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Authors: Ann Rinaldi
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home?"
"To what? Your sour-faced sister-in-law? I have friends here in the officers' wives. Might I stay and have the baby here, Nathanael?"
Again he kissed me. "It might be nice someday to tell the young man that he was born in Washington's encampment in Cambridge, while the British guns fired away in Boston."
Just then a shell from a thirteen-inch gun exploded and the very windows rattled. It was, at first, unnerving. And then, on second thought, it was as if God himself had given an answer to my question.
***
O UR BABY BOY , George Washington Greene, was born in the camp at Cambridge in late December. On the first day of January in 1776, I was up and about for a special event, the unfurling of a new flag of the American union at Cambridge.
Everyone gathered on the parade ground to see thirteen red and white stripes snapping in the wind, with united crosses of St. George and St. Thomas on a dark blue canton. Certainly it could be seen by the British garrisons in Boston and Charlestown as our cannon roared.
In early February, Nathanael was brought low by a sickness the camp doctors named as jaundice.
"I'm as yellow as saffron," he told me from his bed. "I am so weak, I can scarce walk across the room. I am grievously mortified by my confinement, as this is the critical period of the war. Should Boston fall, I intend to be there if I am able to sit on horseback."
"They will have to do without you for now, love," I told him.
But he recovered rapidly, in time to renew his friendship with Colonel Henry Knox, who had just arrived at camp.
Knox was a hero. And we had a party for him. He was the man who'd once been the bookseller in Boston whose shop Nathanael would frequently tarry at to talk of military tactics and, of course, politics.
In a feat of bravado that had people enraptured, Knox had gone on a three-hundred-mile wintertime trip to the captured forts of Crown Point and Ticonderoga, New York. He and his men had traveled over frozen lakes, the Berkshire Mountains, and impossibly high snows to bring back for the American army more than fifty cannon, mortars, and howitzers, and supplies of shells and powder.
Doing all this in late January had been a monumental task and had made it possible for Washington to fortify Dorchester Heights, surrounding British-occupied Boston. Now Washington's guns towered over Boston, bombarding it. The British would either have to be killed or get out.
At the party, I studied the Knoxes. Henry had recently wed.
He was portly. No, he was downright fat.
And she was as fat as he was. But there was something so sad about her that I immediately felt sorry, and I wound my way through the crowd until I found myself next to her, to start up a conversation.
"Aren't you proud of your husband?" I asked. "He's a hero."
Over a plate piled with food, she looked at me with lovely blue eyes filled, but not overflowing, with tears.
How can she keep the tears from falling?
I wondered.
How does she do that? Oh, if only I could learn to do that!
"Yes, I'm proud," she said. "But my mother and father are inside the city of Boston, which is even now being bombarded by the guns that my husband brought back for Washington."
For a moment her words made no sense to me. And I had none of my own to respond to them. Only a question, which I knew was intrusive.
"Why are your parents inside the city?"
"Because they are Tories," she answered straightforwardly. "My father is royal secretary to the province of Massachusetts. He never gave his approval to my courtship with Henry, because Henry was a patriot. When we wed, my father disowned me."
"Oh." I minded my own pa and how he'd blessed my union with Nathanael. And I thought,
Why is there always some sorrow attached to the joy and the pride that is given to us?
Later, when the British evacuated Boston, Lucy Knox told me that her parents had gotten out safely, and she thanked me for my friendship that first night, and for my concern. I had been such a
"To what? Your sour-faced sister-in-law? I have friends here in the officers' wives. Might I stay and have the baby here, Nathanael?"
Again he kissed me. "It might be nice someday to tell the young man that he was born in Washington's encampment in Cambridge, while the British guns fired away in Boston."
Just then a shell from a thirteen-inch gun exploded and the very windows rattled. It was, at first, unnerving. And then, on second thought, it was as if God himself had given an answer to my question.
***
O UR BABY BOY , George Washington Greene, was born in the camp at Cambridge in late December. On the first day of January in 1776, I was up and about for a special event, the unfurling of a new flag of the American union at Cambridge.
Everyone gathered on the parade ground to see thirteen red and white stripes snapping in the wind, with united crosses of St. George and St. Thomas on a dark blue canton. Certainly it could be seen by the British garrisons in Boston and Charlestown as our cannon roared.
In early February, Nathanael was brought low by a sickness the camp doctors named as jaundice.
"I'm as yellow as saffron," he told me from his bed. "I am so weak, I can scarce walk across the room. I am grievously mortified by my confinement, as this is the critical period of the war. Should Boston fall, I intend to be there if I am able to sit on horseback."
"They will have to do without you for now, love," I told him.
But he recovered rapidly, in time to renew his friendship with Colonel Henry Knox, who had just arrived at camp.
Knox was a hero. And we had a party for him. He was the man who'd once been the bookseller in Boston whose shop Nathanael would frequently tarry at to talk of military tactics and, of course, politics.
In a feat of bravado that had people enraptured, Knox had gone on a three-hundred-mile wintertime trip to the captured forts of Crown Point and Ticonderoga, New York. He and his men had traveled over frozen lakes, the Berkshire Mountains, and impossibly high snows to bring back for the American army more than fifty cannon, mortars, and howitzers, and supplies of shells and powder.
Doing all this in late January had been a monumental task and had made it possible for Washington to fortify Dorchester Heights, surrounding British-occupied Boston. Now Washington's guns towered over Boston, bombarding it. The British would either have to be killed or get out.
At the party, I studied the Knoxes. Henry had recently wed.
He was portly. No, he was downright fat.
And she was as fat as he was. But there was something so sad about her that I immediately felt sorry, and I wound my way through the crowd until I found myself next to her, to start up a conversation.
"Aren't you proud of your husband?" I asked. "He's a hero."
Over a plate piled with food, she looked at me with lovely blue eyes filled, but not overflowing, with tears.
How can she keep the tears from falling?
I wondered.
How does she do that? Oh, if only I could learn to do that!
"Yes, I'm proud," she said. "But my mother and father are inside the city of Boston, which is even now being bombarded by the guns that my husband brought back for Washington."
For a moment her words made no sense to me. And I had none of my own to respond to them. Only a question, which I knew was intrusive.
"Why are your parents inside the city?"
"Because they are Tories," she answered straightforwardly. "My father is royal secretary to the province of Massachusetts. He never gave his approval to my courtship with Henry, because Henry was a patriot. When we wed, my father disowned me."
"Oh." I minded my own pa and how he'd blessed my union with Nathanael. And I thought,
Why is there always some sorrow attached to the joy and the pride that is given to us?
Later, when the British evacuated Boston, Lucy Knox told me that her parents had gotten out safely, and she thanked me for my friendship that first night, and for my concern. I had been such a
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