AUGUST–SEPTEMBER 1776
Zeb Pruitt returned to Hadley after the disastrous Quebec campaign and brought the smallpox with him. News of his infection spread through town with the fingers of August fog that were settling in the valley after the passing of the summer heat.
Anna Porter was flitting around her father’s mercantile like a self-important bumblebee. She enjoyed being in the hive of activity around the counter where people met to purchase newspapers, coffee, and flour—the three mainstays of the patriotic diet—and to exchange gossip. The store shelves were not as full of goods from abroad as they once were. The Porters could still find plenty of local suppliers of iron nails and cooking pots, saddles and shoes, and hog-bristle brushes, but there was no tea, little silver, and no porcelain. Writing paper was in short supply, and the few books available were from Boston and Philadelphia, not London. Spices and tobacco were now behind the counter, for fear that desperate shoppers might steal what little stock the Porters could acquire.
Today, Marcus was one of the few customers in the store. It was harvesttime, and much of the town’s male population was off fighting, which meant the women and children were in the fields. Marcus had earned some money doing necessary jobs around town to help out, and the coins were heavy in his pocket. He was leaning against the store counter, one foot resting on the lid to a butter churn, surveying the books and newspapers.
Marcus was seriously considering buying a copy of Common Sense. These days, everyone was talking about Thomas Paine. Marcus had participated in several heated discussions over his ideas in Pomeroy’s tavern, and read snatches of Paine’s work in the newspapers before Anna’s father shooed him away with complaints that he owned a store, not a library. Marcus had been transfixed by Paine’s simple yet powerful words about liberty, freedom, and the king’s obligations as father of the nation. He flipped to the chapter on hereditary succession that he had been studying the last time he was in the store.
For all men being originally equals, no ONE by BIRTH could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, Marcus read, and though himself might deserve SOME decent degree of honors of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them.
Marcus’s eyes swept the shelves. Even with a war on, there were enough creature comforts in the Porter’s shop to keep the MacNeils happy and content for months. The contrast between all this abundance and the meager stores of food, cloth, and other essentials waiting for him at home was stark.
“Zeb’s face is monstrous,” Anna Porter said to Marcus in a low voice, trying to distract him from his reading. “If not for the color of his skin, you wouldn’t recognize him.”
Marcus looked up, a protest on his lips. But it died away before it was uttered, banished by Anna’s superior expression. Not everybody in Hadley admired Zeb’s irrepressible spirits and ingenuity as Marcus did.
“Is that so?” Marcus returned his attention to Mr. Paine’s pamphlet.
“Yes. Noah Cook says smallpox is destroying the army. He says they aren’t taking on any soldiers unless they can prove they’ve had the disease.”
Marcus hadn’t had the smallpox, nor had his father or Patience. Marcus’s mother was the only person in the household with immunity, since she was inoculated in Boston before she married Obadiah.
“They say Zeb is in Hatfield. At the old Marsh homestead.” Anna shuddered. “Zeb’s ghost will be next to haunt the place.”
“His ghost?” Marcus snorted. Ghost stories no longer frightened him. “And I suppose you believe old Mary Webster really was a witch.”
“Half-hanged Mary walks the riverbank on moonless nights,” Anna said, solemn as a judge. “My sister saw her.”
“Mary Webster was friendless and unlucky,” Marcus retorted, “but she was hardly immortal. I doubt very much that she is wandering around the boat landing, waiting for the ferry.”
“How do you know?” Anna demanded.
“Because I’ve seen dead men up close.” Marcus’s experiences at Bunker Hill were sufficient to even silence Anna—though not for long.
“I’m bored with Thomas Paine.” Anna’s lower lip extended in a pout. “It’s all anyone will talk about—that and the smallpox.”
“Paine is willing to say aloud what other men think but are afraid to utter.” Marcus went to the counter and left the price of the pamphlet with the clerk.
“Most people only buy a copy because they’re afraid someone might accuse them of being a Tory,” Anna said. Her eyes narrowed as she gauged how best to wound Marcus with her words. “Your cousin bought one. Just before he fled.”
Cousin Josiah had been suspected of harboring loyalist feelings, and the citizens of Amherst had run him out of town. Marcus’s mother had wept for nearly a week at the family’s disgrace and refused to show her face at meeting.
“I’m no Tory.” Marcus’s cheeks burned with shame and he moved toward the door.
“It’s a good thing you have Mr. Paine’s pamphlet, then. You know how people talk.” Anna looked disapproving, as though she were not one of Hadley’s finest gossips.
“Good day, Anna,” Marcus said, taking the time to make a proper bow in her direction before he headed into the August afternoon.
When Marcus reached the turn toward home, his feet stilled. His plan had been to go to the farm and hide his copy of Thomas Paine in the grain hopper. It was his job to feed the livestock, and for years Marcus had kept his treasures buried where his father wouldn’t be likely to find them. These prized possessions included the gun he’d taken off the dead New Hampshire soldier at Bunker Hill, his precious collection of newspapers, the medical books Tom Buckland had loaned him, and a small pouch of coins.
Each item was a piece of his future freedom—or so Marcus hoped. He planned to run away to join the army at the first opportunity. But if what Anna told him was true, and the army wasn’t taking anyone who could contract smallpox, then Marcus might be turned away the moment he arrived.
Marcus reached into his pocket and found the spool of red thread he’d been carrying around ever since he heard that Zeb was back from the war. He weighed it in his hand, considering his options.
There was no more farm work at present. It would be a few weeks until the next round of crops was ready to be harvested.
His mother and Patience were in good health, with plenty of food in the larder.
His father went to Springfield with the wagon to sell some wood two days ago. Nobody knew what had happened to him, but Marcus suspected Obadiah was spending the proceeds at every tavern between there and Hadley. It might be weeks before he returned.
With his pamphlet in one pocket and his spool of linen thread in the other, Marcus set off across the river to Hatfield.
The Marsh homestead was rickety to the point of collapse, set in fields that hadn’t seen a plow for years. Inside, sunshine slanted through the gaps in the rough timber walls and around the empty window frames. The glass panes had long since disappeared, along with the door latch and anything else of value.
Marcus pushed the door open and located his friend in the gloom. Based on the appearance of the shivering form on the bed, Zeb’s chance of survival wasn’t great.
“You don’t look good, Zeb.”
“See. Please.” The skin around Zeb’s s mouth had erupted in pox blisters that had burst and then crusted over, making speech difficult.
Marcus pulled out his hunting knife and shined the blade on the hem of his shirt. “Are you sure?”
Zeb nodded.
Marcus held the knife up to Zeb’s face. Hopefully, it was too small to give his friend a sense of what smallpox had done to disfigure him.