But right in the middle, Peter stopped.

“Come on.” Benedict pointed to the digital clock beside the little animated pedestrian on the traffic light. Fifteen seconds to cross…

fourteen … thirteen …

Peter was looking at a pair of brass plates embedded in the street and worn smooth by decades of traffic. “Do you know what those are, Tom?”

“What?” Ten … nine … eight…

“Corner bounds. They mark the foundation of Peyntree House, the first building at Harvard. It was discovered when they excavated the subway about 1910.”

Peter looked around … at the ten-story glass cube of Holyoke Center, glowing in the night… at Wadsworth House and the other old buildings … at the cars on Mass. Ave., all ready to run him over in just six … five … four… “Imagine what all this looked like, Tom. Imagine it on a summer’s day in 1638. That’s when the first of the Wedges would have seen it.”

 


 


Chapter Three

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1638-1639

 

 

ISAAC WEDGE first saw Cambridge on a glorious June morning from the back of a borrowed horse. He had said little on the journey, because the man with whom he rode had said even less.

That man was John Harvard, and he was dying. One needed only to look upon his consumed body to know his fate. But such knowledge was unspoken between the teaching elder of the Charlestown church and his best student, between a man with no children and a fatherless boy of sixteen.

It was not until they came to the gate at the end of the Charlestown Path that Harvard peered from under the brim of his hat and said, “You’ll not regret this, Isaac.”

“Thank you, master.” Isaac jumped down and opened the gate that led into the Cambridge Cow Commons. “I fear, however, that my Latin and Greek are — “

“More than adequate.” Harvard stifled a cough, but to those who spent time in his company, his coughing had become as common as his breathing, and the familiarity of it made it all but unnoticed.

The bloody flecks that splattered his neckcloth, however, could not be ignored.

“I fear the opinion of Master Eaton,” said Isaac.

“Fear not,” answered Harvard. “His writings, his family background, his work with Reverend Ames at Leyden—these have given the Great and General Court good cause to name him master of this new college. But for all his learning, you’ll find him a simple man in many ways, direct, blunt, and the better for it.”

They rode south across the Common, followed by the curious cows. They went through another gate and passed the watchhouse, which overlooked the place where the roads of the village converged. There were fifty solid dwellings between there and the river, all roofed in slate or shake, not a bit of thatch to be seen.

Only recently had the name of the settlement been changed from Newtowne, to honor the place where most of the learned men in the colony had studied, and to bestow upon this new Cambridge an air of importance commensurate with that of the old.

As for Isaac Wedge, he would have been happier to keep riding … right down to the river … and spend the day fishing. He could see the brown curl of water on the marshland to the south, and he was sorely tempted.

But Harvard was leading him up to the gate of a spacious twostory dwelling, one of a trio of houses on the south edge of the cow yards. This was the former home of a man named Peyntree and the new home of the college.

The morning sun raised wisps of steam on the wet roof. Diamondshaped panes of glass shimmered in the window casements. And a small cloud of dust puffed out the front door as a servant swept the foyer.

A clean house, thought Isaac, which meant it would be a godly house, which gave him hope for his prospects there.

But the morning peace was shattered by the cry of a woman.

“Damn your eyes!”

“No, ma’am!” came a male voice.

“You’ll not dig a finger in me stew again!”

“No, ma’am!” A blackamoor came tumbling out. “Put up the knife, ma’am.”

“I’ll put up the knife … up your poxy nose, you little black squint!” And out of the house burst a great barrel of a woman whose voice proclaimed her a fishwife but whose bonnet, fine dress, and starched ruff suggested she was better born.

“What’s all this, then?” A burly man with a black beard emerged after her, and the faces of several young men appeared in the windows of the upper chambers.

“Stealin’ food he is, Nathaniel,” said the woman.

“Well, we’ll put a stop to that.” The man slipped a bulrush rod from his belt.

And John Harvard said softly, “Good day, Master Eaton.”

It was plain that in their anger, the Eatons had not noticed the arrival of visitors. Mrs. Eaton slipped the knife back into her skirt.

And a grin opened in the hairy nest of Nathaniel Eaton’s beard.

“John Harvard. How fare thee?”

“Well, but for a small cough.”

Eaton turned his eyes to Isaac. “And who be this fine lad?”

Isaac was still staring at the rod in Eaton’s hand.

Eaton lowered it and said, “My rod and my staff, they’ll comfort thee, son. There be need for both in this life. But how often you see one or the other be up to you.”

“Isaac Wedge will need no rod,” said John Harvard. “He’s a fine lad. I’ve come to vouchsafe him to you and pay for his schooling.”

Harvard swung his leg carefully from the stirrup, as though he feared breaking were he to move too quickly.

“John, you’ve lost weight,” said Eaton. “How bad is your cough?”

“You’ll see before our business be done.” Harvard looked at the woman.