I breathe in the air of our new home. The birds are chirping, and I can smell the salty sea. It’s 1630, and we have just arrived at what we call our new home: Massachusetts Bay Colony. Suddenly, the sound of bells fill the air. “Come along now, children,” says Father. “Amiel, stop scuffing your shoes. Ester, you must stop daydreaming. We could be missing something important.” We hurried along to the village that the men that were sent here two years ago built for us. We saw a large crowd of people already standing there. Father urges us along. “Excuse me, Excuse me.” We turn and see our new leader, John Winthrop squeezing through the crowd. He makes it to the center and clears his throat. “Welcome, welcome, to your new home. I would like to have a moment of prayer. Let us pray that we have a successful new settlement here in Massachusetts. Also, we shall pray for those who started out with us, but are no longer here due to the long journey. He rattles off a list of names. At each name, I see men, women, and children start to cry or lower their heads. I presume these are probably the widowed husbands and wives, and also the children who lost their Father or Mother. Finally, towards the end, I hear a name. “Mary Ester Smith.” My beautiful mother. She was always sickly, and this journey did her in. She died just a week before we saw land. I can see that Father is trying to fight back tears. I touch his arm. He looks down at me and nods. I flee into the woods, with Amiel at my heels. “Amiel, can’t you just stay with Father?” I say desperately. “But Essie, you know how he gets when he’s sad. You’re much better company.” This is hardly a compliment. I, too, would rather spend my time with an angry crocodile than Father when he’s sad.

 “Alright, Amiel, but do be quiet.” 

“Fine, Essie.”

Amiel always gets what he wants. Before Mother died, he was a little better. But ever since then, people have been spoiling him. On the ship, the day after Mother died, everybody was pouring over him. “Oh, dear boy, here’s some chocolate.” Or, “Sweetums, give me a hug. You must be feeling awful.” I wanted to scream, “She was my mother too, you know!” I really lost it when I heard others talking about Amiel. “See him, with the blond hair and cute freckles? With the red shirt? No, not him. That boy. With the gorgeous blue eyes. He lost his mother.” I was standing right next to the person that said that. Then, the person listening said, “Didn’t he have a sister?” Then the other replied, “Oh, I think that she went along with her mother.” I WAS STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO THEM.

 I’m deep in thought when he says, “Essie, what does it mean that Mother is no longer with us? I don’t get it.” I sigh. Amiel is only six, so I get that he doesn’t understand. But why oh why do I have to explain it to him? “Amiel…,” I begin. “What?” he says. 

“She’s, she’s…” 

“She’s what?”

“She’s dead.”

Out of nowhere, he just starts sobbing. “What?!” He screams. “No one told me that!” You know, for a little kid, he sure does have some vocal cords. Wowzers. I kneel down next to him. “Hey,” I say. “It’s going to be okay. Just calm down a little bit, and we’ll go back to Father. Alright?” He nods wordlessly. I make a mental note to ask Father what he was thinking, not telling Amiel that Mother’s dead. Five minutes later, we walk back. Amiel has calmed down, and now I’m faced with the task of finding Father. Luckily, the crowd is dispersing. I find Father and look at him closely. He seems happier, but I can’t quite tell. “Well,” he says. “I talked to Winthrop, and I purchased us some land. I’ll build a good house on it, and I’ll buy some chickens and a cow from old Elijah. For now, we’ll sleep in the church and make do with the food we brought.” 

“But Father, we only brought us food that will last us a day. Plus, with you building a whole house you’ll be even hungrier than usual.”

“Ahh,” Father says. “You’ll see how smart your Father is in the morning. Now we must get a good night’s sleep and get to work in the morning. Ester, I trust that your dear Mother taught you enough that you can take care of us and look after your brother?”

“Of course, Father,” I say with a nod.

“Alright then, off you go children, to the church and put yourselves to bed. I have to go sign some things.”

“Actually, Father, I was hoping I could talk to you alone?” I say. I’m hoping that I can talk to him about the whole situation about Amiel-not-knowing-that-Mother-is -dead.

“No, Ester, we’ll talk tomorrow.”

“But…” I start. He gives me the look. “Fine, sir. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Good. Now scurry along.”

Amiel and I run off. I look back. His face is clearly telling me to go. Oh fine, I think. We quickly find the church. I mean, it’s pretty hard not to see it. It’s easily the biggest building, which would still be dwarfed in England, and also it has a cross at the top. We enter the building. It’s clear that most families did not buy a house before we got here, because it was crowded with people. “Name, please,” A drawling voice from behind me says. “Err, Smith,” I say.

