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."
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."
Like millions to follow them, the Germans soon gazed from Nuttall's Island across the bay. They were given little houses to live in, and as the magistrate of Oberdorf had greeted them on Blackheath, they greeted presently their friends from the other ships. There were happy reunions, there were stories of death and danger by sea, there was the common hope of better things.
When the cool winds of September began to blow and they were still waiting to be released from what seemed like captivity, the Germans became impatient and then frightened. They wished to set to work so that they might the sooner finish their task of tar-making and begin to labor on their own account. During the long journey boys and girls had grown up; like Conrad, other boys longed for adventure, and like Margareta, other young women wished to begin the establishment of a home. Among the Germans there was suddenly a new spirit of independence. Here was not the goal for which they had striven.