Chapter Thirty-One
brAINTREE
Massachusetts
My husband paced before our open windows, spitting venom. “Half the votes George Washington got!”
“No one else came close,” I reminded him, idly flipping through a pattern book of drapery samples from London.
“It’s an insult,” John said, utterly disinterested in my improvements at our new farm. “It shows how little my countrymen
think of me.”
Exasperated—for he’d been ranting and raving about it for hours—I was unable to indulge him for even another moment. “Oh,
John. They think so little of you that they’ve made you the first vice president of these United States.”
He crossed his arms. “Only if I accept.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “You will accept once you’ve nursed your wounded pride.”
“Do you presume to know my mind, Madam?”
“I do indeed, sir. Better than you know your own.”
My husband turned from the window, spun on his heel, then spun back again. “And you feel no shame for me in the way this has
been offered?”
Again, I laughed. “I feel nothing but awe for the man you’ve become and satisfaction that the rest of the nation appreciates you, too.”
His cheeks colored. “Well, then . . .”
As he trailed off, I abandoned my pattern book and rose to capture his cheek in my hand. “Listen, husband. A federal cavalry has been sent to escort you in the morning. A cavalry in Braintree for the new vice president! Never could we have imagined something so grand.”
“You’ll follow?” he asked, the edge of anxiety in his voice. “You’ll join me in New York?”
“If I must,” I replied, pretending weariness.
In truth, I did not relish the idea of packing up all the furniture from Europe just as I finally had it arranged to my liking.
Even less did I relish the idea of leaving my family again. My sisters would be disconsolate. But John Quincy was a grown
man, studying law like his father before him. And the younger two boys were both at Harvard, with Charles nearly graduated.
Soon our nest in Braintree would be empty—our flock of children all flown away. Whereas in New York, we could at least be
close to Nabby, who now had another little baby at the breast, whom she’d named after her father.
Very seriously, my husband said, “I’ll need you there, Abigail. Even if you must leave this place to the birds and the beasts.”
I gave a quick look around, calculating the expense of the repairs and improvements we were making, and it didn’t seem such
a bad idea to let it go to wilderness. “Very well. Find a new house for us in New York and I’ll make that a home. I know you want your own bed and pillows, your hot coffee. I know how many of these little matters make up a large
portion of our happiness.”
He stooped to kiss me. “You are my whole happiness, Abigail.”
It certainly pleased me to hear it, even if I knew it wasn’t entirely true. He couldn’t be happy without pursuing his grand
destiny. If I was jealous of America, that was my own fault. For if I’d wanted an ordinary marriage, I wouldn’t have married
John Adams.
My husband was seen off by cheering crowds at the sides of the road. It was to be the beginning of an entirely new chapter
of our lives, and we were writing the first page of the new nation under the Constitution besides.
But, of course, first, much had to be managed.
To begin with, our son Charles could not be left to his own devices.
His latest escapade at Harvard involved running nude through the courtyard—which he swore he did only to cheer a companion who was down in the dumps.
Whatever the motives of the softhearted fool, Charles was getting a reputation—not entirely undeserved—as a beautiful but bad young man.
He simply must have a fresh start. Which was why we obtained permission for Charles to forgo commencement in order to take up an offer my
son-in-law had declined: to study law in New York City under the well-regarded Alexander Hamilton.
Like Nabby’s husband, Hamilton had been Washington’s aide-de-camp during the war. Though unlike my son-in-law, he never rose
above the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Nevertheless, Hamilton was already a brilliant lawyer and one of the authors of The Federalist Papers, which had persuaded the states to ratify the Constitution. His views on mixed government and checks and balances had much
in common with those my husband expounded in the volumes he published in London.
Now, Hamilton was a man very much on the rise. So, if our middle son was to learn the law, he couldn’t have a better master.
Meanwhile, our youngest moped at hearing Charles would be coming with us to New York. “Tommy left behind yet again. All alone.”
“All alone?” John Quincy asked, taking umbrage. “I’ll be only a day away by horseback should you need me. Sometimes I think
my own brothers forget I ever returned from Russia.”
Tommy gave his big brother a nudge in the ribs. “Trust that we can never forget about you John Quincy. Our brother, the prodigy.”
Charles confirmed it. “We never hear an end to the praise of your wisdom and good behavior, Johnny.”