“And would you be Madam Mary?” The man with the drawling voice asked.

“No, that would be my mother. She died on the trip.”

“I’m sorry, ma’m. Would that make you Madam Ester?” He asks.

“Yes sir, that would be me.”

“So you Father is Mr. Alden Amiel Smith?”

“Yes, sir, that would be him.”

“Alright, third pew on the left.

I thank the drawling man and hurry to our spot. There are blankets on the bench. That’s nice. I lay down on the floor because Amiel claims the bench. I’m tired from all the excitement that happened today and I fall into a deep sleep quickly.

I wake up and the first thing I do is look for Father. Huh. He still isn’t here. I wake up Amiel and hurry outside. The first place I think of is John Winthrop’s house, one because he has a feather mattress, and two because Father said he was going to sign some papers. I hurried over there. Amiel complained that I hadn’t even given him the chance of changing out of his pajamas, and he didn’t want the leader of our colony seeing him. I said hush up, and stop complaining because didn’t Mother always say it was the inside that counted, not the outside. At this he grumbled and then said, “Well, Mother’s dead so it doesn’t matter what she said, only what she says, and she said that. Mrs. Overton taught us about past tense and present tense. Mother is in the past, not the present. She is merely a memory, not a person.” Oh,

my, gosh. How dare he insult Mother like that. I do have to give him credit for knowing that. He’s pretty smart. Oh, well Mother also said kindness is worth a hundred times as much as smarts. I’m about to make a comeback, but Winthrop's house comes into view. Wow, it’s pretty big. He is the leader, I suppose. I walk up to the door and knock. I hear voices, and Winthrop’s face comes into view as the door opens. “You’re right, Smith. The children are here,” he says. Were we expected? “Yes and no, lass,” says Winthrop. I realized I must have spoken my question out loud. “What does that mean?” Amiel speaks up. I had almost forgotten he was here. “Your Father was certain that you would turn up here,” he says. “But I was not, because you are young children.” I told them I had remembered that Father had said something about signing papers, and so my assumption was that he was here. “A smart lass you are. How old are you? Eleven? You have some logic.” I nodded, because I am eleven. Father cleared his throat. “Winthrop, when do you think he will get here?” 

“Soon,” was Winthrop's reply. What were they talking about? Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. “Well, Smith, you have your answer. There he is now.” Winthrop went to answer the door, and I sent Father a quizzical look. He pretended not to notice. Winthrop entered the room again, only this time he was accompanied by a boy with sandy hair and freckles that stood out against his pale skin. He was maybe twelve, a bit older than I but not quite in his teens. “Children, I would like you to meet Abrahm. He will be a new member of the family, and I expect you to treat him with respect. He will be helping and working with me. In other words, he is my accomplice.” Father finished his little speech. An accomplice? This boy? He looks pretty nervous, just standing there. I step in front of him and introduce myself. “Ester Smith. Welcome.” I stick out my hand, and he shakes it. He has a strong grip. Stronger than you would think. “Oh, and this is my little brother, Amiel.” I push Amiel out in front of me, and he grudgingly stops sucking on his thumb and sticks out his hand. “Hey little dude,” Abraham says. It’s the first time I’ve heard him speak. He has a soft, but certainly firm voice. “Well, Abraham, we’ll get your stuff and put it in the church. Then we need to start building a home. We can’t go without a house!” Father says. He is trying to be friendly, I can tell. But a little too much.  We walked back outside to get his trunk, then we put it in the church. Father tells Amiel and I to go to old Elijah’s house and fetch the cow and ten chickens he bought. Then he tells us that he and Abraham are going to the mill to get the wood they need. Abraham tells Father that he can build a barn and

chicken pen quickly, and could he please get the wood they needed? Father says that’s splendid, as he can get started on the house. They walked away to the mill, and Amiel and I started walking to Elijahs house. He’s seventy-two years old, and provides most of the farm animals. We get the chickens and carry them in their cage to the land Father bought. “Don’t worry, I’m almost done with the chicken pen!” Abraham shouts. We leave the chicken there and go back for the cow. I tie a rope around her neck and lead her to our land. By the time we get back Abraham has the chickens in a pen and a place for the cow. The house is really comming up nicely, and when Abraham finishes the barn the house will be up real soon.

