“Most people only buy a copy because they’re afraid someone might accuse them of being a Tory,” Anna said. Her eyes narrowed as she gauged how best to wound Marcus with her words. “Your cousin bought one. Just before he fled.”
Cousin Josiah had been suspected of harboring loyalist feelings, and the citizens of Amherst had run him out of town. Marcus’s mother had wept for nearly a week at the family’s disgrace and refused to show her face at meeting.
“I’m no Tory.” Marcus’s cheeks burned with shame and he moved toward the door.
“It’s a good thing you have Mr. Paine’s pamphlet, then. You know how people talk.” Anna looked disapproving, as though she were not one of Hadley’s finest gossips.
“Good day, Anna,” Marcus said, taking the time to make a proper bow in her direction before he headed into the August afternoon.
When Marcus reached the turn toward home, his feet stilled. His plan had been to go to the farm and hide his copy of Thomas Paine in the grain hopper. It was his job to feed the livestock, and for years Marcus had kept his treasures buried where his father wouldn’t be likely to find them. These prized possessions included the gun he’d taken off the dead New Hampshire soldier at Bunker Hill, his precious collection of newspapers, the medical books Tom Buckland had loaned him, and a small pouch of coins.
Each item was a piece of his future freedom—or so Marcus hoped. He planned to run away to join the army at the first opportunity. But if what Anna told him was true, and the army wasn’t taking anyone who could contract smallpox, then Marcus might be turned away the moment he arrived.
Marcus reached into his pocket and found the spool of red thread he’d been carrying around ever since he heard that Zeb was back from the war. He weighed it in his hand, considering his options.
There was no more farm work at present. It would be a few weeks until the next round of crops was ready to be harvested.
His mother and Patience were in good health, with plenty of food in the larder.
His father went to Springfield with the wagon to sell some wood two days ago. Nobody knew what had happened to him, but Marcus suspected Obadiah was spending the proceeds at every tavern between there and Hadley. It might be weeks before he returned.
With his pamphlet in one pocket and his spool of linen thread in the other, Marcus set off across the river to Hatfield.
The Marsh homestead was rickety to the point of collapse, set in fields that hadn’t seen a plow for years. Inside, sunshine slanted through the gaps in the rough timber walls and around the empty window frames. The glass panes had long since disappeared, along with the door latch and anything else of value.
Marcus pushed the door open and located his friend in the gloom. Based on the appearance of the shivering form on the bed, Zeb’s chance of survival wasn’t great.
“You don’t look good, Zeb.”
“See. Please.” The skin around Zeb’s s mouth had erupted in pox blisters that had burst and then crusted over, making speech difficult.
Marcus pulled out his hunting knife and shined the blade on the hem of his shirt. “Are you sure?”
Zeb nodded.
Marcus held the knife up to Zeb’s face. Hopefully, it was too small to give his friend a sense of what smallpox had done to disfigure him.
“‘Nuff.” Zeb’s hair was gone, and his scalp covered with sores. But it was the soles of Zeb’s feet that Marcus couldn’t bear to look at. Oozing and raw, they were covered with maggots that feasted on the dying flesh.
The door opened, flooding the room with sunlight. Zeb made an inhuman sound and turned his fevered eyes away.
“Morning, Zeb. I’ve brought food and water, as well as—what the hell are you doing here?” Thomas Buckland looked at Marcus in horror.
Marcus held up his spool of thread. “I figure I might as well get inoculated.”
“You know what the people of Hadley think of that.” The town fathers didn’t approve of this newfangled craze. If God wanted you to get smallpox, then you took it like a good Christian, suffered, and died.
“It’s not against the law. Not anymore,” Marcus replied. “The legislature lifted the ban. Everybody’s doing it.”
“Maybe in Boston, but not in Hadley. And not with an infected Negro.” Buckland took some powder out of his box and mixed it with water to form a paste.
“You think if I catch the disease from Zeb it’s going to darken my complexion?” Marcus was amused. “I don’t remember reading that blackness is contagious in those medical books you gave me.”