by Ron Carter
As the door swung open, Matthew lowered his head to peer down at a stout woman in a gray, ankle-length dress with sleeves to her elbows, partly covered by a figured apron with dustings of flour and specks of stain. Her hair was gray and covered with a white net, her face round, jowled, and double-chinned, lips a narrow line, and eyes that were startlingly blue. She clapped her hands together and exclaimed, “You are Matthew Dunson! You’re here for the Grand Convention.”
Matthew removed his tricorn. “Yes, I am. I believe I have a room reserved.”
The blue eyes twinkled and the thin lips smiled broadly. “I’m Sarah Asher. Named after Sarah in the Old Testament. The one that was married to Abraham. You call me Mother Asher. Or just Mother. I’m so glad you got here safe. Last night we had fog, you know. Couldn’t see a thing. Worried all night about the boats and things on the river. Oh, me! Excuse my bad manners—can’t stop talking. Got that from my mother, you know. Come in, come in, come in.” She reached to take his arm. “You wanted a room on the corner of the second floor. I’ve held it for you. Good bed—changed the sheets last night so they’re fresh.” She led him onto the flowered carpet in the parlor. A sofa and great chair, worn, comfortable, faced a large stone fireplace with arms bolted on the inside walls from which kettles could be hung to heat water or cook. Unremarkable paintings hung on three walls. A guest sat on a straight, wooden chair, intent on reading a one-page newspaper from two days earlier. The aroma of ham roasting in the kitchen oven hung in the air, mingled with the pungent smells of relishes and mince pie.
She pointed to the staircase against one wall. “You can take your bag right up there and get unpacked. The only room in the corner. Just down the hall is a washroom with water and soap and towels. You can shave there if you want. I serve dinner at one o’clock—beef soup and bread and tarts. Supper’s at six o’clock—ham and potatoes and pie—do you like ham? But if you’re hungry now, I’ve got bread and cold mutton, and I can have hot chocolate ready in a minute to get you through to one o’clock. My late husband, Horatio, he loved my hot chocolate, died eight years ago, you know. Would you like some hot chocolate?”
Matthew stifled a grin. “Thank you, no, Mrs. Asher. I had breakfast aboard the ship not long ago.”
She looked disappointed. “Mother. Not Mrs. Asher,” she corrected him.
Matthew could no longer conceal the grin. “Mother.”
“That’s better. Now you go on up and get your things in the wardrobe. You look all worn out. Take your shoes off and lie down a while. I’ll come get you in time for dinner.”
“Could I pay now?” Matthew asked.
“Oh, now or later. Doesn’t matter. Why don’t we work that out tonight after supper?”
“As you wish.” Matthew shouldered his bag once more and walked up the worn wooden stairs, paused at the door of the corner room, then pushed in, onto a large, braided oval rug. The room was large yet modest enough, dominated by a tall bed with a goosedown quilt and two pillows. A painting of an ancient mariner hung on one wall, and a smaller one of a pastoral scene of spotted Holstein cows in a field on another. There was a small fireplace in one wall, a desk and chair in one corner, and a large upholstered chair opposite. Between the two chairs was a tall dresser with six drawers, and a mirror. A wooden wardrobe occupied one of the corners. Two windows afforded a view of the intersection of Market Street and Thirteenth. Matthew parted the lacy curtains and peered down at both streets, then lifted his bag onto the bed and opened it to hang clothing in the wardrobe and lay shirts and linen in the dresser drawers, then set his papers on the desk. Finished, he took razor and soap to the washroom down the hallway, shaved and washed, and returned to the quiet confines of the room. He opened the Market Street window halfway and went back to sit on the bed to unbuckle his shoes and put them on the floor next to the nightstand with the lamp. He sat for several moments, working his stockinged feet against the texture of the braided rug, feeling his muscles and his brain beginning to let go of the tensions that had ridden him heavy for over thirty-six sleepless hours. Weariness came, and he swung his legs up onto the bed and laid back against the pillows, then turned on his side, and drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Too soon the knocking came and he slowly came from a world of black, thoughtless silence to a world where Mother Asher was calling, “Mr. Dunson! Mr. Dunson! Dinner is served in ten minutes.” He licked at dry lips and tried to speak and could not, then forced it and croaked, “Thank you, Mrs. Asher, I’ll be down,” and heard the reply, “Mother Asher.” He waited his turn at the washroom, rinsed his face in cold water, smoothed his long hair and re-tied it behind his head, and went back to his room to change into fresh clothing.
