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Show Page 251 And now I saw no reason why soon I would not be able to seat upon my own land, for the previous October the plantation had requested that Thomas Nicholls be released from company property and employed in Martin's Hundred to divide the lands. The company had agreed and Mister Nicholls was even then surveying and marking out boundaries. Though it might mean making soap ashes once again, I would find the fee of six shillings a day to pay the man for his labor so that I could receive my title. It took me only a few minutes to pack my bundle. I had brought little with me to James Towne, though it was all that I now owned. The two chests that had gone hither from the fort those two years ago, and which I had deemed little with which to begin a new life, now seemed a fortune. I was sitting down with the Pierces and Mistress Boyse to a meager meal of water-gruel when a knock came at the door and John entered, a worried look upon his face. "I must speak with you, Sarah," he said, drawing me outside to stand beside him. "What has happened?" I asked, fearful that Lieutenant Parkinson had changed his mind or that John was feeling ill. "There is something important we have yet to do ere we sail downriver this day," he said. "Already we have left it too long, yet I have been loathe to broach the subject to you. It |