The Hearth and Eagle Read Free Page B

Marbleheaders must proceed to New York. Already half of them had sailed over to Beverley. Richard must hurry, yet she clung to him begging and sobbing. He hadn’t wanted to leave her, an eight-months bride, and carrying his child. Yet he had been in high spirits.
    “Us Marbleheaders’ll show the stinking redcoats how to fight, show the rest of them quiddling farmers too from back country. And so be it they’ve water down around New York, we’ll show ’em what a boat’s for too.” He had said that even while he kissed her again, and pulled her clinging hands down from his neck.
    “Fare ye well, Sally lass—I’ll be back by snowfall.”
    But he hadn’t come back. He had helped row the retreat from Brooklyn to New York after the dreadful battle of Long Island, and he had written her a letter, cocky as ever—“We saved the army, us Marbleheaders, we muffled the ors and rowed the poor lubbers acrost that little millpond they got down here-along. Don’t fret, sweetheart, it’ll be over with soon.”
    How long had she kept that letter sewn into her bodice? Years it must have been, because she had nursed little Tom for two years, and long after that the letter was still in her bodice. It was the only letter she had ever got from Richard.
    The Marbleheaders had rowed again on the night of December twenty-fifth. The old woman, caught by a single-minded urgency, got out of the rocker and walked gropingly toward her own room, the warm kitchen bedroom near the great chimney. In the bottom drawer of the pine chest, she unearthed beneath piles of flannel nightcaps an ancient tea box, its purple roses and green daisies still glowing on the lid after seventy years. Richard’s letter was inside, tied up with black ribbon and rosemary, but it was not that she wanted. She shuffled through other keepsakes until she found a yellowed newspaper clipping. It was headed “Speech by General Knox,” and she held it at arm’s length, squinting her eyes.
    “I wish the members of this body knew the people of Marblehead as well as I do. I could wish that they had stood on the Banks of the Delaware River in 1776 in that bitter night when the Commander in Chief had drawn up his little army to cross it, and had seen the powerful current bearing onward the floating masses of ice which threatened destruction to whosoever should venture—”
    The remembered anguish of a few minutes ago gave place to the old thrill of pride. Sorrow was a solitary business, but pride must be shared. She put the clipping on her knee, and called the child.
    “Hessie—I want you should come here.”
    Hesper obeyed slowly, a little rebellious. The strange noise in the taproom had stopped, and she had been amusing herself seeing pictures in the fire, the red leaping castles peopled by tiny golden fairies.
    “I want you should listen to this. Set down, child.”
    The high quavering voice read the first paragraph out loud, and went on from Knox’s speech. “ ‘I wish that when this occurrence threatened to defeat the enterprise, they could have heard that distinguished warrior demand “Who will lead us on?”’ That was General Washington speakin’, Hessie.”
    Hesper’s attention came back with a jerk. She nodded politely. The clipping trembled in Gran’s hand, “And you listen what Knox says next. ‘It was the men of Marblehead, and Marblehead alone, who stood forward to lead the army along the perilous paths to unfading gloriesand honors in the achievements of Trenton. There went the fishermen of Marblehead, alike at home on land or water, alike ardent, patriotic and unflinching, whenever they unfurled the flag of the country.’ ”
    The long words meant nothing to the child, but she was impressed by the way Gran looked, shining as if somebody had lighted a candle behind her face.
    “Richard was the first port oarsman right back of Washington, Bill Blackler commanded the boat. Josh Orne told me all about it months later. He said there was Richard,