American Dream

  Ships lined the docks, but the mighty masts were down on many of them. Only three ships were being unloaded. December was a difficult time to sail the ocean, and some of the shippers and other business owners had lost a lot of business because people in the colonies were refusing to contribute to the king’s well-being by purchasing goods from England.

  “Uncle Blake seems to be keeping busy enough at the shop. He has more business all the time. Just last week, seven more coaches were brought to him for repair, not to mention the orders he already had for new carts and carriages.”

  Lizzie nodded. “I think I heard Aunt Charlotte say something about that.”

  “When I’m sixteen, I’m going to ask Papa to let me work with Uncle Blake,” Joshua said. “At least for a little while.”

  “I thought you were going to work at the print shop with Papa when you finish school.”

  “There is plenty of time for both.” Joshua’s eyes brightened. “I wonder what the cargo is on the ships that just arrived—and whether Uncle Blake is paying taxes on the goods he receives.”

  “Uncle Blake runs an honest business,” Lizzie said with certainty. She gestured that they should resume their walk.

  “I’m not sure anyone is completely honest anymore,” Joshua said. He let his fingers trail lightly along the rail as he walked. “I’ve heard a lot of rumors about smuggling lately. Papa even has a story about it in the newspaper.”

  “Smuggling?” Lizzie asked. “What does the story say? Does Papa think it’s true?”

  “You know Papa. He likes to report the facts and let people make up their own minds.”

  “What about you?”

  Joshua shrugged. “Who knows? Parliament is enforcing the Sugar Act, and the customs agents are watching all the ships carefully. I know Uncle Blake does not agree with the Sugar Act. He says it will cost everyone a lot of money in taxes.”

  Will I never escape danger? Lizzie wondered. She was on a simple errand to take quilt squares to her aunt, and she found herself suspecting her uncle of breaking the laws of England.

  They approached the big wooden door to Wallace Coach and Carriage. Joshua and Lizzie had grown up visiting this office. Blake Wallace had inherited Wallace Coach from his uncle, Randolph Wallace, after an apprenticeship and a time of learning to run the business. Blake had expanded the company—and the name—after several years, adding newer models of carriages like the phaeton and the landau. Wallace Coach and Carriage had flourished under his direction and was quite the modern business now.

  Joshua pushed open the door, and they went in. A man in a long gray coat stood across from Uncle Blake’s desk, talking intently.

  “He looks angry,” Lizzie whispered.

  “Don’t mind him,” Joshua said. “He’s just the customs agent.” Lizzie’s eyes widened. “The customs agent? Is Uncle Blake already in trouble?”

  Joshua put a finger to his lips to hush Lizzie and steered her toward the back of the office. Aunt Charlotte stood in the doorway to the back room. She wiggled her finger to say they should join her. Her two small sons, six and eight years old, poked their heads around her billowing skirts to try to see what was happening in the outer office. Charlotte gently pushed their heads back.

  “What’s going on?” Lizzie whispered as Aunt Charlotte herded them into the back room.

  “The customs agent thinks Blake is evading the required taxes on goods for the business.”

  Lizzie caught her breath. Is Joshua right? Is Uncle Blake defying the king?

  “I knew it!” Joshua said victoriously. “Uncle Blake is not going to let the British push him around.”

  “You know no such thing,” Aunt Charlotte said sternly. “What your uncle does with his business is no concern of yours, and I’ll thank you not to spread rumors that you know nothing about.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Joshua said. He said no more, but Lizzie could see in Joshua’s eyes that he still believed Uncle Blake was deliberately disobeying the king’s laws.

  “I’m sure you did not come to watch this little show,” Aunt Charlotte said. “Has your mother sent you?”

  “Oh! I completely forgot!” Lizzie reached under her cloak and brought out the quilt squares. “Mama sent me with these. I’m afraid I’ve wrinkled them a bit.” She glared at Joshua. “I got a little nervous walking over here.”

  Aunt Charlotte set the squares on a table and began smoothing them out. “These will do just fine. Your mother is one of the best quilters I know.” She began moving the squares around in different arrangements. Without looking up, she spoke. “Isaac Wallace, you mind me. Stay in this room.”

