rum in the tavern, then sending them out to so abuse the soldiers it would try the patience of Job. And so forth.
After supper Jane’s father took Phinnie and his rum and disappeared into his office, where no doubt the details of mill and tannery and house would be laid down. Mehitable and Bethiah herded the children up the stairs to their beds, leaving Jane to the clearing up, but as soon as the family had disappeared from the keeping room Jane sat back down and picked up the Gazette her father had left on the table; long ago Jane had learned that this was where she might find the words that had been missing from her father’s ledgers.
The first newspaper story she encountered told of another attack on an importer, and as Jane read she found she agreed with her father’s opinion on the matter. The Townshend Act had levied new taxes on paper, paint, glass, and tea the previous year, and the old ban on importing British goods had been resurrected in hope of forcing their repeal, but there were still some importers and businessmen who didn’t think this the way to proceed, and Jane’s father was among them. As for Jane, she could not understand how a man could talk liberty out of one side of his mouth and then brand another man’s free choice to import a little tea or cloth as tyranny. And these very men who broke into merchants’ shops, threatening tarring and feathering, were the reason the offending king’s troops had been sent to Boston in the first place.
But Jane found the next series of stories more troubling.
A Woman at the North End entered a Complaint against a Soldier, and some others for a violent Attempt upon her, but a Rape was prevented, by the timely Appearance of a Number of Persons, for Protection . . .
A Country Butcher, who frequents the Market, having been in discourse with one Riley, a Grenadier of the 14th Regiment, who he said before abused him, thought proper to offer such verbal Resentment as led the Soldier to give him a Blow, which felled the Butcher to the Ground . . .
A Girl at New-Boston, was lately knocked down and abused by Soldiers for not consenting to their beastly proposals . . .
Were the stories true? Or were they, as her father said, naught but cheap propaganda? Jane went back to read the last few stories again, but somewhere in the middle of them she found herself thinking of Winslow’s horse. The same kind of man who would spread such a rumor over a small village was no doubt the same kind who would write lies for the newspaper if it served his purpose, the purpose being the same in each instance: to convince the populace that a terrible evil lurked among them. Having discovered a motive for a man to write a lie in the paper seemed closer to proving that lie, and yet the stories troubled her. Could so many acts so vividly recorded all be false?
Jane set down the paper, cleared and scoured the dishes, and had just swept up the floor when Bethiah returned to the keeping room. They took up their work baskets in expectation of the usual hour of mending, but they’d barely threaded their needles when Jane’s father emerged from his office with Phinnie behind him. He said, “Time for bed. Bethiah, come. Jane, you see our guest comfortable.” He barked out another laugh and pushed Bethiah up the stairs ahead of him.
PHINNIE SAID, “AH, JANE. What are you fussing at? Come.”
Jane left the lamp and crossed halfway to the bed where Phinnie lay atop the coverlet. He’d removed his boots, stockings, and jacket while Jane had fiddled with the smoky lamp; she could see little of him but the liquid shine of his eyes. He patted the bed tick beside him; Jane crossed the rest of the way and sat on its edge, but Phinnie reached up and pulled her down. Jane and Phinnie had lain clandestinely kissing on that bed after the rest of the house had retired before, but nothing beyond that; this time, with his intentions publicly declared, Jane suspected things might go