Summary

The section begins with Forgeron’s funeral. All of the Duke sons are in attendance, except for Outger, who is staying at the house in Penobscot Bay so no one will be able to come and claim the great pine table the family so covets. The family returns to Nicolaus’s home after, where his wife Mercy and Bernard’s wife Birgit, along with many Pawnee slave girls, receive the men.

The group sits and discusses the state of the Duke & Sons business, which now stretches as far North as Quebec, and as far South as the Carolinas. The men pass around the Pennsylvania Gazette newspaper, which shows an image of a cut up snake and the words “Join Or Die” below it. The men discuss the growing discontent with English powers ruling over the colonies. From a...