I remember when this all started. I was out with my mother, 3 brothers and both sisters. Phoebe is 14, Felicity is 8, my mother Elizabeth and me, Cornelia. We are the McLane family. It was August 26, 1776, at 5:00 am. My father had just left to go to the bank in New York City since he is a banker, even though we live on Long Island. I was feeding my 2 favorite chickens, who I named Clarissa and Agatha. They're like my best friends. My mother fed the cows and pigs. My brother Benedict went hunting to get meat for this week's dinner. My family is not very rich and we do not own much land or many animals. We get milk from cows to make butter and other products that we can eat or sell to our neighbors for gold. My two sisters played with the ducklings and picked apples from the apple orchard. My brother Cyrus tended the fields and Elias played with his few toys. I remember hearing an explosion in the distance and seeing all my family members looking worried and shocked. We were all hearing rumors of a war starting and we weren't sure if this explosion was the beginning of it. My mother tried to calm us down but all her attempts were in vain. Phoebe and Felicity started crying and so did Elias. I tried to calm them down by saying it was just someone hunting nearby. So I ran to my mother to ask her if she thought a war was really starting and, without saying a word to me, I knew she was trying to prove that the war was starting but I looked at her scared and worried face and I knew I had guessed correctly. The war had begun. We just pretended we had never heard that bombing noise. We all continued working until 8:00... halfway through the paper... too many rocks all over my body until I finally passed out in some bushes. I remember the date I fainted was September 1, 1776. When I finally woke up, I was lying injured on my bed, I was lying on my bed! I asked what had happened and what was happening, how I ended up here, and many other questions I had to ask my mother who was standing next to my bed. He explained everything to me, from when my brother Benedict found me lying in the bushes and brought me home, to how many times I woke up for only a minute or two. I had severe pain in my body, but the only thing that mattered was that I was finally home. I asked my mother what day it was and she said it was September 15, 1776. She told me that the war was over and that my father and my two brothers were alive. I hugged my whole family and started screaming and jumping for joy. I felt like the happiest girl in the world.