  Little Isaac moaned and stepped back from the doorway. Lizzie smiled to herself. Like her own mother, Aunt Charlotte knew what her children were doing even when she could not see them.

  The sounds from the outer office grew louder.

  “I assure you, Mr. Wallace,” the customs agent said, nearly shouting by now, “you will face consequences for your actions!”

  “With all due respect, sir,” Uncle Blake replied calmly, “you have not specified any actions worthy of consequences.”

  “See,” Lizzie whispered to Joshua, “Uncle Blake is not doing anything illegal.”

  “That is not what he said,” Joshua responded. “Maybe the customs agent hasn’t figured it all out yet. He needs more information to charge Uncle Blake with wrongdoing.”

  Lizzie pressed her lips together and looked through the doorway at her uncle. Could Joshua be right?

  Joshua quietly stepped into the outer office and leaned casually against the wall.

  “Joshua! What are you doing?” Lizzie used the loudest whisper she could without drawing attention to herself.

  “Just standing here,” he answered. But he slid along the wall a few steps at a time.

  “Boys, get back,” Aunt Charlotte said to her sons.

  “But Joshua is out there,” the older one protested.

  “Pay no attention to Joshua.”

  But Aunt Charlotte did pay attention to Joshua. Her eyes followed his movement around the outer office. Lizzie and her little cousins peeked out to watch, too. Slowly and silently, Joshua inched his way around the room until he was squarely behind the customs agent. Lizzie and Aunt Charlotte looked at each other and chuckled as quietly as they could. They knew what was coming next.

  The customs agent’s white powdered wig jiggled humorously as he shook his head at Uncle Blake. Behind him, Joshua scowled and shook his head from side to side in a comically exaggerated motion.

  “It would behoove you to be honest with me, Mr. Wallace,” the agent said. “I have the full authority of the king behind me. Do not try to deceive me.”

  Joshua mouthed an echo of everything the angry man said.

  “I assure you, Mr. Byles,” Uncle Blake said, “it is not necessary for you to be so curious about my activities. Wallace Coach and Carriage is a family business that has been operating for decades in full cooperation of British law. We did not organize ourselves simply to frustrate the king.”

  “Don’t make fun of me!” Mr. Byles shouted, shaking a finger at Uncle Blake.

  Joshua shook his finger in a stern gesture.

  “I can assure you that if I find any evidence to support my suspicions, you will find yourself in serious trouble.” Mr. Byles set his hands on his hips and glared at Uncle Blake.

  Joshua did the same.

  “Look at Joshua!” one of the boys exclaimed. “He’s funny!” “Hush!” Aunt Charlotte said. “Pay him no mind.” But her eyes caught Lizzie’s and twinkled.

  “I am fully aware of the consequences of evading taxes, Mr. Byles,” Uncle Blake said. The slightest of smiles formed on his lips as he caught Joshua’s eye. Joshua grinned back at his uncle.

  “I would suggest you take that smirk off your face, Mr. Wallace. I do not take kindly to being ridiculed.”

  Joshua stuck out his lower lip and shook his head seriously.

  Blake resumed a sober expres
sion. “Of course not, Mr. Byles. I would not think of ridiculing you.”

  Mr. Byles huffed in disgust. “I can think of no reason why I should believe you,” he said, “but I do have other business to attend to this afternoon.”

  “I am a fair man, Mr. Byles, and I understand the needs of government. I make no effort to avoid a reasonable tax.”

  “I can assure you that you have not seen the last of me.” The agent thrust one arm up in the air to emphasize his point.

  Joshua did the same.

  “You are welcome to visit Wallace Coach and Carriage at any time, Mr. Byles. I trust the remainder of your day will pass pleasantly.”

  The customs agent turned around abruptly. Joshua immediately brought his hands down to his sides and smiled politely.

  “What are you doing here?” Mr. Byles demanded.

  “I have come to visit my uncle, sir,” Joshua replied respectfully.

  “Why did you not speak up?”

  “I did not wish to disturb your conversation, sir.”