I could imagine how Nabby would add to the teasing. John Quincy Adams, the golden child . . .
But she wasn’t here, and it seemed our destiny as Adamses never to be all together at the same time.
That night, pacing the room in his sleeping shirt, John pleaded, “Abigail, you will come after the inauguration, won’t you?”
“I already said I would, Mr. Vice President.”
“You’re a saucy woman, Mrs. Vice President,” he replied. “But I simply cannot do without you.”
It took months before I could close up the new house and farm.
My husband’s brother had promised to take it on in our absence but now refused.
In consequence, I found myself fertilizing the meadow.
Ah, from the glories of Versailles and the Court of St. James to emptying buckets of manure in Braintree! But someone had to tend the fields.
Though immersed in his legal apprenticeship, Johnny helped me sell a troublesome horse that had smashed a wagon to bits. Meanwhile,
Tommy volunteered to quit Harvard, help on the farm, and live with Phoebe at the old place so we could rent the new.
I knew Tommy was eager to be helpful, but also that he would be happy to escape his books. Of course, this his father would
never countenance, so I resigned myself to doing what I could by myself and leaving the farm nearly in the state that I’d
got it—with bare pastures but some asparagus beds made.
Fortunately, my bonny son Charles arrived the week before departure and cheerfully pitched in with the remaining tasks, all
while fending off the flirtation of a neighbor’s daughter who lingered to watch him working shirtless in the field on an unseasonably
hot day.
When I scolded him, Charles swept those golden curls out of his blue eyes and grinned. “I cannot help that girls flock to
me like songbirds.”
“You can try keeping your clothes on!”
When Uncle Tufts stopped by to settle some of our mutual finances, he couldn’t help but laugh at my predicament with shirtless
Charles and his lady admirers. “It’s good that you’re taking him with you to New York, where he’ll be under your watchful
eye.”
“Let us hope my eye is watchful enough to ward off mischief,” I said.
As it turned out, Charles was a delightful traveling companion who kept out of trouble, eating and sleeping without the slightest
inconvenience. “I know how to duck my head and adjust to my circumstances. You forget, Mama, how much time I spent roving
the world.”
“Oh, I will never forget it. And there were moments I feared I might never forgive your father for it, either.” But those harrowing days were
now tales of family adventure.
And now we were about to start a new one.
When Charles and I arrived in the port of New York, a forest of ships’ masts and fluttering flags welcomed us, the music of
Trinity Church’s bell not far off.
And to every gentleman we came across in the harbor, my son chirped, “Well met, sir. I’m Charles Adams! Son of the vice president.
I have the honor to be your obedient servant.”
We were sorry to have missed the inauguration, for which the newspapers informed, “His Excellency John Adams, one of the ornaments
of our age, has received an elegant suit of American broadcloth manufactured in Hartford in which to make his appearance as
Vice President of the United States.”
I was sorrier to have missed my husband’s speech before the Senate. But I was recompensed in seeing our new home on Richmond
Hill, where my daughter bounded out the door without any sense of decorum to embrace us.
Despite now being the mother of two clinging little boys, Nabby positively glowed with energy and good health. “Mother! I
hope you approve of the place and what I’ve done to prepare it for you,” Nabby said, showing me how delightfully situated
this home was, with a beautiful view of the Hudson River. The verdant fields were ornamented with mighty pine and oak trees.
The manse itself was grand, with stately columns and a hawthorn-hedged flower garden round back.
“It is perfect,” I assured her. “More to my mind than any other place I have ever lived in.”
“There are many species of birds here,” came a voice from behind us.
It was Colonel Smith, at home and at leisure midday, as was his habit since returning to America. “Pigeons. Partridges. Woodcocks.
They’ll all sing to you, madam.”
Colonel Smith was himself a great aficionado of poultry, and, like a country squire, was almost never to be found without hunting dogs at his heels.
“I shall delight in their song,” I assured my son-in-law.
Charles was keen to make the acquaintance of his new brother, for though he’d heard much of Colonel Smith, they’d not yet
met. “I’d like to see them, sir, if you will show me.”
We let the two gents go off to make friends over their mutual love of birds. And inside, I saw that Nabby had everything so
well arranged that only beds and a few additional articles seemed necessary for our comfort.