Chapter 2, Frontier Life and Chapter 3 Summary

Chapter 2 opens the following day. A man named Isaac has come to the Smith house in the frontier settlement with a worn piece of printed paper that tells of a battle at the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord where militia forces defeated British troops. The battle had happened several months before. As Olin Smith, Samuel's father, reads the news the other families in the settlement crowd into the cabin to hear what Olin thinks. The settlers are skeptical that anyone would be so bold as to challenge the British army, which is the largest in the world. They decide they should wait for more news before taking any kind of action.

In a section called "Frontier Life," the author explains that settlers on the frontier found a ready supply of land, but it had...