Some one started a hymn and a single stanza was sung. Then voices failed.
John Conrad stood silently, his older children close to him and little John Frederick in his arms. With them was Peter Zenger, his arm round Conrad's neck. John Conrad saw the house and the people and the strange shore, and the certainty of impending change swept over him. These—his boys and girls—what would befall them? They were his now, but the new land must divide them from him. Each must do his work. Already the sound of voices drifted to him from this alien shore. He longed to put into one sentence all his love and hope. With brimming eyes he looked at his little flock for whom he had made the long journey, for whom he had forgotten sadness and heartache.
"Children," he said. "Margareta and Magdalena and Sabina and Conrad—" John Conrad's voice faltered. In a moment he began once more with a new message. "Children,—George and Christopher and Barbara and little John and dear Peter,—here is now your Fatherland."
[VII]
THE HOME ASSIGNED
Close together the Weisers stepped from the gangplank of the Lyon. Their question as to what they were to do was soon solved by their prompt shepherding from the wharf into small boats by the officers of the port.
"Where do we go?" asked John Conrad in astonishment.
"There has been ship fever on the Lyon," answered some one. "You go to Nuttall's Island."