Chapter Six
brAINTREE
Massachusetts Bay Colony
In the two months my husband was away, my days were tedious and the nights unpleasant.
I did my best to oversee the farmhands and collect rents from our tenants. Of course, tenants like the truculent Mr. Hayden
delayed. But I tried to be understanding because times were hard. Our widowed neighbor, Mrs. Copeland, was in such dire straits
that she begged me to take in her eldest daughter, Patty, now a girl of fourteen.
I agreed, thinking it a good arrangement to have help with domestic tasks, but Patty was also another child to feed. And when
I looked upon our drought-riddled, dusty field, I despaired of a harvest. Too little water made canning fruit and brining
meat for the winter troublesome. We even struggled to keep the cows watered. Poor, thirsty creatures.
Still, there was nothing for it but to try. Nabby, Patty, and even little Johnny helped the field hands drag buckets of water
until our hands blistered. Then after washing up, Patty and Nabby took turns churning butter while I dried pumpkin in the
waning sun under muslin. I kept the fire lit in the hearth, boiling down jams, apple butters, and marmalades. I pickled eggs
from our coop and cabbages from the field. I dried peppermint and lavender from my garden. I let nothing—not even potato peels—go
to waste.
When the housework was done, and darkness finally fell, I scrubbed dirt from my body and from beneath my fingernails. And on the night of my tenth wedding anniversary, separated from my beloved, I spent lonely hours reading from ancient history, looking for clues for what might be our fate.
Neighboring families were dividing against each other into Patriot and Tory camps. A danger illustrated to me most personally
when Nabby and I were invited to dine with my uncle Colonel Josiah Quincy at his grand spacious home with its tall windows
and Chinese fretwork balustrade.
Though it was not our first visit, my daughter looked with new appreciation at the gleaming woodwork that had been polished
with lemon oil. The gilded mirrors and porcelain dinner service made her gawp, too, as if she were only now coming into awareness
of how much more humbly we lived.
I’d reminded her to be on her best behavior, but the adults at the table—who teasingly called me Mrs. Delegate—were decidedly misbehaved.
“These so-called delegates have no authority,” complained the colonel’s son Samuel, who, unlike the rest of our family, was
an avowed Loyalist.
“They have moral authority,” returned the good and patriotic Colonel Quincy, who often watched for British ships with his spyglass. “The most
distinguished gentlemen are in Philadelphia, including our own John Adams.”
The meal went on in silence for an awkward moment as Nabby and I tried not to gorge ourselves on roast duck with mashed turnips
and ruby-red cranberry tarts waiting tantalizingly on the sideboard—better fare than we had eaten in ages.
But Samuel Quincy stared in the direction of the salt marshes until he suddenly set down his fork onto his plate with a clatter.
“Do you know what our old royal governor says about this nonsense? He asked who the rebels were. He said he knew John Hancock,
but where the devil this brace of Adamses came from he did not know.”
It was an aggressively obnoxious thing to say in my presence. And something about the way he said it reminded me so much of
John’s cousin Samuel that I nearly wondered aloud if every family had an irritating cousin named Samuel. Fortunately, I bit
that back but I wasn’t willing to allow the insult to go unanswered altogether. “Mine came from Braintree, as you well know.”
Samuel’s wife met my eyes with sympathetic support. To her husband she said, “You do our guests a discourtesy! What’s more,
I think it’s high time you supported the patriots.”
At hearing that, Samuel Quincy threw his napkin down. “I’d rather sail to England and leave you behind!”
He tried to storm away, but his wife followed him, and oh, it was a terrible row.
Later, in the carriage ride home, Nabby was pensive. “When I stayed with Mrs. Warren last summer, she told me it’s improper
for a woman to quarrel with her husband over politics.”
“Did she?” I was genuinely surprised to hear it, because I couldn’t imagine Mercy Otis Warren holding her tongue if she disagreed
with anyone. Mercy and I had opened a circle of correspondence in which we discussed books and the patriot cause. To a mother of four
with a husband away, these letters sometimes felt as if they saved my sanity. So, I didn’t contradict the venerable Mrs. Warren.
