Part 12 (1/2)

John Adams could not be idle. ”I cannot eat pensions and sinecures,” he writes: ”they would stick in my throat.” He was in no mood to follow Franklin's advice and wait quietly for further orders. There was nothing for him to do, and he would go home in the first available s.h.i.+p.

Accordingly, on June 17th, 1779, he sailed on the _Sensible_, with son John beside him, and that episode was closed.

All this time the war was going on and prices were rising. Abigail ”blushes” while giving John the prices current: ”All butcher's meat from a dollar to eight s.h.i.+llings per pound; corn twenty-five dollars, rye thirty, per bushel; flour fifty pounds per hundred; potatoes ten dollars per bushel; b.u.t.ter twelve s.h.i.+llings a pound, cheese eight; sugar twelve s.h.i.+llings a pound; mola.s.ses twelve dollars per gallon; labor six and eight dollars a day; a common cow from sixty to seventy pounds; and all English goods in proportion.”

By March, labor was eight dollars per day, with twelve dollars in prospect; goods of all kinds at such a price that Abigail hardly dares mention it.

”Linens are sold at twenty dollars per yard; the most ordinary sort of calicoes at thirty and forty; broadcloths at forty pounds per yard; West India goods full as high; mola.s.ses at twenty dollars per gallon; sugar four dollars per pound, bohea tea at forty dollars; and our own produce in proportion; butcher's meat at six and eight s.h.i.+llings per pound; board at fifty and sixty dollars per week.” She adds:

”In contemplation of my situation, I am sometimes thrown into an agony of distress. Distance, dangers, and oh, I cannot name all the fears which sometimes oppress me, and harrow up my soul. Yet must the common lot of man one day take place, whether we dwell in our own native land or are far distant from it. That we rest under the shadow of the Almighty is the consolation to which I resort, and find that comfort which the world cannot give. If He sees best to give me back my friend, or to preserve my life to him, it will be so.”

She little thought that even while she wrote, her friend was spreading his wings--or rather, the broad white wings of the frigate _Sensible_, for his homeward flight.

CHAPTER IX

MR. ADAMS ABROAD

IN August, 1779, Mr. Adams returned, and all was joy; but again the joy was short-lived. There seemed really no end to the trials of these two loving hearts. In November, Mr. Adams was again ordered to France on public service, and sailed in November. This time he took not only John but little Charles with him, and Abigail's heart was doubly desolate.

”DEAREST OF FRIENDS,--My habitation, how desolate it looks! my table, I sit down to it, but cannot swallow my food! Oh, why was I born with so much sensibility, and why, possessing it, have I so often been called to struggle with it? I wish to see you again. Were I sure you would not be gone, I could not withstand the temptation of coming to town, though my heart would suffer over again the cruel torture of separation.

”What a cordial to my dejected spirits were the few lines last night received! And does your heart forebode that we shall again be happy? My hopes and fears rise alternately. I cannot resign more than I do, unless life itself were called for. My dear sons, I cannot think of them without a tear. Little do they know the feelings of a mother's heart. May they be good and useful as their father! Then they will in some measure reward the anxiety of a mother. My tenderest love to them. Remember me also to Mr.

Thaxter, whose civilities and kindness I shall miss.

”G.o.d Almighty bless and protect my dearest friend, and, in his own time, restore him to the affectionate bosom of

”PORTIA.”

It was all the more lonely for Mrs. Adams that the winter was a severe one: ”the sublimest winter” she ever saw. In December and January there fell the highest snow known in forty years; all through January and February, the Bay was frozen over, so that no vessel could pa.s.s through for a month. ”We had neither snow, rain, nor the least thaw. It has been remarkably healthy, and we have lived along very comfortably, though many people have suffered greatly for food.”

In the long winter days, how eagerly Mrs. Adams must have watched for the incoming mails! I do not know what were the postal arrangements of Braintree; very likely there were none. In Boston, the Post Office was opened every Monday morning from the middle of March to the middle of September, ”at 7 of the clock, to deliver out all letters that do come by the post till twelve o'clock; from twelve to two o'clock, being dinner-time, no office kept; and from two o'clock in the afternoon to six o'clock the office will be open to take in all letters to go by the Southern and Western post.”

A single letter cost one s.h.i.+lling to send; this rate held to the middle of the nineteenth century. Beside letters, the faithful Portia sent to her John all the papers and news-letters she could lay hands on.

Boston by this time had several newspapers. The first of these, appearing as early as 1704, was the _Boston News-Letter_, ”Published by Authority.” For some time this little sheet held the field alone; but in 1721 appeared the _Boston Gazette_, and the _New England Courant_. In both these, James Franklin, Benjamin's elder brother, had a hand; indeed, the _Courant_ was his own paper, started when he was discharged from the staff of the _Gazette_. He seems to have been a quarrelsome fellow, was twice arraigned for contempt, and once imprisoned.

Benjamin, then a boy of sixteen, astute from his cradle, contributed by stealth to the _Courant_ more or less; but slipped away to Philadelphia without getting into trouble.

These papers, doubtless, Portia sent regularly to her John, who received them as often as Fate or the enemy allowed.

Now and then Mrs. Adams took her chaise and went into town to make some visits in Boston or Cambridge.

”Present my compliments to Mr. Dana,” she writes. ”Tell him I have called upon his lady, and we enjoyed an afternoon of sweet communion. I find she would not be averse to taking a voyage, should he be continued abroad. She groans most bitterly, and is irreconcilable to his absence.

I am a mere philosopher to her. I am _inured_, but not hardened, to the painful portion. Shall I live to see it otherwise?”

This was written in July, 1780. We may fancy Madam Abigail setting out on this expedition, stately and demure in hoop petticoat and high-heeled shoes. We cannot be sure whether she wore a Leghorn hat or a calash.

Here I pause for a moment; I remember a calash, in my childhood. It was made of thin green silk, s.h.i.+rred on pieces of rattan or whalebone, placed two or three inches apart. These were drawn together at the back by a cape, and thus, bent into hoop-shape, could be drawn so far over the face as to cover it entirely. The ”bashful bonnet,” the thing was called; certainly, no headdress ever was uglier, but it must have been ”matchless for the complexion,” as Madam Patti says of a certain well-known soap.

On the whole, knowing what the calash looked like, I should prefer to think that Madam Abigail wore a Leghorn hat over her fine dark hair.