Daughters of the Revolution. Charles Carleton Coffin
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Ledger,” he said to the clerk.
“Good-morning,” the clerk replied, lifting his hat.
“Well, how is the Mary Jane getting on? Have you found anything in the market on which we can turn a penny? I want to get her off as soon as possible.”
“I was just having a talk with this young gentleman about his cheeses. This is Mr. Walden from Rumford. You perhaps may remember his father, with whom we traded last year.”
“Oh yes, I remember Mr. Joshua Walden. I hope your father is well. I have not forgotten his earnestness in all matters relating to the welfare of the Colonies. Nor have I forgotten that barrel of apple-sauce he brought to market, and I want to make a bargain for another barrel just like it. All my guests pronounced it superb. Step into the store, Mr. Walden, and, Mr. Ledger, a bottle of madeira, if you please.”
The clerk stepped down cellar and returned with a bottle of wine, took from a cupboard a salver and glasses and filled them.
“Shall we have the pleasure of drinking the health of your father?” said Mr. Hancock, courteously touching his glass to Robert’s. “Please give him my compliments and say to him that we expect New Hampshire to stand shoulder to shoulder with Massachusetts in the cause of liberty.”
Mr. Hancock drank his wine slowly. Robert saw that he stood erect, and remembered he was captain of a military company — the Cadets.
“Will you allow me to take a glass with you for your own health?” he said, refilling the glasses and bowing with dignity and again slowly drinking.
“Mr. Ledger, you will please do what you can to accommodate Mr. Walden in the way of trade. You are right in thinking the planters of Jamaica will like some cheese from our New England dairies, and you may as well unload them at the dock; it will save rehandling them. We must have Mary Jane scudding away as soon as possible.”
Mr. Hancock bowed once more and sat down to his writing-desk.
Robert drove his wagon alongside the ship and unloaded the cheeses, then called at the stores around Faneuil Hall to find a market for the yarn and cloth and his wool. Few were ready to pay him money, but at last all was sold.
“Can you direct me to the house of Mr. Samuel Adams?” he asked of the town crier.
“Oh yes, you go through Mackerel Lane12 to Cow Lane and through that to Purchase Street, and you will see an orchard with apple and pear trees and a big house with stairs outside leading up to a platform on the roof; that’s the house. Do you know Sam?”
“No, I never have seen Mr. Adams.”
“Well, if you run across a tall, good-looking man between forty-five and fifty, with blue eyes, who wears a red cloak and cocked hat, and who looks as if he wasn’t afeard of the king, the devil, or any of his imps, that is Maltster Sam. We call him Maltster Sam because he once made malt for a living, but didn’t live by it because it didn’t pay. He’s a master hand in town meetings. He made it red-hot for Bernard, and he’ll make it hotter for Sammy Hutchinson if he don’t mind his p’s and q’s. Sam is a buster, now, I tell you.”
Robert drove through Cow Lane and came to the house. He rapped at the front door, which was opened by a tall man, with a pleasant but resolute countenance, whose clothes were plain and getting threadbare. His hair was beginning to be gray about the temples, and he wore a gray tie wig.
“This is Mr. Adams, is it not?” Robert asked.
“That is my name; what can I do for you?”
“I am Robert Walden from Rumford. I think you know my father.”
“Yes, indeed. Please walk in. Son of my friend Joshua Walden? I am glad to see you,” said Mr. Adams with a hearty shake of the hand.
“I have brought you a cheese which my father wishes you to accept with his compliments.”
“That is just like him; he always brings us something. Please say to him that Mrs. Adams and myself greatly appreciate his kind remembrance of us.”
A tall lady with a comely countenance was descending the hall stairs.
“Wife, this is Mr. Walden, son of our old friend; just see what he has brought us.”
Robert lifted his hat and was recognized by a gracious courtesy.
“How good everybody is to us. The ravens fed Elijah, but I don’t believe they brought cheese to him. We shall be reminded of your kindness every time we sit down to a meal,” said Mrs. Adams.
Robert thought he never had seen a smile more gracious than that upon her pale, careworn countenance.13 He noticed that everything about the room was plain, but neat and tidy. Upon a shelf were the Bible, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and a volume of Reverend Mr. South’s sermons. Robert remembered his father said Mrs. Adams was the daughter of Reverend Mr. Checkley, minister of the New South Meetinghouse, and that Mr. Adams went to meeting there. Upon the table were law books, pamphlets, papers, letters, and newspapers. He saw that some of the letters bore the London postmark. He remembered his father said Mr. Adams had not much money; that he was so dead in earnest in maintaining the rights of the people he had little time to attend to his own affairs.
“Will you be in town through the week and over the Sabbath?” Mr. Adams asked.
Robert replied that he intended to visit his relatives, Mr. and Mrs. Brandon, on Copp’s Hill.
“Oh yes, my friend the shipbuilder — a very worthy gentleman, and his wife an estimable lady. They have an energetic and noble daughter and a promising son. I have an engagement to-night, another to-morrow, but shall be at home to-morrow evening, and I would like to have you and your young friends take supper with us. I will tell you something that your father would like to know.”
Robert thanked him, and took his departure. Thinking that Doctor Warren probably would be visiting his patients at that hour of the day, he drove to the Green Dragon, and put Jenny in her stall, and after dinner made his way to the goldsmith’s shop to find a present for Rachel.
Mr. Paul Revere, who had gold beads, brooches, silver spoons, shoe and knee buckles, clocks, and a great variety of articles for sale, was sitting on a bench engraving a copper plate. He laid down his graving-tool and came to the counter. Robert saw he had a benevolent face; that he was hale and hearty.
“I would like to look at what you have that is pretty for a girl of eighteen,” said Robert.
Mr. Revere smiled as if he understood that the young man before him wanted something that would delight his sweetheart.
“I want it for my sister,” Robert added.
Mr. Revere smiled again as he took a bag filled with gold beads from the showcase.
“I think you cannot find anything prettier for your sister than a string of beads,” he said. “Women and girls like them better than anything else. They are always in fashion. You will not make any mistake, I am sure, in selecting them.”
He held up several strings to the light, that Robert might see how beautiful they were.
“I would like to look at your brooches.”
While the goldsmith was taking them from the showcase, he glanced at the pictures on the walls, printed from plates which Mr. Revere had engraved.
The brooches were beautiful — ruby, onyx, sapphire, emerald, but after examining them he turned once more to the beads.
“They are eighteen carats fine, and will not grow dim with use. I think your sister will be delighted with them.”
Robert thought so too, and felt a glow of pleasure when they were packed in soft paper and transferred from the case to his pocket.
With the afternoon before him he strolled the streets, looking at articles in