~ First In The East ~

by

W. J. Calabrese

One

 Friday, October 30, 1789

In compact Newburyport, only two miles long and half a mile wide, it was a rare holiday. Commerce, only beginning to quicken after a long and costly war, had yielded for this one day and the farthest corners of the town had emptied in honor of the occasion. From the ships at the docks and from those nodding at anchor in the muddy Merrimac, the sailors came, climbing down from the masts like some long-legged tribe of monkeys. Their captains followed at a dignified distance, carefully brushing the snuff spots from their blue coats. From dusty counting houses the merchants emerged, certain trade would suffer in their absence, but obliged to take their rightful places, regardless of the cost. The sundry forges, boatyards, ropewalks, sail lofts, cooperages, and other places of productive and sweaty labor gave up artisans and apprentices, faces new scrubbed.

The sun shone down like a newly struck gold coin from a cloudless sky. It was a fine day as if, mindful of the expected coming of the President, it did not dare to be otherwise.

Without a doubt, the entire town was assembled along the borders of High Street. It was up this avenue he would come, from the lower green in Newbury, and heads kept inclining that way, eager to claim the first sight of him. But all that could be seen at that moment was an old, sway-backed donkey, almost too thin to cast a shadow, nibbling stray blades of grass out of the hard-packed dust of the road. Certainly not one of the President’s company but--as a dour farmer with anti-Federalist leanings observed--possibly a member of Congress.

The scholars of Newburyport and Newbury, rivalries put aside for this one day, stood in disorderly ranks, using the quill pens they carried as a badge of their station to jab each other when the attention of their schoolmasters was elsewhere.

Patrick Tracy stood in the midst of the scholars and wished he were someplace else. Nervously, he brushed at the hank of black hair that defied combings to drape itself across his brow.

He glanced at his cousin, Hal Jackson, who stood beside him, regarding the horseplay of the other boys with a mocking half smile. Patrick Tracy admired his cousin more than he would ever admit. Hal had all the characteristics Patrick would wish for himself. Hal was fair; Patrick was dark. Hal was tall and slim; Patrick was solid and short; Hal was cool and controlled; Patrick was quick tempered and impulsive. Hal never seemed to have a moment of self-doubt, which was certainly not true of Patrick. Most of all Patrick envied the fact that on his fifteenth birthday, only a few days away, Hal would be apprenticed to William Bartlet, Newburyport’s richest merchant and shipowner.

Patrick shuffled his feet and squinted up at the sun, which had reached its zenith more than two hours ago and was now descending. "How much longer do we have to wait?"

Hal shrugged. "Not much longer. Father said they should be at the Parker River Bridge by three o’clock."

Hal’s father, Jonathan Jackson, was part of the delegation that had gone to meet the new president at Ipswich. The Jacksons, Patrick reflected with annoyance, were quick to remind people of his recent appointment as United States Marshall for Essex County, regarding it as a bit of face-saving after the long decline of their fortunes since the war. Not so long and not so deep as the decline in his own family’s fortunes, Patrick reflected bitterly.

"Too bad your father couldn’t be here."

Patrick glanced up sharply, prepared to be offended if there was a hint of mockery in his cousin’s expression. But this time he could detect none.

Although Nathaniel Tracy had been in poor health for the last few months, Patrick wondered if something more than ill health kept him at home today in his farmhouse in Newbury. Was it pride, perhaps? Or shame?

"It’s not like we’ve never seen General Washington before," Patrick commented, thinking of all the great and near-great men who had come to consult with his father in earlier, better times --Governor Hancock, Colonel Hamilton, the Frenchman, Lafayette...

Patrick envisioned the route the Presidential procession was scheduled to take. Up High Street, with a right turn down State, and then halfway down the hill toward the River and to the large brick mansion where the President would sleep that night. Everyone still called it "The Tracy House," although the Tracys could no longer afford to live there.

Patrick’s father was no longer master of that house. He no longer even visited it. In fact, it was only through the forbearance of his creditors that he still held title. The Jacksons, not the Tracys, lived there now. Jonathan Jackson, who was Nathaniel Tracy’s brother-in-law and former business partner, was renting it. Patrick knew the rental arrangement made it possible for his father to cling to ownership, and it also freed the Jacksons from the expensive upkeep of their larger house on High Street, but the realization did not deflect a splinter of resentment. It was hard for him to accept that someone else--Hal it was--now slept in that second floor bedroom from the window of which Patrick had often looked out upon the town of Newburyport like a young prince surveying a kingdom he would someday inherit.

A nudge from Hal again brought Patrick back to the present. "There’s old Dexter. I wonder who invited him."

At the edge of the crowd across the street, stood a slight, middle-aged man with a weathered face, a pointed nose, and a wide, flat mouth that resembled a frog’s. His clothes were threadbare and patched, and a tricorn hat, a size too large, descended about his ears. He was in nervous motion, as always, hopping from one spindly leg to the other, and his broad lips moving in constant chatter. As usual, nobody seemed to be paying him the slightest bit of attention.

"He looks like our rooster the time we fed it the rum," Hal said.

Patrick laughed. "Biggest thing to happen to Dexter since he was appointed Informer of Deer."

Everyone knew Timothy Dexter, the tanner, and how determined he was to raise himself to a higher station. Like a fly pestering a horse, Dexter had subjected the Selectmen to petition after petition that he be considered for public office. Because of Dexter’s poor handwriting and his tenuous grasp on the arts of spelling and grammar, these petitions were virtually incomprehensible, although their sheer weight accumulated, ounce by ounce. Perhaps the Selectmen had grown tired of trying to decode them. Whatever the reason, in an act combining desperation with sarcasm, they resurrected the title of Informer of Deer and bestowed it upon Dexter. The incumbent took up this office with great pride, despite the fact that no deer had been seen within the town limits of Newburyport for years.

