NEAL, THE MILLER

A SON OF LIBERTY


BY JAMES OTIS




CHAPTER 1 THE PROJECT

"I FEAR you are undertaking too much, Neal. When a fellow lacks two years
of his majority--"

"You forget that I have been my own master more than a year. Father gave
me my time before he died, and that in the presence of Governor Wentworth
himself."

"Why before him rather than 'Squire White?"

"I don't know. My good friend Andrew McCleary attended to the business for
me, and to-day I may make contracts as legally as two years hence."

"Even with that advantage I do not see how it will be possible for you to
build a grist-mill; or, if you should succeed in getting so far with the
project, how you can procure the machinery. It is such an undertaking as
Andrew McCleary himself would not venture." " Yet he has promised me
every assistance in his power."