There were ten at the midday meal. Two elderly married couples along one side of the table, a dour, thin, hatchet-faced, hunch-shouldered widower with a cane and a limp at one end, Matthew and three other men facing the couples, and a quiet, timid woman with a nervous twitch in one eye at the other end. Mother Asher made introductions, and each nodded as their name was called. The timid woman at one end flushed red and diverted her eyes when her name—Maude Chidester—was called, and the elderly man at the other end of the table sat expressionless as his name was given—Ira Bouchard. They all bowed their heads while one of the married men said grace, and the meal began. The soup was heavy with chunks of beef and carrots and potatoes, the bread was sliced thick, the home-churned butter was rich, and the tarts sweet and light. Talk was at first hesitant, then more generous as strangers became acquainted. They finished their meal, paid their compliments to Mother Asher, excused themselves, and left the dining room. Matthew followed one of the elderly couples upstairs and entered his own room.
At ten minutes past two o’clock, he walked back downstairs where Mother Asher was finishing the washing and drying of the dinner dishes.
“Is there a church nearby? Perhaps one you attend?”
“You wish to attend services?”
“If I can.”
“I’m going to attend the three o’clock service. Lasts one hour. Reverend Becker—Augustus Becker—a Presbyterian—preaches so well. You’ll come with me.”
The small white church with the traditional belled steeple was three blocks distant, and Mother Asher was puffing when they walked through the doors and took a place in one of the front pews. The Reverend Becker, a ponderous man in a black robe, with a booming voice, made it clear that when Jehovah gave Moses those ten very succinct commandments cut in stone on Mount Sinai, he meant exactly what he had said. The human race was to have no other gods before him! And those who spent their lives, their talents, their ambitions, their substance, seeking wealth, fame, and fortune, were without question worshipping gods other than Jehovah, and woe be unto them in the day of final judgment. On that day they would receive their just rewards: suffering the fires of the eternal pit!
Mother Asher hooked her arm inside Matthew’s for the walk back to the boardinghouse, rehearsing for him the entire sermon, expanding on it considerably with her own observations, comments, and wisdom. They entered the boardinghouse, where she thanked Matthew for escorting her and excused herself. She had supper to prepare.
Matthew walked upstairs to his room, hung his coat, slipped out of his shoes, opened the windows, and for a moment peered down at the street while a breeze moved the curtains and stirred the stale air. Then he took his place at his desk, and for more than an hour reviewed notes and documents, reading again and again the background and history of the seventy-four men who had been commissioned by the thirteen states to attend the convention that was to begin the next morning at the Statehouse. Once again he felt the grab in the pit of his stomach at the realization that close to ten of them had already stated their refusal to waste the states’ money and their time in such a hopeless attempt to do what could not be done. Would there be others? Would the convention fail for lack of a quorum? Would it?
He drew a deep breath and scanned his notes on the men, their similarities, di
fferences, characters, professions, education, public service histories. Thirty-nine of them had already served in the Confederation Congress. Eight had been signers of the Declaration of Independence. Eight had been instrumental in forming and drafting the Constitutions of their own states. Five had attended the Annapolis Convention in September of 1786. Seven had been governors of their states. Twenty-one had borne arms in battle to win their freedom from Britain.
Not less than thirty-three had been lawyers. Ten had served as state judges. Eight were engaged in business, most of them mercantile. Six were planters—large land owners. Three were physicians. About half were college graduates, nine from Princeton. Others had attended Yale, Harvard, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, and William and Mary College.