I simply said, “I just thank the Lord that on important matters, your father and I see eye to eye.”
Indeed, I was on my knees in prayer that very night when I heard a commotion outside on the road passing directly in front
of our house. I rose, pulled my shawl round my shoulders, opened the window, and held the candle aloft to see men on horseback.
At the head of this mounted gathering, I recognized one of my patriot neighbors. He recognized me, too, with a touch of his
hat. “Mrs. Adams,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at a cart they were dragging, which looked to be filled with barrels.
“We took this from the Powder House. We’re going to hide it from our Tory neighbors lest they use it against us.”
“Is there some reason you fear it?” I asked, for it was a bitter thing to distrust one’s neighbors.
“You haven’t heard, madam? The royal governor has dissolved our provincial assembly.”
We’d been warned it might happen, but the blow still landed heavily. “So now we not only have no representation in Parliament,
we have none on our own soil . . .”
“Oh, we have it, Mrs. Adams. The assembly has simply fled to meet elsewhere, even as the royal governor issued calls for their
arrest.”
Their arrest. My heart jumped to my throat. For I knew that if my husband had not left the assembly and gone to meet with representatives
of other states, he, too, might be on that arrest list.
“Do you want any powder, Mrs. Adams?”
What need did I have of stolen powder? None, I hoped! Dazed, I replied, “Not since it is already in such good hands.”
“At least take your children to your father’s house or somewhere else with menfolk to defend you. And don’t trust any slave
along the way.”
I blinked. “Why not?”
“Rumor has it the royal governor intends to free enslaved men of Massachusetts if they’ll rise up against us.”
We’d have only ourselves to blame if they did, I thought.
The day I first learned my nurse Phoebe could be sold on a block, I’d confronted my father about slavery’s cruelty. He’d protested
that he’d never sell Phoebe, that she was family. But family ought not hold one another in bondage, so his words had not appeased
me then. And they embittered me now.
As the men rode off, I hoped it wouldn’t come to violence. But if it did and it came at the hands of the enslaved, some part
of me would wonder if we deserved it.
John returned after three months’ absence in Philadelphia, weary, dusty, and hungry. While I settled the children at the table,
Patty helped me put dinner on and I was pleased to show my husband everything—from cheese to preserves—I’d eked out of our
farm whilst he was away.
Smiling approvingly, John dug into his meal with relish. “Twelve of the colonies were represented in the congress. We’ve decided
upon an embargo. None of us will import British goods; we propose also to end the slave trade.”
That both surprised and pleased me. “I wish there was not a slave in the province. It’s an iniquitous scheme to fight for
our own liberty while daily robbing it from those who have just as good a right to freedom.”
My husband nodded in full agreement, for he had always refused to traffic in slavery. “Had I to snap my fingers and make things right, I would. But America is a great, unwieldy body. Its progress must be slow. In the meantime, we wrote a petition to the king so he might redress our grievances.”
While two-year-old Tommy flung peas at his sister, Johnny asked, “Is it over then, Papa?”
“Not yet.” John paused, his fork held aloft. “But it soon will be if the king and his Parliament see reason.”
“And if they don’t?” I asked, disarming our youngest of his legumes.
John looked very much as if he didn’t wish to answer me, but finally he muttered, “If Parliament doesn’t see reason, well,
we’ve voted for a Second Continental Congress.”
At that, I groaned. To be without my husband these past three months had been the hardest work of my life. Whether I’d even
put up enough supplies for winter and made sufficient plans for the next sowing remained to be seen. As a good patriot, I
had agreed to run all risks with John, and share all his burdens, too, but that did not mean I could banish all my fears.
Later with tremulous heart, I whispered against the pillow, “They are calling for arrests. Will the king think you a traitor?”
John laughed, pulling me against him. “Don’t be absurd. None would dare call me that. I merely met with representatives from
other colonies in Philadelphia and sent a petition as any free British citizen has a right to do.”
He believed that, and I wanted to.
The petition sent to the king, signed by my husband, was decent and respectful. It addressed King George with a plea for clemency
from his loyal subjects. It affirmed royal authority and restated our loyalty. But His Majesty’s answer to our plight and
our plea was a despicable silence.