Harvard Yard (Peter Fallon)

by William Martin

  If he could summon help quickly, they might yet save the ancient building. So he dropped the books and ran up the stairs to the long chamber. In the middle of the room, surrounded by the empty beds of the freshmen, a bell rope hung through a hole in the ceiling, and a circular staircase led up to the cupola.

  It was from here that a tutor rang the college bell for chapel twice a day, and from here that Benjamin might summon help. He grabbed the rope and pulled, but it was tied somewhere up above him. So he scrambled up the staircase just as the flames broke through the floor of the long chamber and reached upward for the roof beams.

  He threw the latch and pushed up the trapdoor. Cold air and snow whipped down at him, cold fresh air and cooling snow. So he climbed up into the cupola and untied the bell rope. He wrapped it in his hands and looked out at the blowing whiteness, then down at the orange flames licking up from under the roof rafters.

  Caleb Wedge had run halfway home, screaming out the warning, when the clanging of the bell struck the cold air like a hammer striking glass.

  It was said that President Holyoke, lying awake in his Wadsworth House bed, ruminating on the miseries of old age and college presidency, saw an orange glow in the sky and leapt to his feet just as the bell rang out. Others heard a mysterious man running through the streets calling, “Fire!” And still others were awakened by the sight of what looked like burning snowflakes, the embers of Harvard Hall, blowing through the air.

  Soon, every man in Cambridge, except for one, was rushing to fight the fire. The tradesmen went, the legislators, the tutors finally awakening in Massachusetts Hall, Reverend Wedge and Reverend Appleton, too. William Brattle came rushing with his slave. Governor Bernard came from Bradish’s Tavern to help work the town fire engine. And President Holyoke lumbered through the snow in greatcoat, boots, and nightshirt.

  Caleb Wedge, however, was running away with a book that he believed he had to hide, a book that made him complicit in this disaster. By going through yards, he avoided the men rushing to fight the blaze. He reached the family barn unnoticed and climbed to the hayloft. But before he hid the book, he swung open the loft door and looked up into the sky, boiling pink and orange in the snow.

  “Caleb . . . Caleb.” Lydia had come into the backyard and was looking up at him. “What did you do? Why did you start a fire?”

  “We didn’t start it.”

  “Then go back and help. Go now. Or people will think otherwise.”

  When the first firefighters arrived, the bell was still clanging, but the smoke was pouring out of the cupola as though it were a chimney. Then the flames burst up, engulfing the little tower and the shadowed figure ringing the bell.

  But there was no time to worry about him, whoever he was. Volunteers dragged the engine through the snowdrifts and called for water, but the nearest pump was frozen, so a bucket brigade was organized and water passed hand over hand from the Common well to the Yard. And one set of hands belonged to Caleb Wedge.

  No one slept in Cambridge that night. Those who could fought the fire. Others brought buckets of hot tea and food. Lydia Wedge wrote a poem:

  The hero of the bell rang strong, to save

  The meetinghouse of thought and mem’ries deep.

  Townsfolk and solons both rushed forth,

  ’Midst fiery flakes and gusts of snow,

  To fight the flam’d devourer, but alas! In Vain!

  Down rush’d precipitate, with thund’ring crash,

  The roof, the walls, and in one ruinous heap,

  The ancient dome, and all its treasures lie!

  And ’neath the dome, burned skull white and black,

  Lay the hero of the bell, unknown.

  Lydia read these words to her brother in the morning as he stood before the smoking rubble, in a world turned strangely bright, even in the gray light of the last flurries, for the grandest building in New England, as changeless as the western hills to all who lived that day, was now a black mound surrounded like a ringworm sore by a swath of mud where the heat had melted the snow and thawed the earth.

  Caleb did not look at Lydia until she was done. Then he said, “Would you have me compliment your verse?”

  She looked at the people standing around, some alone with their thoughts, some in small groups, and she whispered, “I want you to know, your secret lies safe with me.”

