Amanda and her siblings finally arrive to find their father weak and malnourished but alive. They learn many people have starved to death in Jamestown. The stranded passengers build several larger boats, and all but a few set sail for Virginia. Aboard ship, Jemmy lies and tells someone it was made of gold. Months pass with no word from anyone.Īmanda, Jemmy and Meg carry with them a doorknocker in the shape of a lion’s head. But with her father's little brass lion's head to guard them, Amanda knows that somehow everything will work out. The ocean crossing is long and hard, and the children don't know whom to trust. They send scouts on the boats, hoping the men can reach Virginia and send help for everyone else. As the new head of the family, Amanda finally decides to take her brother and sister to America to find Father. Passengers evacuate onto the island of Bermuda, where they build a village and some small boats. No one can find him one night, and the crew eventually determines he’s fallen overboard.Īfter several days of tossing back and forth in stormy weather, the ship hits rocks and begins to break apart. He loves the sea and often stays on deck even in bad weather to let the water splash on his face. The doctor is excited about the new adventure. Crider books passage for himself and the children, and they sail to Jamestown. Crider, finds them and takes them to his home.ĭr. The children wander in the frightening London darkness before the local physician, Dr. She asks Mistress Trippett for her mother’s money, but the woman becomes livid and faints as she kicks them out of her house.

When Mother dies, Amanda wonders how she’ll ever get herself, Jemmy and Meg to Jamestown.

He tells Amanda he met her father in Jamestown and that Father longs for them all to be together. Mistress Trippett has taken what little money the family had.Ī stranger comes to the door. Their father left three years earlier to build a home for them in Virginia, but Mother’s sickness has made it impossible for them to join him. In 1609, Amanda Freebold, a preteen, and her younger siblings, Jemmy and Meg, live with their ailing mother in the London home of Mistress Trippett.

A lion to guard us