  “Your mother has brought you up well,” Mr. Byles declared. Then he pushed past Joshua and left the shop.

  “Joshua, you were wonderful,” Uncle Blake said, grabbing his nephew by the shoulders. “I don’t know how you can do that without bursting out in laughter.”

  Aunt Charlotte came out of the back room and collapsed into a wooden desk chair, laughing. Lizzie and the boys followed her out.

  “Cousin Joshua, you are so funny!” Both of the boys started making faces and shaking their fingers at each other.

  “Some might think you are a disrespectful boy,” Aunt Charlotte cautioned, “but it was an amusing sight.”

  Lizzie was laughing, too. The whole family loved to watch Joshua’s impressions—even when he made fun of some of them.

  But as she laughed, Lizzie remembered some of her uncle’s words. He had not come right out and denied that he was cheating the king out of any taxes he owed. Obviously Mr. Byles was convinced he had good reason to suspect Uncle Blake. Lizzie wanted to believe her uncle was doing the right thing, but she was not sure what to think. Does Uncle Blake feel that taxes are wrong? Lizzie wondered. Is he in danger?

  CHAPTER 3

  The Argument on Christmas Day

  Carefully, precisely, Lizzie set the china plate perfectly between the fork and knife. Then she adjusted the crystal goblet ever so slightly until she was satisfied that the place setting was exactly right. She wanted the table to be perfect for Christmas dinner. Satisfied with the first place setting, she moved on to the next. Before she was finished, she would make her way around the long walnut table covered with a white damask tablecloth until all fifteen place settings were perfectly lined up. As she surveyed the table, she imagined the family gathered around it. There would be her parents, with Joshua and Olivia and Emmett. Uncle Blake and Aunt Charlotte would be there also, with Isaac and Christopher. And Uncle Philip, Aunt Johanna, and cousin Charity would complete the gathering.

  Lizzie straightened a narrow ladder-back chair until it was perfectly lined up with the place setting before it. She paused to pick up a plate and admire it. She had always loved the delicate pink-and-green flower pattern. Seeing it and holding the plate made Lizzie feel a mysterious connection to her great-grandmother, who had received these dishes as a wedding present. Two of the plates had slight nicks, but none of the pieces had been broken. Lizzie likened the dishes to her family—they were not perfect people, but they were a family, bound together by love passed down for generations.

  “Can I help you?” The request came from six-year-old Olivia, Lizzie’s sister. Olivia was not exactly known for her gentle touch. She was a rambunctious child, fearful of nothing and always ready to try something new. Lizzie winced inwardly at the thought of Olivia touching their great-grandmother’s china. Yet she did not want to hurt Olivia’s feelings. She remembered how proud she had felt the first time she was allowed to help set the table.

  “How about if we do it together?” Lizzie proposed.

  Happily, Olivia agreed, and with one of Lizzie’s hands on Olivia’s shoulder and the other firmly holding the plate, they laid the next place setting.

  “I helped, I helped!” Olivia cried and scampered off to the front room to brag to her cousins.

  Lizzie smiled and turned back to her task. But she was soon interrupted again.

  “I want to help!” announced her cousin Isaac.

  “Me, too!” said his brother Christopher.

  “I’ll help,” said five-year-old Charity, Uncle Philip and Aunt Johanna’s daughter.

  Lizzie’s youngest brother, five-year-old Emmett, said nothing but looked up at her with his wide dark eyes. Lizzie could never resist Emmett when he looked like that. She was faced with three little boys and a girl who all wanted to help set the table with china and crystal.

  Isaac reached for the stack of plates, and Lizzie stopped him just in time.

  “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “You can all help, but you have to take turns.”

  “Me first! Me first!” Isaac and Christopher said, almost together.

  Lizzie looked at Emmett. She knew he would never insist on having the first turn. Emmett and Lizzie understood each other. Despite almost seven years’ difference in their ages, they were more like each other than anyone else in the Wallace or Murray families.

  “Let’s start with the youngest,” Lizzie said as she took Emmett’s hand. Systematically, she helped them all set a plate on the table in the proper spot: first Emmett, then Charity, then Isaac, and finally Christopher.

