by Jodi Daynard
The coachman tethered the horse by means of a long rope and followed Johnny into the building with Johnny’s trunk. When the pair had returned, and the coachman had mounted his seat once more, Johnny grinned up at his mother.
Then Eliza spoke so commandingly that anyone overhearing her would have thought she was made of stone. “You must write at once and say whether the accommodations are acceptable.”
“I shall.” He laughed. He knew that his mother sounded far worse than she was. Johnny reached up and kissed her as she bent down to meet his face.
“Good-bye for now, Mama!” he called as the carriage pulled away.
He waved until his mother was out of sight. Then, as he turned to face the college, a thrill of anticipation ran through him. He willed himself not to mourn. So much lay ahead of him. He was almost sixteen. He would unlock the mysteries of the universe.
9
THE DOOR TO NUMBER 32 MASSACHUSETTS HALL was already open. Johnny pushed his way in with one shoulder, dragging the trunk behind him. Once inside, he was startled to find a great blond fellow stretched out upon one of the room’s two narrow beds. The boy had taken the one nearest the window, facing Harvard Hall, leaving Johnny the other near the fireplace. The boy’s long bare feet extended beyond the pallet by several inches, and his silvery head rested upon his hands in an odd semi-reclining position. This, Johnny realized, was caused by a pile of books beneath his pillow.
The rest of him was entirely naked.
Seeing Johnny enter, the boy opened his eyes and said, drowsily, “Oh, hello.”
“Hello, yourself,” Johnny replied. “What do you do with all those books beneath your head? And where are your clothes?”
Here, the boy chuckled and finally sat up. Of all the white people Johnny had ever met, this boy had to be the whitest of all. His eyes were so light blue they were nearly translucent.
“Oh, I brought not my manservant. Who shall clean my clothes if I sully them? And it’s awfully hot. As for the books, I was hoping they would penetrate my brain. I’ve heard tell that, sleeping in such a way, the mind draws the information in—unconsciously, as it were.”
“By what, pray?” Johnny laughed. “A magnet?”
Johnny noticed that the boy pronounced his i’s differently from how his New England friends did. He made them sound like “ah.” It was a pleasing, genteel accent.
The boy grinned and rose at last to his full height. He bowed. “Peter Fray, at your service.”
“John Boylston.” Johnny bowed as well.
“Say,” Peter said, reaching for a fine linen shirt upon the back of his desk chair, “where’re you from?” He raised a hand to his ear. “Your voice has a foreign ring.”
Johnny replied, “You have a good ear. I am from a distant place, though I was born here. I’m from Barbados.”
“Barbados!” The boy stepped into a pair of neatly pressed silk breeches. “And I thought I’d come a long way.”
“Where came you from?” asked Johnny. “You sound foreign, too.”
Peter laughed. “Virginia. Near Fredericksburg. Arrived nearly a week ago, before anyone else. Boring sea journey. Infernally hot, too.” The boy frowned. “But never mind. We’re here now. It’s a cozy little school. Shall I show you around?”
“I’d be greatly obliged.” Johnny nodded. “Allow me to unpack first.”
“Say, are you hungry?” Fray suddenly asked. “I stole some bread from the commons this morning.” Here again, Johnny noticed that the boy pronounced hungry as “hung-reh.” He decided this was a very beautiful manner of speaking English. It sounded soft and lazy, unlike the clipped Barbadian English he had always known.
Johnny smiled. “No, thanks. I’m not very hungry. You haven’t got anything to drink, though, have you? I’m parched.”
From beneath his bed, the boy produced a leather flask. “Kentuck-eh whisk-eh.” He offered it to Johnny.
“Nay, I don’t drink spirits. I meant cider or tea.” Johnny knew that keeping spirits in one’s chamber was forbidden, but he said nothing.
Fray made a face. “Never touch the stuff. But we’ll stop at the buttery on our way out, if you like.”
Johnny nodded and began to unpack his things. On his side of the chamber stood a small chest of drawers and a built-in bookcase containing three shelves. These would not do. He wished he had kept his fine bookcase, the one they had left behind on the ship. Suddenly he felt hands reach over his shoulders and take hold of his belongings.