  Caleb shivered. He was covered in soot, soaked, and only now realizing how cold he was. “I have no secret. I ran for help. We tried to stop it.”

  “You stole a book from the library.”

  “That I am of a mind to return. ’Tis too great a burden.” He patted his pocket, as he had decided that the book was safest on his own person.

  “I would reconsider, Caleb.”

  “’Tis only a matter of doing it.” Caleb looked at the men clustered near the ruins. “They’re all over there, the governor, President Holyoke, Professor Winthrop—”

  “And Grandfather . . . Do not mortify him by bringing suspicion on yourself.”

  Caleb was hoping he could put right what he had done. And he knew that the only way was to tell the truth. It was what his grandfather had taught him. And in that cold morning, Caleb appreciated his grandfather’s advice even more. So he drew closer to the group of men in snow-covered tricornes and soaked winter capes.

  President Holyoke was bemoaning all he had lost. “Five thousand volumes, the Apparatus Chamber, Professor Winthrop’s instruments and discoveries—”

  “My instruments can be replaced,” said Winthrop, “God willing.”

  “God willing, aye,” said Abraham Wedge.

  “’Tis the loss of John Harvard’s library that pains deeply,” said Winthrop. “The very seedbed of our knowledge.”

  Hearing those words, Caleb made his decision. He would show them that a cutting from the Harvard tree had survived. He took out the book and stepped forward.

  Lydia whispered, “Wait.”

  And it was good advice. For in Caleb’s moment of hesitation, another student came up to the president from the other side, bearing a large volume. “Excuse me, sir.”

  Holyoke, a massive heavy old man, turned his great head to the student. “What is it that you want, on a morning like this?”

  “I . . . I . . . I wish to return this book to the library. I . . . I . . . I have saved it from the fire.” The student placed it into Holyoke’s hand.

  “Thanks be to God,” said the old president as he examined it. “Christian Warfare with the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, one of the John Harvard books.”

  The student stepped back and raised his chin, as if he expected someone to pin a medal on his chest.

  “Thanks be to God,” said Holyoke again. He studied the book a moment longer; then, the tone of his voice dropping, he said, “How did you come by this?”

  “Sir?”

  “This book does not circulate.”

  “I . . . I know, sir,” said the student. “I’m sorry, but—”

  “This will require discipline.”

  Professor Winthrop said, “Under the circumstances, sir—”

  “In times of crisis,” said Abraham Wedge, “rules become ever more important.”

  “Indeed,” said Holyoke. “Find Tutor Spurgeon. Have him go through this boy’s lodgings. We’ll see what else he saved for us by spiriting it illegally from our library.”

  And Caleb felt his sister tugging at his sleeve.

  “I think we should get you home, Brother, and into some dry clothes.”

  “But the book?” he whispered.

  “Bring it along. It will be our secret.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  SO, CORPOREI Insectii was gone. That’s what the evidence told him, whether Peter Fallon went looking for answers in the archives or on the campus tour with his son.

  “It was here that one of the most famous scenes in Harvard history unfolded,” said the girl guiding the tour.

  Someone took a picture of Harvard Hall. Someone else took a p
icture of the Yard. Someone even took a picture of Peter Fallon.

  Why? Did he look like part of the scenery? True, he was dressed in tweed and turtleneck, like an academic. Or was it something else? Was one of Keegan’s men still tailing him? But the play was gone. The story was over, and Peter had tried to put out the word to the people he thought were the players.

  He had e-mailed Assistant Professor O’Hill:

  I suggest that you speak to Will Wedge about the contents of the commonplace book I’ve unearthed. It will be a purely intellectual exercise, however, given the fate of a certain volume that Benjamin Wedge describes.

  He had received a curt thank-you in reply.

  He had also dispatched his brother to the Rising Moon, the bar where Bingo Keegan held court in a back booth. Danny sat at the bar and talked to a regular who had worked for the Fallons and Hanrahan Wrecking, too. Danny described the job and a book they found under a beam, a book that his brother said “was supposed to start a treasure hunt but ended one instead.”

