1. The Page That Was Not Dry

On the night of the fourth of July, 1776, Tom Hallett was asleep under the press table when the door of the print shop banged open.

"Up, boy! Up! Light every candle we own!"

It was Mr. Dunlap, the printer, and he was holding a sheet of paper as carefully as if it were a sleeping baby. Behind him came two men from the State House, still wearing their dusty traveling coats.

Tom was twelve. He had been Mr. Dunlap's apprentice for eight months, and in that time his jobs had been sweeping, fetching water, and mixing ink, which was made from soot and linseed oil and got into everything, including his hair. He had never once seen Mr. Dunlap hurry.

Tonight Mr. Dunlap was almost running.

"Congress has voted," said one of the men. His voice shook, and Tom could not tell if it was from fear or from joy. "The colonies are done being colonies. Every word is written here. By morning, people must be able to read it."

"By morning?" Tom said. "That's only a few hours."

"Then we had better not waste them," said Mr. Dunlap.

The men set the page on the table. Tom leaned over it. The writing was neat and flowing, and the first line he could read made the back of his neck prickle:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...

"Does that mean what I think it means?" he whispered.

"If the king reads it," said Mr. Dunlap, "he will think it means treason. And so will every soldier he can send. Every man whose name is on this page has just put his neck in a noose." He looked at Tom. "That includes the man who prints it. Do you still want to stay?"

Tom thought about the cold floor, the soot, and the long mornings. He also thought about his father, who had gone off to join the militia in the spring and had written home only twice.

"I'll stay," he said.

"Good. Then you are the fastest pair of hands I have. Come here."

Setting type was slow work. Each letter was a tiny piece of metal, and each one had to be picked out of its box and set backwards, so that when it was inked and pressed it would read the right way round. Tom's job was to hand Mr. Dunlap the letters he asked for, quickly, and in the right order.

"E."

"E."

"T. No, backwards, boy, backwards."

Candles burned down. The men from the State House paced. A church bell somewhere across the city rang the hour, and then rang it again, and Tom's fingers were black to the wrist.

Just before dawn, Mr. Dunlap set the last line in place. He tightened the frame, rolled ink across the letters, laid a clean sheet of paper on top, and pulled the lever of the great wooden press.

The press groaned. Mr. Dunlap lifted the sheet and held it up to the candle.

Every word was there, crisp and black.

"It's perfect," breathed Tom.

"It is wet," said Mr. Dunlap, and he almost smiled. "One page is not enough, Tom. We need hundreds. And every one of them has to reach a town before the king's friends find out what we have done."

He hung the first sheet to dry and turned back to the press.

"Fetch more paper," he said. "It is going to be a long day."