New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [121]
But most touching to Hudson was the behavior of Abigail. She was only thirteen, yet she was quite as calm as any adult. Perhaps the visits to the sick that she’d made with her mother had prepared her. During the worst of her mother’s fever, she had quietly taken turns with Hannah to help at the bedside. By the time her elder sister arrived from Dutchess County, Mercy’s fever had somewhat subsided, and Abigail would sit by her bed, wipe her brow and talk to her gently, keeping her company by the hour.
Susan was a brisk, practical woman with two children of her own now, and another on the way. She stayed in the house for a week, and was pleasant company, but once she was sure that her mother was out of danger, she said that she must get back to her family. And as she truly remarked, nobody could be a better help to her mother than Abigail already was.
Nearly a month elapsed before John Master returned, looking distraught. Only to find, upon entering the bedroom, that his wife was propped up in bed, pale but clearly no longer in danger, and listening with a smile as Abigail read to her. Even so, for weeks after that, Mercy had been pale and listless, and Hudson was sorry to see the strained and worried look on the face of John Master too.
But if Hudson was concerned about the Master family, he also had worries of his own. He wasn’t sure exactly when it had started, but it was that spring when he began to notice a change in Solomon. Why was his son suddenly becoming defiant toward him? He questioned his wife. “Solomon gives me no trouble,” Ruth told him. “But I dare say a young man of his age will often rile his father.” That might be so, but he had also taken to disappearing. At first Hudson supposed the boy was out chasing girls, but one evening he heard Solomon boasting to his sister Hannah of some escapade in the town with Sam White and a group of other young Liberty Boys.
Hudson could guess where his son had met them. Master would sometimes send Solomon to work at the warehouse by the wharfs, and there were all kinds of men working down on the waterfront.
“You stay away from those Liberty Boys,” he commanded his son. “What’ll Mr. Master say if he hears about that?”
“Maybe Mr. Master’ll be run out of town one day,” Solomon answered cheekily. “Then it won’t signify what he thinks.”
“Don’ ever speak like that again,” his father told him. “And don’ you go talking about Mr. Master’s business either.”
He hadn’t wanted to tell Master about the incident, but he wondered if there was some way of getting Solomon away from such dangerous friends. Early in April he suggested to Master that perhaps Solomon might go up to Dutchess County and work for his daughter Susan for a while. Master said he’d consider it, but that he couldn’t spare Solomon at present.
So there wasn’t much more that Hudson could do.
One of the first things that John Master had done when he returned was to write a letter to James. He informed him about his mother’s sickness. As she lay in her room, Mercy would wonder aloud to her husband, almost every day, when she would see her son again. John told James plainly that, at the least, it was time he made a visit. There was nothing else he could do. It would be many weeks before he could expect a reply from London.
Meanwhile, nothing stood still in the colony. Ironically, it was Ben Franklin who caused the next crisis. Still more ironically, he did so by trying to calm things down.
A few years ago, a royal official named Hutchinson had written to a friend from Massachusetts. Incensed by the difficulties he was encountering, he told his friend it would