“For goodness’ sake, man. Just put them any-wayah for now. Otherwise, it shall be dark before you finish.”
Here, his new roommate tossed Johnny’s things, so lovingly folded by his mother, onto the bed. “Come on, man, it’s time to vini and vici.”
Without, the air was still quite hot, but a cooling breeze came off the river. Gulls circled overhead. Johnny cast his eyes upon the scholars passing across the yard, gowns flowing, and thought, Oh, if only Papa could see!
The boy led Johnny across the narrow grassy strip to Harvard Hall, where they descended into the basement. It was cool there, and the buttery was open. The top panel of a two-part door hung ajar, and behind it stood an ancient white-haired fellow.
“That’s Mr. Painy,” Peter whispered to Johnny. “I call him Mr. Pained. You’ll soon see why.”
Johnny asked Mr. Painy for a mug of cider. “Can you put it on my bill?”
The old man reached for a mug and poured the cider from a large stoneware jug. At the effort, he cringed in pain. The poor fellow must have rheumatism, Johnny thought. He now saw why Peter had renamed the man but he didn’t find the sobriquet amusing.
“First day, sir?” Painy asked, handing Johnny the mug in a shaking hand.
“Yes, sir.”
Johnny gratefully drank the cool, fermented cider.
“It’s gratis, then, my boy. Good luck to ye—”
“Oh, never mind the niceties,” Fray cut in, leading Johnny up the stairs.
“Thank you, sir!” Johnny called back over his shoulder.
Once they had left, Johnny turned to Fray.
“Seems an excellent fellow, actually.”
“Oh, yes. I expect we shall take terrible advantage of him,” his new roommate replied.
Although flanked on two sides by commerce, Harvard had an appealingly cloistered feel. It was sunny and hot without, but in the yard the air beneath the elm trees was cool and still. Johnny had never seen an elm tree before and thought them very beautiful. The word elegiac came to mind. He stared up at them until Peter pushed him to move along. They came to a small chapel, which was open. Johnny entered it. Within, the air was cool, the light dim. A tutor sat in a pew with his head bent.
Johnny would have liked to linger, but after a few moments, Fray said, “Come on. There’s more to see.”
From Holden Chapel it was but a short stroll to the northern edge of the campus, where they came upon a vast field encircled by a fence, to keep the cattle out. Within, boys chased one another or wrestled. As they stood watching the other boys, Fray said, “Papa’s a planter, you know. We live not far from Mr. Jefferson; he’s a personal friend. Though we have not nearly so many slaves as he does. Only a few dozen.”
Seeing Johnny’s blue eyes widen, Peter added, “I don’t hold with slavery, of course. But I don’t see how we rid ourselves of it, either.”
“Free them,” Johnny said. Fray cast his roommate a sudden, wary glance. Then, believing him to have spoken in jest, he laughed.
“Free them. Of course! Then we shall have to use the Irish to work the land. Hey,” he cried suddenly, “let’s wrestle.”
Peter was at Johnny’s feet. He pulled on them and Johnny crashed to the ground. The two boys rolled around on the grass grabbing at one another and laughing.
Johnny had often wrestled with boys at home. It could get rough, but the rules were clear: biting, pinching, scratching, locking with the arms or legs, and grabbing the groin were all prohibited. Fray, however, did not pl
ay by the rules. He pulled at Johnny’s clothing and struck him about the body. Johnny was going to stand up when suddenly Fray grabbed him by the throat and squeezed.
For a terrifying moment, he couldn’t breathe. It felt as if his lungs would burst, and he reached for the knife in his pocket. Fortunately, Fray loosened his grip just then. Johnny cried, “Leave off!” Roused to anger, he took his advantage. He used his full force to flip his roommate onto his stomach and pin him in an iron grapple hold. Johnny thought he might be hurting Peter, but at that moment he didn’t care.
Fray went limp and ceased to struggle. Johnny released him, panting with the effort. In the distance, a bell clanged. The other boys fled the field, and the roommates were alone.
