores all day long. Having a father who was a tavern-keeper was a lot better than being a farmer's son, like most boys. Running a farm is terrible hard work—plowing and hoeing and milking cows and such and being out in the fields all by yourself with nobody to talk to all day long. Being around a tavern is a lot more fun. There are people coming and 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. But still, it isn't as much fun as people like Jerry Sanford think. […] 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 washing the windows and keeping everything clean generally. (3.6)

Verplancks Point was on the Hudson River, just south of a town called Peekskill. Boats from New York City and Albany stopped there for trading. The idea of our trip was to drive cattle to Verplancks Point where we could sell them, and then use the money to buy supplies we needed for the tavern and the store—rum, cloth, pots and pans, needles and thread and all sorts of things. The traders brought these things up the river from New York and sold them to merchants at towns along the way, like Verplancks Point. And of course the merchants there wanted cattle to ship down to New York where there was a need for beef. (7.19)

Father was right about the thieves who people called cow-boys. We'd heard all kinds of stories from travelers about them. All of that part of Westchester county, from the Connecticut border over to the Hudson River, had gotten to be a kind of no man's land, with roving bands wandering around plundering people on the excuse that they were part of the war. (7.26)

We waited there again until they got us another escort to take us farther along the way, and we crossed over into New York, the first time I'd ever been in a colony besides Connecticut. It disappointed me. It didn't look any different and I didn't feel any different, either. Here I was in a foreign country, and it was just like being at home. (7.71)

My North Salem cousins lived in a clapboard farmhouse just off the Ridgefield Road. Their name was Platt and there were a lot of them—four girls and two boys and the parents and their aunt who lived with them, too. The house wasn't really big enough for them. The four girls slept in one room with the aunt—three girls in one bed and the biggest girl and the aunt in another. The boys slept out in the barn except during the coldest weather, when they made up pallets on the floor in front of the kitchen fireplace. When I saw how crowded they were I realized that I was lucky not to have been raised on a farm: there was usually plenty of room in the tavern for me and Sam. (8.1)

In the morning another escort took us to Peekskill. It was a pretty big town—hundreds of people lived there. It was on the edge of the Hudson River, and as we rolled down the hill into the town we suddenly could see the water. I couldn't believe it—it was the biggest river I'd ever seen. Across the other side were beautiful hills, some of them craggy and rocky, dropping straight down to the water's edge. It was so beautiful I could hardly keep my eyes off it. (8.30)

The escort left us in Peekskill. We turned south, following a road that went along the river. Oh, it was exciting to me. There were all kinds of boats going up and down or moored offshore. Scattered along the river bank were docks and wharves with skiffs and rowboats tied up to them. Men and boys were fishing from the docks, and sometimes we could see people out in boats seining. It seemed like fun, a lot more fun than being a tavern-keeper.

"I wished we lived here, Father," I said.

[…]

"Oh, the river's pretty," he said, "but fishing's hard work. You try hauling one of those seines up from the bottom sometime and you'll find out." (8.32-33, 36)

It was a good wagonload: two hogshead of rum, a half dozen big sacks of salt, a couple of barrels of molasses; a large chest of tea, a sack of coffee beans, a dozen brass kettles and some tin pots; a chest of breeches and some brass buckles; some drills, knives, files, axes and spades; and small boxes of pepper, allspice, cinnamon, and white powdered sugar." (8.44)

When I woke up in the morning it had stopped snowing and the sun was shining. Water was running in small streams off the roof. It was pretty—everything a foot deep in snow and the sun sparkling off the fields. But even though it was pretty I didn't like it. Plowing through snow a foot deep with the oxcart all the way back to Redding was going to be miserable work. (9.1)

To keep my mind off my troubles I began trying to name all the countries in the world, which I was supposed to know because I'd learned them in geography. Some were easy to name: England, France, Sweden, Russia. […] It took me a while to decide if I should count America or not. If the Rebels won the war then we would be a country; but Father was sure they were going to lose, so I decided not to count us. (9.10)