  Satisfied, the little ones scurried away to return to their play. As Lizzie watched them go, she wondered what was going on in their minds. Although the older boys wore the long breeches of adult men, they were only children. Did they feel the sense of danger and fear that she felt? Did they know that the unrest in the streets of Boston was not normal? Lizzie comforted herself with the thought that they were young enough to fill their days and thoughts only with playing harder and learning the letters of the alphabet.

  Lizzie had worked her way from one end of the table to the other. The voices of her father and her uncles, sitting near the fireplace in the next room, filled her ears.

  “… has got to realize that it is unreasonable to expect that the people of the colonies will not want to move west,” said Uncle Blake. “I cannot imagine what madness the king has fallen into to make him declare it illegal to settle any farther west than the Appalachian divide.”

  “I’m sure that is only for the time being,” said Uncle Philip, the soft-spoken doctor.

  “I should think so,” said Lizzie’s father, Duncan Murray. “There is an entire continent awaiting settlement—land for farms and towns. The people will not wait long.”

  “They are not waiting even now,” said Uncle Blake. “Settlers had already started pushing west before this crazy rule came from London.”

  “But there are no real towns,” said Papa, “no schools, no shops.”

  “You are right about that,” Uncle Blake responded, “but those things will come. When enough people have settled and begun farming, they will organize themselves into communities and resist Parliament and the king.”

  “I’m afraid you are right,” Papa agreed. “It would take a great many soldiers to stop the westward flow.” He looked down into the mug of hot tea he held in his hand while he pondered the issue.

  Through the doorway, Lizzie looked from her father to Uncle Blake to Uncle Philip, who had not said very much. Uncle Philip usually said little. He did not always agree with his older brother Blake, but it seemed to Lizzie that he would rather remain silent than cause conflict.

  “Joshua tells me you had a visit from a customs agent,” Papa said to Uncle Blake.

  Uncle Blake chuckled. “It was nothing serious, I assure you. Ezra Byles is making regular rounds at all the shops and businesses near the harbor. He never comes right out and says what he thinks. I don’t believe he has any real evidenc
e of anything that he suspects.”

  “No doubt he is simply trying to frighten people into obeying the regulations from Parliament.”

  “Well, he does not frighten me, and I daresay he does not frighten Joshua either. You should have seen him. He was magnificent!”

  Papa smiled. “Someday those imitations are going to get him into trouble.”

  Uncle Blake returned to the subject of Parliament. “The colonies have always contributed to the needs of the empire. We have been a hardworking lot, and the Crown has reaped the benefit of our efforts. We’ve educated our children right from the start. We have our own newspapers and colleges. We’ve governed ourselves peaceably with our own houses of assembly. We have no need for the interference of Parliament in our affairs.”

  “The colonies still belong to the Crown,” Uncle Philip reminded his brother. “If Isaac or Christopher told you that they did not need you any longer, I’m sure you would set them straight. They are still your sons.”

  “Ah yes, but when they have grown, they may do as they please. The colonies have matured. We are not the frail, fledgling group that landed at Plymouth.”

  Lizzie sighed as she turned back toward the table and picked up another goblet. When Uncle Blake spoke, what he said made sense. But when Uncle Philip spoke, what he said made sense, too. The two brothers did not agree with each other, yet Lizzie was drawn to both sides of the question. She thought of herself as English, yet she had never seen London and probably never would. Her mother’s family had landed in Plymouth almost 150 years before, and they didn’t have any contact with the distant relatives who still lived there. Her life in the colonies was busy and full. Lizzie loved living in Boston and did not feel that she lacked anything because she had not been to London.

  “Perhaps,” Uncle Philip said, “the problem is not so much what Parliament is doing as it is how they are going about it.”

  “What do you mean?” her father asked.

  “Even independent-minded colonists consider themselves loyal subjects of the king,” Uncle Philip explained. “We can understand that the Seven Years’ War took a heavy toll on the Crown’s treasury. Perhaps if Parliament had not been so heavy-handed in the way it announced the Sugar Act, people would not disagree with it.”