Six of the men were under thirty-one years of age. Only twelve were over fifty-four years: Read, Washington, Blair, Dickinson, Carroll, Johnson, Wythe, Mason, Livingston, Jenifer, Sherman, and Franklin. Benjamin Franklin. Eighty-one years of age. The Dean of them all. What would his contribution be?
In thoughtful silence Matthew slowly went over the names of those he had listed as the obvious leaders: Washington, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, Randolph, King, Sherman, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, Dickinson, Mason, Wythe, Gerry, Rutledge, and the two Pinckneys from South Carolina. Would there be others? Strange things happen in the heat of debate. Quiet men sometimes become warriors. Who would they be?
He paused at the remembrance of the sharp criticism Elbridge Gerry and Rufus King had loudly and publicly made of the very idea of a Grand Convention when it was first proposed in 1785. Their writing appeared in every major newspaper in the states:
“Plans have been artfully laid and vigorously pursued which, had they been successful, we think would inevitably have changed our Republican Governments into baleful aristocracies. Those plans are frustrated, but the same spirit remains in their abettors. And the Institution of the Cincinnati, honourable and beneficent as the views may have been of the officers who compose it, we fear, if not totally abolished will have the same fatal tendency . . .”
Gerry and King of Massachusetts, always suspicious, seeing danger in all shadowy places, stood solid against any convention convened by anyone for any purpose, fearing that such gatherings were the breeding ground for men seeking power that would corrupt. And of all such gatherings they most feared the Society of Cincinnati. The Society had been established by General Henry Knox with the purpose of honoring those men who had served as officers in the Continental Army, such honor to be passed from father to son. Washington had been the unanimous choice for president of the Society, only to endure first subtle, then open criticism of the organization, or any organization, which tended toward creating an aristocracy by limiting membership to blood descendants. America had just beaten a country wherein the power of monarchy was by law conferred upon the eldest male descendant, regardless that the man might be a fool, an imbecile, or a despot. To suggest such a principle be allowed to spread its poison in America was beyond all toleration, and it made no difference that the purpose was to honor men who had earned it, or that the President of the Society was George Washington himself. Gerry and King had early and vigorously condemned the organization.
Then, by pure chance, the Society of the Cincinnati had set their annual gathering in Philadelphia for the same time as the convening of the Grand Convention, and Washington had excused himself from attending the Society’s convention, claiming, among other things, ill-health. All thoughtful men knew that if the Grand Convention were to succeed, it demanded the presence and the endorsement of George Washington and a deluge of letters poured in to his Mt. Vernon home, pleading for him to attend. Thus Washington found himself in the embarrassing position of having rejected the invitation to attend the convention of the Society of Cincinnati in Philadelphia in the second week in May, only to realize that all he had fought for in the past twelve years would be at stake in the Grand Convention, which was to be held in the same city at the same time. He could find no socially acceptable way out. Then a letter from James Madison brought him to his decision. Madison wrote:
“It was the opinion of every judicious friend whom I consulted, that your name could not be spared from the Deputation to the Meeting in May at Philadelphia . . .”
Washington ignored the social embarrassment and accepted the appointment of the State of Virginia and made arrangements to attend.
Matthew sat back in his chair and rounded his mouth and gently blew air as he pondered. It was true that since their publicly declared position against conventions in general and the Society of Cincinnati in 1785, both Gerry and King had been persuaded to modify their thinking about conferences sufficiently to accept a commission to represent Massachusetts at the Grand Convention. They would be here. But had they modified their thoughts about the Society of the Cincinnati? Would they attack George Washington for being president of that organization? Would they divide the convention? Matthew shook his head in frustration. Only time would tell.
He felt his mind begin to wander, and he straightened the papers and his ledger, stretched, rose, and went to the bed to take off his shoes. Within minutes he was asleep in the softness of the thick quilt, with rich smells of roasting ham and mince pie drifting up from Mother Asher’s kitchen and the soft murmur of people moving in the streets below. He was awakened by the rap at the door and looked at his watch on the nightstand, disbelieving he had slept for an hour.