After another night at the church, Father and Abrham work all day. Everything is finished, and we start moving in. Once Father starts making money again he said he’ll buy furniture. Soon we do have furniture and we are quite comfortable in our new home. I have taken the responsibilities of Mother and we are managing. Father will probably soon marry and we’ll have the house running a lot more smoothly. I taught Amiel how to milk the cow and how to collect the eggs, so two less chores that I have to do. He also loves to help cook, even though he’s burned his hand three times. I’ll take all the help I can get. Father is teaching Abraham how to be a blacksmith, and so far he’s making little metal minifigures while Father makes axes and that sort of stuff. It’s been a month since we’ve settled here, and I won’t lie. I love it here, but Winthrop is quite passionate about the way we worship God, though. Father believes that you can worship God in any way, as long as you worship him. His friendship with Winthrop is slowly fading. I honestly am a little scared. Father has expressed his concerns about church to Winthrop, but Winthrop pays no heed. If Father keeps pressing the matter I fear that we’ll be thrown out. Amiel’s birthday is nearing and things not as common here as they are in England. Abraham’s all set for his birthday. He’s giving him a whole army of iron minifgs! I asked him how long it took to make those, and shrugged and simply said, “A week.” 

I wake up to Father shaking me and saying, “Get up and pack. We’re leaving.” What? Does this have to do anything with his meeting with Winthrop last night? I open my mouth to ask these questions, but Father shakes his head, hard. A hard no. Well, fine. I’d find out soon enough. Amiel is buzzing with the same questions I have, except he says them out loud. I tell him to hush. He doesn’t. Whatever.

Abraham comes up and asks, “Ready?” I nod. As I walk past him, he says, “Walk with me. I’ll tell you what this is about.” Why would he know and not me? Outside, Winthrop and Father are deep in discussion. Well, not discussion. Argument. Hard, heated, argument. This sudden leave could mean one thing: Father took it too far.

Winthrop bids us a goodbye, but I can tell he is smirking. Abraham must notice too, because his face hardens and mutters, “Snob.” We keep trudging along. Our cow is really strong because she’s carrying all of our bags, plus the chickens in their cage. I assume soon she will soon be carrying Amiel too, as he’s already complaining that he has to walk. Abraham is telling me why we’re moving, and it’s pretty much what I thought: Father took it too far, Winthrop got mad, called him into a meeting last night, told him he had twelve hours until he had to leave, and then, well, now we’re here. By the time he’s done, Amiel is riding the cow, asleep, Father’s getting ready to camp and he’s grumpy. He gets the blankets ready, and then we climb into our “beds,” say our prayers and fall fast asleep. In the morning, we pack up and keep walking. Abraham entertains me by telling me jokes, and we’ve already traveled a long way. In the middle of the night, I wake because the hair on my neck stands up. I slowly turn around, and there’s a wolf. A wolf pack, actually. We run. They follow us, easily outrunning us in two seconds, and the leader lunges. The chickens are the first victims. Father kicks one, and Abraham has gotten out his knife. The leader turns on Father. Father backs away, and then bolts, leaving us to deal with the wolves. Abraham steps towards the leader but is soon surrounded. His face is ashen white when he sees all of them. I yell at him to toss me his knife. He hesitates, then does it. I dodge the leader and lunge toward the circle, scaring them off. But the leader remains. He takes a step towards me, then another, then another. Suddenly, we hear a gunshot and the leader is dead on the ground. We turn around. A man is standing there with a gun. He introduces himself as William Penn. Two more men come out of the forest, leading two more horses. They instruct us to get on the horses. Abraham and I do, and Penn takes Amiel. I don’t trust Penn entirely, so I make sure that Amiel is always in my sight. Penn tells us how to use the horses. “So you see this part where his leg joins his neck/chest?” I nod. “Good. To get him going, kick that area. The harder you kick, the faster you will go. Got that?” I nod. “Then hop on,” he says.

We’ve been riding for days now. We stop each night to camp, and then continue on. Abraham never runs out of jokes. Or riddles for that matter. We stop another night. “Well, we ought to reach our destination by tommorrow afternoon,” says Penn, running his fingers through his hair. Abraham slept in the same tent that night. He tells me jokes until we almost fall asleep. “Abraham, you’re so funny,” I say, sighing. Then he says, “Abraham is so long. Call me Abe.” We get up when the sun rises. Then we stop shortly for lunch. We eat our sandwiches. Soon, we arrive. At our new home. Penn clears our throat. “Welcome to Pennsylvania. Or, actually, welcome to your new home.”