Voices of Revolution

KATIE'S TRUNK

What would it be tike to be a Tory if your neighbors were Patriots? When you read, summarize the con­flict between Katie's family and their neighbors.

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When I'd been bad all day long,

and never telling where it went,

Mama sighed and said, "I should sit you down

to sew long seams all day

and get the goodness straight inside,

Katie. What is wrong with you?"

though I felt it inside,

the way a horse knows a storm is near.

I could feel the itchiness in the air,

the wind bringing cold,

the clouds tumbling over the trees

bringing rain - a sour rain.
"Must be," Mama sighed and sat down to tea,

"must be all this trouble and fighting.

Why, it makes me skittish as a newborn calf,

all this marching and talking,

these letters your Papa speaks of,

that tea they dumped in the harbor."

"Tea! In the harbor! Wasting God's good food."

Brother Walter said, "That's not the least of it.

It will get worse."

She peered at him.

"How could it be worse, Walter?"

Then she shut her lips on the words.

Already we had lost friends, neighbors,

families we had played with on the green

and helped with building their new barns.

Her brother, Ralph, no longer spoke to Walter.

Sometimes I heard that word hissed, "Tory!"

like a snake about to bite.

The rebels were arming, brother told me,

marching and drilling beyond the meadows.

The sun was hot on the mill pond

and Walter, Hattie, and I watched the dragonflies

peel their skins off on the long grass

and fly away.

Something like smoke rose over the road

and out of it Papa came running. "Get your mother!

Hide in the woods. The rebels are coming!"

Mama's face like a white handkerchief.

She shoved a piece of pork pie in our hands

and ran us out to the thick woods

where we could hide. Crouched in the underbrush,

I felt like an animal in a trap. And suddenly

I was so mad I could not still myself.
I raced for the house,

Mama's fierce whisper trying to call me back.

I would not let John Warren and Reuben Otis

hurt our house and things. It was not right,

it was not just, it was not fair.
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Inside our parlor, I touched each thing

I loved: Mama's pineapple teapot,

the silver tray, shining like a moon,

the pictures of all our kin

ranged across the wall - home.
Then I heard voices by the door,

Reuben Otis, John Warren, Harold Smith

and others, not our neighbors.

"This'll be fine pickings!"

They paused on the front step

and ripped the knocker off the wood.

looking for a place to hide.

If they could steal, they could hurt as well.

There was Mama's wedding trunk,

big and black and domed.

I pulled up the trunk lid and hid under the dresses.

In the shut down darkness everything

was muffled and faraway. The door slamming.

Their footsteps next door in the parlor.
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"English goods!" someone spat

and something hit the floor and broke.

My breath stuck in my throat.

I heard Reuben say,

"Mr. Gray has money here. Look hard for it."

John Warren spoke of arms they would buy.

The air closed around my mouth

like a black cloth.

though I was never much good at that.

I thought my words might go up to God

like bubbles in a pond to the silver top

where they would burst. "Please, God,

don't let them find me, don't let them hurt us,

let me breathe."

The footsteps came closer, someone leaned against

the trunk. My breath got caught somewhere midst

my stomach and chest, and I could not

get it back. There wasn't enough air.

John Warren said, "Fine dresses and silver here."

He pulled up the lid and the sweet air rushed in.

I sucked in a breath as a dress was snatched out.

The rustlings drowned their words,

another dress went, and a hand touched me.

I wanted to bite it, to make him jump and shout,

but I stilled myself Maybe he didn't know.

Suddenly, he shouted, "Out! The Tories

are coming. Back to the road! Hurry!"

He did not close the lid, and footsteps sounded

out the door.

as the horses galloping down the road.

Quiet as quiet, I crept

to the window and looked out. No one.

Puffs of smoke far down on the green.
A horse thudding past, riderless;

someone's hat blowing by in the gusty wind.

Would I ever play with Celia again?

Would I always wear this name, Tory, as if

it were written on my chest?
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I sat down, hugged my knees

and began to cry.

Walter ran inside and hugged

me so tight

my nose stuck to his shirt.

Mama, Papa, and Hattie came next,

white as the moon and as silent.

Only Mama scolded, "Katie! Leaving us

that way. . ." Her voice broke

and she sat beside me and stroked my hair.

Papa looked out the window. "It's not bad,

dear ones, just a skirmish.

No one's hurt that I can see."
Walter's mouth snapped open and then

shut tight. I wiped my eyes on his sleeve.

A sudden thread like a song

ran through my head. When Mama asked me

to sew straight seams to get the goodness straight

I knew I couldn't do it.

But John Warren had. When I hid

in the black stuffy trunk,

when my breath got lost in Mama's dresses,

he left the trunk lid up to let me breathe

and called the others away.
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He'd left one seam of goodness there,

and we were all tied to it:

Papa, Mama, Walter, Hattie

and me.