“Did you hear that?” Peter suddenly sat up, pretending not to notice his defeat.
“Why’d you do that?” asked Johnny, still breathing hard.
“Do what?” the boy asked, getting to his feet.
“Strangle me almost to death. I couldn’t breathe.”
“Oh, I was only fooling. Well, we should go. They fine you if you’re not in your chamber at the appointed hour.”
Here, Peter laughed and extended his hand. After hesitating a moment, Johnny took it. They walked back to their chamber in awkward silence, Johnny feeling confused. Did all the American boys here fight so wildly, with so little respect for the rules? The thought crossed his mind that perhaps he needed to be on his guard, if that’s how the boys played their games in America.
10
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, A SHRILL BELL WOKE Johnny. It was so loud that he felt his teeth vibrate. The sun had not yet risen, but it was time for prayers. Peter slept through the bell, and Johnny considered leaving him behind. Then he sighed and shook his roommate on the shoulder.
“C’mon. We’ll be late.”
Peter opened his eyes and cried, “Oh, damn!”
He rose and threw on his clothing, and they soon made their way to Harvard Hall and the chapel room. They knelt on a long, low bench until their knees ached. After prayers, they moved into the commons, where many students already sat in groups. Wait-boys toured the tables offering cider and setting down jugs of steaming coffee. Some boys sat on raised platforms, and Johnny made his way toward an empty space among one of these. But Peter pulled him back.
“Oh, no, man. Those are for the upperclassmen. We peons must sit below.”
They found an empty table and sat down. Soon they were joined by several fresh-faced lads, a few of whom looked to be no more than twelve or thirteen years of age. Their names, they offered, were Selfridge, Shattuck, Farquez, and Wales. Another boy named William Shaw, older and taciturn, sat with them at first. But he soon thought better of it and, with a slight bow, moved off to another table.
“Good riddance,” Peter said loudly when he’d left. “Looks too studious for us anyway.”
Everyone laughed. Johnny did, too, not wanting to stand out.
Shattuck was a hulking boy of fourteen who hailed from Worcester. Farquez, small and freckled, was the son of a farmer in Shrewsbury. Wales, the youngest, had come from Boston. Finally, Selfridge shared that his family lived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
“Indeed?” Johnny asked excitedly. “My family lived there, too, during the—”
“I thought you said you were from Barbados?” Peter interrupted.
“Oh, yes, we are.” Johnny cursed himself. He had not been in the commons five minutes before he had broken a solemn oath!
“When did your family live in Portsmouth?” asked Selfridge.
“Oh, just for a short while, during the war.”
“What were their names?” he pursued.
Just then, Peter threw salt at Farquez, and the ensuing food fight made them all thankfully lose interest in Johnny’s forebears.
That fall, Johnny’s days fell into a consolingly ascetic rhythm: up at five for prayers, breakfast, recitation, study time, dinner, more study, supper from the buttery, and candles out at nine. One night, Peter noticed Johnny moving his lips as he held a book half-open in one hand.
“What is that you do?”
“Committing something to memory. It’s sort of a game.”
“A game? Sounds jolly. I’ve not managed to commit my own name to memory. How do you get on?”
“Very well.” Johnny smiled. Then, he could not help but say, “Last summer, I actually managed to memorize Common Sense.”
“The entire essay?”
“Yes. It took about a week but wasn’t terribly difficult.”
“Goodness! Well, carry on!” Peter exclaimed cheerfully and headed off to a tavern. Then he turned and looked over his shoulder and said, “Whilst you commit to memory, I shall commit to forgetting!”
Peter left then. Later he bounded in noisily after Johnny was already asleep. He cried, “Oh, what a jolly time we had at Porter’s! A pity you didn’t join us.” Johnny put a pillow over his head and grunted.
While Peter joined his friends at night in the taverns, Johnny engaged in more salubrious activities. He joined several other freshman boys to form a wrestling team. They were sweet, unworldly children who, Johnny thought, would do well with a little prodding. Then there were Selfridge, Shattuck, Wales, and Farquez, whose humor Johnny enjoyed. They loved a good prank, and at first Johnny went along with them. One night, they stole the bell from atop Harvard Hall. Its absence was noticed when no one woke for prayers or breakfast. The bell was subsequently discovered by a tutor in Selfridge and Shattuck’s chamber, and cost them three dollars apiece in fines.
