My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier

huge lake filled with boats. “They call this part of the river Haverstraw Bay,” Father told me.
    At Verplancks Point the land was not steep, but sloped gradually down to the water. There was a long wharf jutting out into the river, with some boats tied to it. Set back on the land were pens for cattle, sheep and hogs; and around and about were sheds and houses belonging to the men who worked the docks and shipped the livestock. Most of it went down to New York. There were thousands of British troops quartered in New York, and British sailors, too, besides the regular population of 25,000. They needed as much beef as they could get and prices were going up all the time.
    Father found Mr. Bogardus, the man he usually sold his livestock to. We herded the cattle into pens, and untied the poor hogs and turned them loose in the hog pens, too. Then Father said, “I’ll be talking business with Mr. Bogardus for a while. Have a look around, but don’t stray too far.”
    The sun was going down red and cold over the dark hills across the river. It felt good to be free of the animals. I had nothing to worry about for a while and that was nice. Going back would be easy with only the wagon full of goods to watch over. Of course there could always be trouble from the cow-boys, but Father didn’t seem worried about it, so I put it out of my mind and wandered down to the wharf to see what was going on. The river was beginning to turn black, and the fishing boats were coming into the wharf. They tied up, and the men and boys in them handed out barrels of fish. I could see that Father had been right: they looked tired and wet and cold and dirty from the mud that came up from the bottom on the nets. One boy about my age got off a boat and just sat right down on the dock and stayed there, all huddled up under his coat, too tired to move.
    They carried the fish into one of the sheds near the wharf and began to clean them. It was amazing to me to see how fast theyworked—snap-snap-snap with a knife and there was the fish with its head slapped off and opened up into two white fillets. There were a lot of pretty big fish, too—sturgeon, they called it.
    Finally I began to get cold myself and walked off the wharf and back up to the pens. It was warmer there by the animals, and after a while Father came along. We staked the oxen out in a bit of grazing common near the pens and went into the tavern for some supper. Father was happy. He had got a good price for the cattle and had negotiated for most of the other things he wanted to bring back to Redding. It was a good wagonload: two hogsheads 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.
    We slept that night in the tavern. “We ought to sleep in the wagon and save the money,” Father said, “but I guess it’s too cold for that.”
    The next morning we loaded the wagon with the things Father had bought and started off. Father tied the horse to the back of the wagon and walked along beside me to help manage the oxen. It was nice having company. I was sorry to say good-bye to the Hudson River. I liked being there and when we reached Peekskill and turned up the long hill away from it, I kept looking back over my shoulder at the water shining in the sun until we went over the brow of the hill and I couldn’t see it anymore.
    We spent the night at Father’s friends near Mohegan. In the morning we got up at sunrise and left. The sky was cloudy and hung down over our heads like a blanket. “It’s going to snow pretty soon,” Father said.
    â€œIt’s cold enough,” I said.
    â€œI think so,” he said. “At night it will be, anyway. I hope we beat it