Thinking of Dexter’s aspirations reminded Patrick of his own. "Do you think Bartlet would take me as an apprentice, too?"

Hal glanced at him in surprise at the change in subject, and then replied with a trace of smugness. "You’re not old enough, for one thing. You’ll have to wait until you’re fifteen like me. Besides, your father is set on you being a lawyer."

"I don’t want to be a lawyer," Patrick snapped. It took too long, and it cost twenty pounds a year to go to Harvard. It was money his family did not have, despite his father’s insistence it could be found.

"Bartlet has enough apprentices, anyway," Hal said, "and two sons besides. When you get old enough you’ll have to find somebody else to apprentice to--maybe Moses Brown. He’s as rich as Bartlet, they say."

"I’ll find somebody," Patrick replied. "I mean to go into the mercantile trade. I’ll start as supercargo and pretty soon I’ll be Captain of my own ship. Someday I’ll own a bunch of ships, just like my father did and my grandfather before him."

"So you’ve told me a hundred times," snorted Hal, who, Patrick knew, harbored the very same dream. "If you ask me, being a lawyer’s easier. You don’t have to worry about getting seasick."

"The Tracys have always made their fortunes from the sea."

"Same as most every family in Newburyport. Besides, your father lost his fortune in the sea," Hal said. "And mine did too," he added quickly.

Patrick glared at him. "I’ll make that fortune back. And when I do, nobody is going to take it away again! Someday I will get back all the money, I’ll pay the debtors and buy back all the lost properties. The Tracys will be rich again!"

A harsh laugh came from behind him. "Maybe you’ll find a buried treasure down a privy hole."

The voice was all too familiar. Patrick swung around to face a large boy with an unpleasant expression on his red, sweaty face. He was an untidy sight, his clothes rumpled and stained, his socks hanging limply around his lumpy calves, and the belly that bulged over the straining waistband of his breeches showed the results of too many sweetmeats.

"Or maybe your mother will open an oyster and find a pearl." The boy emitted another braying laugh.

"Somebody left the barnyard gate open," Hal sighed, "and Fat Sam Dexter came waddling out."

Sam Dexter’s moon face got even redder. "My father says your fathers are a couple of bankrups!"

Patrick’s hands balled into fists. "Your father is an idiot! Everybody in town says so!"

"Least he’s smart enough to hold onto his money!"

Patrick moved purposefully toward Sam. "I’ll close both your eyes for you."

Sam backed up a step or two. "Like to see ya try it!" His complexion had lost a bit of its color and he glanced about nervously. The attention of the other boys nearby had been captured by the exchange and they looked on with mild interest, perhaps hoping for a bit of bloodshed to further spice the day. There were a few whispers and a few sniggers. Patrick knew none of these boys would choose sides, but most of them would enjoy anything unpleasant that happened to Sam Dexter.

"Schoolmaster is way over there, Fat Sam," Patrick said, "so you can’t tell on us like you usually do--not in time to do you any good, leastwise."

Hal stretched to see over the crowd. "He’s in a real sincere conversation with Widow Winthrop. Nothing’s likely to take his attention away from that, even a murder."

"I’ll tell," said Sam. "You’ll both get a lickin’ for sure!"

"We’ve already had a wagonload of lickin’s because of your lying mouth." Patrick told him, "and we remember every lick!"

"I’ll tell." Sam’s voice was a little weaker this time.

"Can’t tell if you can’t talk, Fat Sam," Hal advised him with a friendly smile. "Course, if you were to say ‘oink, oink’... Shouldn’t be too hard for you. Should come out real natural."

"Real loud, so everybody can hear?" Patrick asked, falling into the spirit of the thing. "That might make a difference."

"Won’t do nothin’ of the kind!" Sam exclaimed, thrusting red-knuckled fists up in front of his face in a fighting stance.

Patrick knew that Sam would not fight him. He was known to have an almost religious conviction against confronting a force even close to being equal to his own.

Sam backed up another step, bumping against the line of boys behind him. Unfortunately, among these boys were some who had suffered quite recently as the result of Sam’s tale telling and so Sam quickly rebounded toward the center of the circle that had formed around him and his two adversaries.

"Say oink, oink, Fat Sam."

Sam’s small eyes began to blink rapidly. "I ain’t no pig!"

"Matter of opinion," Hal replied. "Say oink, oink."

"Won’t!"

Hal moved closer. "I sure would, if I were you."

"I’ll get you for this! See if I don’t!"

"Say oink, oink, before we carve you up for pork chops."

Sam darted a glance over his shoulder. The circle had tightened, leaving no escape route, at least not for someone of his bulk. He took a deep breath but nothing came out.

Patrick and Hal continued to advance, fists clenched.

"Oink, oink," Sam Dexter said in a choked voice.

"Louder,’ Patrick told him, "they can’t hear you in the back."

"Oink, oink," Sam said, his voice becoming both louder and more high-pitched.

There was laughter, and echoes of "oink, oink."

Sam stood with his head lowered. His eyes shifted in search of an avenue of escape. At that moment, there was a murmur from the crowd and the circle around him disintegrated as the boys turned to discover what the fuss was about.

A single rider approached, his horse raising bursts of dust. Flush-faced, the rider drew to a halt with a suddenness that almost upset both him and his wide-eyed steed.

"He’s acomin’!" the rider exclaimed, waving his hat in the air. "The President’s acomin’. Just a few minutes behind me!"

The news caused a furious stir. Patrick and Hal found themselves being herded by the anxious schoolmaster--Widow Winslow’s blue eyes forgotten for the moment--into a ragged line of other scholars.

Sam Dexter was nowhere in sight.