Sometime just before his sixteenth birthday, returning to his chamber from dinner, Johnny found a letter from his mother beneath the door.
Dear son,
Mr. Adams has set off with some reluctance for Philadelphia, Lizzie and Company are well tho very busy at the moment. Miriam took sick but it was just a cold, a bad cough remains. Thankfully, we none of us caught it. I should very much like to come to Cambridge for your birthday, if you’re not too occupied with your studies to visit with your old mother at the Lees’.
Johnny was pleased at the thought that he would soon see his mother again. He set the letter aside and removed his clothing, having decided to bathe before classes. As he unbuttoned and removed his breeches, his pocketknife fell out, and he reached down to take it up.
At that moment, Peter entered the chamber.
“Whoa!” the boy shielded his eyes. “There’s a very ugly naked boy in my chamber, and with a knife, too. What are you about?”
“I’ve had no chance to bathe,” said Johnny. He quickly placed the knife on top of his chest of drawers. Then he smiled, abashed. Peter looked about the chamber. He approached Johnny’s end of the room. Suddenly he espied the carved handle of the pocketknife and reached for it.
“Say, what’s this, old mole?” Peter took up the knife. Then he opened it. “This could do a bit of damage, what!”
“Leave that alone,” said Johnny.
“Only if you tell me what it’s for. Killed many people with it?”
“Not yet,” he said.
Johnny made to grab the knife from Peter’s hand but Peter pulled back just in time, laughing. “All right, don’t be touchy.” He shut the knife and placed it back on the dresser.
“It was a gift from my father.”
“Ah, I see. For what, pray?”
“All the boys have knives in Barbados.”
Peter widened his eyes in mock fear. “I suppose I should be careful around you, then.”
“Funny,” Johnny said. “I was thinking the same about you.”
Several days later, as Johnny prepared to go to meet his mother, he noticed that Peter had a small looking glass upon his bedside table. He made free to pick it up and look at himself. He was reminded of the good Reverend Nicholls’s words about Americans always being clean-shaven and was just thinking he needed to find a barber when a voice jolted him from behind:
“Admiring your good looks, eh?”
Johnn
y blushed at being caught out. “Nay, I begin to grow a beard. Know you a barber?”
“Why don’t you use that pocketknife of yours?” quipped Peter. “Careful you don’t slit your own throat, though. Ha ha.”
“I’ll leave my neck in the hands of a proficient, thanks all the same.”
Peter gave him the name of a fellow just down the street, near the market.
“But I dare say he won’t be open now.”
Johnny frowned. The dark growth made him look blacker, he thought. But it would have to wait.
He expected his mother, but to Johnny’s great surprise and delight all the Millers were there as well. Everyone hugged and squeezed him near to death. For his birthday dinner, Aunt Martha had reaped the fruits of her gardens, and accompanying the ham and duck there were green beans, Brussels sprouts, breads, pies, and several cakes.
“We’ve been baking for several days,” said Kate proudly. Then she blushed. Johnny glanced at his mother, recalling her stories of their privation during the war, when food was so scarce that Cassie resorted to dressing squirrels and voles.
At the end of the meal Johnny groaned, excused himself, and lay down face-up upon the parlor floor, which put the children in a frenzy of glee as they ran from the table to jump upon him.
“Children, don’t crush him!” said Aunt Martha.
But Johnny, protecting his tender, distended belly, had already flipped onto his hands and knees and galloped away from them with a whinny. The children laughed and chased him.
Later, as Johnny was about to take his leave, Kate approached. She had hardly said a word all evening.
“Your roommate has asked me to go on a boat ride with him.”
“Peter Fray? Do you know him?” Johnny asked. For some reason, the idea gave him an uncomfortable feeling.
“I was in the library borrowing a book when he came in. We got to talking, and we soon realized that we both knew you. Then he asked me if I would join him this Thursday. I saw no reason to decline.”