  All that remained for Peter was to hand a moldy commonplace book over to Will Wedge and tell him: Corporei Insectii was gone, and with it, Love’s Labours Won.

  In Harvard Hall the play is kept . . . and Harvard Hall had burned.

  Still, Peter couldn’t be too careful, especially when he was carrying a briefcase containing a commonplace book worth $25,000.

  Now the guy with the camera was lining up a shot of his wife. He was wearing a Harvard Crimson windbreaker that he might have bought in the Coop that morning. A tourist. So back to the tour.

  The student guide said, “The Harvard Hall you’re looking at was built in 1766 to replace the one that stood here for nearly a century . . . until the unthinkable happened.”

  Very dramatic. The tourists stopped taking pictures and paid attention.

  “On a snowy night in 1764,” she said, “the first Harvard Hall burned to the ground. With it went the largest library in America, including all four hundred books that John Harvard had left to the college . . . or so they thought.”

  Peter listened. Maybe this young member of Crimson Key knew something that Peter hadn’t figured out yet.

  “The next morning, President Holyoke was weeping over the ruins when a student came up and handed him one of John Harvard’s books, Christian Warfare with the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. Holyoke wiped away his tears, thanked the young man effusively, then promptly expelled him for having a library book in his possession.”

  The story brought an explosive laugh that echoed off the ancient brick of Massachusetts and Harvard Halls. But nothing new, thought Peter.

  Jimmy whispered to his father, “Is that story true?”

  “Parts of it. But the student stayed anonymous. So the whole thing may be apocryphal. But the book was saved. It’s in the archives. The only one.”

  The guide went on, “Holyoke died a few years later. His most famous remark may have been delivered on his deathbed: ‘If a man wishes to be humbled and mortified, let him become president of Harvard College.’”

  Then, like acolytes following the deacon, the group moved deeper into the Yard. Every day, rain or shine, the Crimson Key Society led tours for would-be students, their parents, and tourists. People came from all over the world to see Harvard Yard, as though it were another Plymouth Rock or Vatican. Peter understood. It was the beginning of things and the center of things, too, as old as the rock, and as rich, full of itself, and full of intrigue as the Vatican.

  And the intrigue was right there on the top step of Widener.

  Fallon saw it when the tour stopped at the bottom step, and the guide started to tell the story of Harry Elkins Widener. Peter let his eye wander up the steps: all thirty of them, with low risers and deep treads, a hundred feet across, taking up more square footage than some junior colleges. At the top were the twelve massive columns. And behind one Assistant Professor Bob O’Hill was in heated conversation with a balding potbellied guy in a gray suit. Bertram Lee, Harvard ’79.

  To Peter’s face, Bertram Lee called himself a colleague. Behind Peter’s back, he played the competitor. He sold rare books when he could beat Peter to them. The rest of the time, he sold books that weren’t rare, just old.

  He scoured garage sales and attics and secondhand shops all over New England. He bought books by the crate and books by the pound—forgotten novels, outdated nonfiction, old magazines—which he sold by the pound, too. But Lee moved books at his Anthology Bookshop in Boston. He moved them from people who didn’t want them to people who did, if only to fill the shelves of the libraries in their big houses. And he always said that maybe, some afternoon, some bored kid in some suburb would take down a book and have his life transformed. And no man could do better than that.

  So Peter liked Lee a little, even if he didn’t trust him.

  But what was it that had Lee so irritated? Peter told his son to stay there and listen to the story of Widener and the Titanic. Then he started up the stairs. But O’Hill turned abruptly and went into the library, while Lee came down, taking the steps two at a time.

  “Hello, Bert,” said Peter.

  Lee stopped, looked at Peter, looked up at the pillars as though he might try to go up and hide behind one, then said, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Paying homage to Harry Elkins Widener. I do it once a month.”

  “Really? So do I.” Then Lee went past him.

  “Are you also doing business with that O’Hill?”

  Lee stopped. “I do business with book lovers everywhere.” Then he hurried on.