After washing his hands and face in the washroom, he retied his tie, shrugged into his coat for Sunday dinner, and walked downstairs to greet the other guests as they gathered again around the dining table. Mother Asher came from the kitchen with a sugared ham steaming on a large platter, then made a hurried second trip to return with a heaping bowl of smoking mashed potatoes, then gravy, and condiments. On her nod they took their places, the long-faced bachelor at the end of the table growling out grace before they began. The ham was as good as any they had ever tasted, the potatoes fluffy, and the gravy rich and thick. The relishes and condiments were sweet, the bread warm from the oven. All talk stopped when Mother Asher brought out the warm mince pie, and the silence held while all ten guests slowly savored every mouthful. They pushed back from the table, laid their napkins beside their plates, groaned as they stood, thanked Mother Asher, and made their way from the dining room. Matthew remained for a moment.
“May I help clear the table? Do the dishes?”
She smiled as she shook her head vigorously. “Heavens, no. That’s for me to do. You go back—”
She got no further. The thunder of cannon less than one mile away was followed by the faint rattling of the windows and the floor vibrations as the concussion waves passed. Instantly the ringing of bells in church steeples filled the air, and seconds later a second volley of cannon blasts came rolling. Matthew stopped dead still and turned inquiring eyes toward Mother Asher. She stood white-faced, wide-eyed, one hand clasped over her mouth, trembling. Matthew was moving toward the door when he asked, “Any idea what that is?”
Mother Asher could only shake her head.
“Stay here,” Matthew exclaimed. “Tell the others not to leave—do not go out into the streets.”
Mother Asher bobbed her head, and Matthew bolted out of the kitchen, through the front door and turned onto Market Street sprinting east, back toward the waterfront. He slowed at the roar of the third cannon volley and the pandemonium of the bells, then ran on. People opened their doors and stood staring down the street, hesitant, fearful, confused. Some came through their white picket gates to peer toward the rising tumult. Matthew had passed Ninth Street when he saw the mob filling the street, and then he saw the white haze of burned gunpowder in the evening sunlight and the clear blue of the sky, and then he heard the shouts and cheering from the people. He slowed to a trot, and went on, working his way through the crowd until he broke into the open at the intersection of Market and Third Street, and only then could he see, more than two blocks away, the grea
t, open carriage drawn by four matched gray geldings, under escort of a large troop of uniformed Philadelphia City Light Dragoon Cavalry led by Colonel Henry Miles. Beyond the prancing horses Matthew could see twelve cannon aligned on each side of the street, wisps of white smoke still drifting from the muzzles. Shouting, cheering people jammed the sidewalks and the street, opening to allow a dark, brass-studded, burnished carriage to pass. The tall figure in the forward-facing seat sat ramrod straight, nodding acknowledgement and waving first to the pressing crowd on one side of the street, then the other. Beside him sat a fleshy man, and in the seat facing them sat uniformed generals with the gold stars on their shoulder epaulets glinting in the sun low in the west. Matthew was still one hundred yards from the carriage and the cavalry escort, when he caught his breath in recognition.
Citizen George Washington had arrived from Chester for the Grand Convention, and the Philadelphians had opened their city and their hearts to him with a cannonade salute and a company of cavalry as an honorary escort. Seated beside Washington was Robert Morris, the richest man in America, and the financial wizard who had used every device his genius could create, including much of his own fortune, to amass enough money to save the revolution from failure. Matthew stepped from the street onto the cobblestone sidewalk to wait and watch as the coach came steadily on, moving west on Market Street, with the cheering crowd jostling to get a glimpse of Washington. Matthew moved back, further from the street to let the leading edge of the crowd pass, and watched closely as the coach and the cavalry escort clattered by, peering intently at Washington to see what time and the crushing burden of the war and the terrible crises of the peace had done to the man he remembered from their meeting those many years ago. The setting sun caught the Roman nose that dominated, and Matthew saw the deepening lines in the face. The head was still high, proud, and the shoulders square. The brows were slightly more shaggy, but the blue-gray eyes were as they had always been, dominant, probing, penetrating, commanding. Matthew watched the coach pass and stood still to let the crowd go by, then turned to walk behind, following them up Market Street.