The Hard Choice

Chapter 1

  In 1777,in a small town's tavern just outside Philadelphia there was a girl named Susanna Anderson who was serving beer to men.

"Susanna!" one man shouted demanding more beer. Susanna served all day listening to the opinions from Patriots and Loyalists about the King. The Patriot men talked about how King George III was a tyrant. They also said they should protest against the King. Susanna already knew some like smuggling items. Parliament would definitely consider that an act of treason. On the other hand, the Loyalist thought the Patriots were over reacting about nothing. Loyalist also thought the Patriots should just learn to live with the fact that the king is their supreme ruler. Susanna was in conflict choosing if she was either a patriot or a loyalist. Just than Susanna's best friend, Sophie Margaret and her father, came inside the tavern interrupting her thoughts.

"Sophie!" Susanna shouted across the room. "Did you come back for another hot chocolate?"

"No not today" Sophie said as she picked up her white cap with a pretty blue ribbon that had been knocked off by some of the rowdy men and they didn't even have the courtesy to say sorry.

"Than what can I do for you today?" Susanna said

"Well you can start by sweeping this floor that got my cap all dirty!" Sophie said with a sarcastic tone of voice. "But I really would like one of your famous potato soups with a small piece of bread please." Sophie was the type of person that can be mean and then nice in a matter of seconds.

"Coming right up" Susanna said in a cheerful mood.

Later that night after Susanna left the tavern, she stood outside the doorway to her house. She admired the light brown walls, white shutters and the clear windows glistening in the moonlight and walked inside.

"Just in time for dinner" Susanna's mother said as she helped Susanna's 13 year old sister, Kate set the table.

"Grandfather and Grandmother were arguing all day and now they won't even look at each other" Kate said in a whispered voice. Her grandparents had entered the room. The Anderson family Kate, Susanna's mom, dad and grandparents sat down for dinner It was quiet and kind of nice much better than the busy tavern Susanna works in. Susanna's mother said "How was everyones day?" Everyone stopped eating and just stared at her.

"My day was nice" Kate said trying to soften the silence.

"My day was good, sophie stopped by with her father since he was going to talk politics with some of the other men." Susanna said.

"How was your day Grandmother and Grandfather?" Susanna asked.

"You know what, Susanna, my day was awful because your grandfather here thinks that the British should give up and go back to England. He is such a hypocrite. All those Patriots are hypocrites actually." Susanna's grandmother said.

"Those Lobster backs are rude arrogant soldiers! They think they can waltz it to town and take everything from us just like the Quartering Act," Susanna's Grandfather said.

Grandmother could not take it anymore, "I can't believe you would say that! King George, our King, he is a good man and even if there are soldiers here we have to respect them because they are the Kings"Grandmother calm down!" Susanna said.

"Why do you all have to get into our conversations Susanna?!" "Why are You still living with us? Susanna you should be out getting married for heaven's sake you're 20 years old and will be 21 next week, I got married before I was even your age" Susanna's Grandmother said. Then Susanna's Grandmother got up from the table and left the room went to bed without saying anything else. The meal was finished silently.

"Susanna, It's your turn to do the dishes" said her mother

As Susanna did the dishes,She thought about what her grandmother had said. After she was finished she went to bed.

The next day Susanna had to got up early to go to work at the tavern. When Susanna arrived to the tavern she noticed that there was a group of men that wore coats with the color faded, buttons missing. They all had holes in their pants,coats, shoes and socks. Some of them did not even have shoes on. Susanna was curious about who they were so she listened in to their conversations. The four men talked about how they came from Valley Forge, they were running low on their food supply and clothing. They also talked about many men had deserted them and how hard it was to survive in the bitter cold at Valley Forge. Susanna not even imagine what it must have been like to have clothing with rips in it in the winter. It snowed a few days ago! With all this new information she left to find Sophie to tell her everything or else Susanna was going to explode. Once Susanna found Sophie she told her everything that she had overheard.

"Why would they run away? They must have run about 25 miles to get here." Sophie said.

"They probably thought they would have a better chance of surviving if they left since people were dropping like flies," Susanna said.

Susanna noticed that Sophie was getting upset. "Are you okay Sophie?"

"Its just that if I was there I would have stayed there and faced the cold weather" Sophie said sounding prideful.

"Well than thanks for your opinion... Well I'll be off now." Susanna said. After Susanna got back to the tavern there was a girl named Hope. Hope was 13 years old and wanted to stay the night at the tavern.

"It cost 5 shillings to sleep here." Susanna said

"Can I tie my horse to the poll outside?" Hope said

"Sure Is there anything else for you?" Susanna said

"No thats all." Hope said. Than Susanna went back home for dinner everyone but Susanna's grandmother sat down for dinner that night.

"Why isn't Grandma here?" Susanna said

"Susanna she just was not hungry so she wanted to go to sleep." Susanna's mom said. When Susanna's mom said that Susanna got the strange feeling that her mom was lying. After dinner Susanna went to bed thinking about her feeling about how her mom was lying to her her.