  Peter thought about following him, but there was that guy in the windbreaker, taking a picture of the meeting. That’s what it looked like, anyway.

  So Peter turned, gave him a grin, and struck a pose.

  The guy didn’t miss a beat. He said, “Smile for the camera. Have your boy get in it, too.” He gestured to Jimmy. “Take one now and take one when you graduate.”

  That remark drew looks from the other parents. They all knew the odds: there were ten kids on that tour, and only one was likely to get in. Only one would hit the Harvard lottery, have the chance to be rich, famous, successful, satisfied. Only one family would get to put a Harvard sticker on the car. They all wanted it to be their kid.

  But things were never as simple as they looked. And happiness was never as easy to come by. Just ask the men they’d met that day—tubercular John Harvard, humbled and mortified Edward Holyoke, hypothermic Harry Widener, and, of course, Bob O’Hill and Bertram Lee, two Harvard men, very pissed off. Why?

  The Wedges, father and daughter, were waiting for the Fallons, father and son, in the courtyard of Lowell House.

  “Thanks for coming,” said Will Wedge. “This is a good way for your son to see how the students live. Do you have the book?”

  Peter waved the briefcase.

  “Great. Great. Excellent. Let’s eat.”

  Lowell House was the largest undergraduate house, named for the president who started the house system in the twenties. The ten undergraduate houses each formed a self-contained community—with master, senior tutor, and students, with library, dining hall, and common rooms—modeled after a place like Emmanuel College, Cambridge, ancestor of Harvard itself.

  “The house system,” Will Wedge explained to Jimmy Fallon, “is what sets Harvard apart.”

  Dorothy said, “Your house is as important as your field of concentration.”

  “The freshmen live in the Yard,” said Will Wedge, “and everyone else lives in these house communities. All very civilized.”

  Peter watched his son take in the high ceilings, the moldings, the crystal chandeliers, the black and white tiled floors, and he said, “This is a cafeteria?”

  No, Peter explained. The dining halls had been intended as more than that. They were ceremonial spaces where smart people could meet and educate one another, three times a day, without food fights. To many, the dining hall experience was the heart of the Harvard experience, food
notwithstanding.

  Of course, Will Wedge and Peter Fallon couldn’t stop talking about how much better the food was now than in the old days. The serving area off the dining hall was like a fancy buffet, with expensive cabinetry, granite countertops, salad bar, sandwich stations, grill, even soft-serve ice cream.

  “We didn’t get soft-serve ice cream,” said Wedge as he loaded his tray.

  “Dad,” said Dorothy, “you make it sound like you had to sign your name on the buttery wall before they’d feed you, like our ancestors back in old Harvard Hall.”

  “But your ancestors never got cheeseburgers grilled to order, either,” said Peter.

  They took their trays to a table that overlooked the courtyard, and Will Wedge said, “Speaking of ancestors, you have news of the early Wedges, Mr. Fallon?”

  Peter put his briefcase on the table and opened it. Inside was a metal box. “The commonplace book of Benjamin Wedge. In the box, wrapped in three layers of plastic, the only way that it can be safely transported until it’s restored. And even then, I wouldn’t bring it near any books of value.”

  “You mean,” said Will Wedge, “I can’t give it to the Harvard archives?”

  “You can give it to them,” said Peter, “but they might not take it. Blue mold can infect other books and make you sick.”

  Will Wedge considered this for a moment. “Can’t Dorothy look it over?”

  “If she puts on mask and gloves. We have a room in South Boston.”

  “A trip to South Boston,” said Will to his daughter. “Exotic travel.”

  Peter noticed Jimmy roll his eyes, in the universal expression, What an asshole.

  Dorothy ignored her father and asked Peter, “Is it true that the commonplace book mentions a play?”

  Peter produced a piece of paper on which were written the words of the Benjamin Wedge poem.

  Dorothy read it and said, “Love’s Labours Won? In the Bard’s own hand? Wow.” Then she looked at her father. “Better than you ever speculated.”