“I’m not happy with your Latin today, Phillis. Tell me one reason why I should take you to the wharf.”
“Because you promised.”
“Did I, now? Tell me of it. I disremember.”
He was going to be vile. In almost three years I had become well acquainted with his moods. Times he was given to melancholy. And when the notion took him he could be surly, even mean.
“You said that if I made no more mention of being free, you would take me to the wharves whenever a ship arrived from the coast of Africa.”
“What kind of ship?”
He would have me say the word. “A slave ship.”
“And? Has one arrived, then?”
“The Belisarius is due this morning.” I took the latest copy of the Boston Post and turned to the page of marine news. “It’s listed under arrivals.”
“So you are reading the newspaper every day as I asked. And not only Scripture.”
“I read Scripture for your mama. The newspaper for you.”
“And what pleases you most, Phillis?”
“The newspaper,” I allowed.
My answer satisfied him. “Let’s go, then. But I still expect improvement in your Latin. You can do better than that with your translations of Virgil.”
Nathaniel drove the chaise himself. I think he did not want Prince to know we were going to the wharves for the arrival of a cargo of slaves.
I liked it when we went places together, just the two of us. And he always kept his promises. It was part of being a successful merchant, he said, to honor your agreements.
And he was a successful merchant now. More and more he was taking over his father’s interests. He had the respect of everyone in town. He was making money faster than he could spend it. Last summer he’d had a fountain put in his mother’s garden. She had always wanted one.
There were days we did not see him at all, he was so busy. On such days I sorely missed him. On such days Mrs. Wheatley stepped in, instructing me in Scripture. She was of a mind that a girl couldn’t know too much Scripture. Then, just as I felt mired in it, Nathaniel would stop home unexpectedly in the middle of the day, as he had just done. To check on my progress.
Hancock’s Wharf was crowded with nigras come to see the arrival of the slave ship. They came to see if anyone from home was aboard.
Nathaniel had promised me that if I saw anyone from home, he would purchase them. We had come once or twice before. But I never saw anyone.
The Boston nigras would stand bearing mute witness while the cargo was unloaded and the dirty, stunned wretches, some still in chains, were led to the warehouse.
“Why I indulge you in this, Phillis, I will never know,” Nathaniel said.
I was about to give a saucy reply. I had found that sauciness pleased him more than humility at times. But the words never got past my lips.
“Mr. Wheatley! Ho there, sir!”
A young man came running out of the Hancock countinghouse. “Message from Mr. John.”
Nathaniel read it, swore softly, then handed the young man a shilling. “Are the Hancocks all right?”
“Yes, sir. Mr. Thomas has the servants readying things to take his wife to the country. Miz Lydia, she’s in a awful tizzy. Says she won’t go unless he goes with her. So young John is staying to take care of things.”
“Thank you, my good man. Give the family my regards. I must get home.” And with that, Nathaniel turned the carriage so fast it near toppled over.
“Home? Nathaniel, what about the Belisarius?”
“We’re going home, Phillis. Now.”
“What’s happened?”
“Smallpox.”
Smallpox!
That word was as dreaded as the word fire in Boston. By the third week in February it had spread through town. Seven well-known families had it. The Glentwoods, the Flaggs, the Gylers, the Deans, the Jenningses, the Reveres, and the Hitchbournes.
I was not allowed out. Neither was Mary. Shoppes and markets were closed, but Nathaniel and his father went to their countinghouse. Business fell off. Carriages and carts rumbled outside in the streets as people fled town. The lieutenant governor adjourned the General Court. Everything was in a state of mayhem. And the Wheatleys were no different.
By the last week in February, the pesthouses were full. And it seemed as if every other house on our street flew a smallpox flag.
Aunt Cumsee sprinkled sulfur all over the house. It smelled horrible. Then she took to smoking a pipe and puffing smoke all over the place.
“Things can’t get much worse,” Mr. Wheatley said. We were taking our main meal—at two during the winter, because the light was better. “Isn’t the pox enough? Now we hear that Harvard Hall has burned down.”
“Things can and will get worse if we don’t get inoculated,” Nathaniel said.
“Inoculated?” Mrs. Wheatley dropped her spoon. “You heard what Reverend Sewall said about that. If God sent the pox to scourge His people, what He desired was not inoculation but repentance!”
“With all due respect for the good reverend, Mrs. Wheatley,” her husband said, “if God gave us the intelligence to discover inoculation, I am sure He wishes us to seize the remedy and use it.”
I had heard the Reverend Sewall’s passionate sermon. I shivered, knowing I was one of the sinners for whom God had visited the disease upon us.
I had taken too readily to the Koomi ways, too easily forgiven them for enslaving my people. I had fallen prey to their soft words, their riches, their gifts.
I had never repented for disobeying my mother and running off to meet with Obour that morning. My mother was dead because of it.
“We must pray,” Mrs. Wheatley was saying.
“We can do that better if we live than if we die,” her husband answered. “And apparently many others agree. They are pouring into town for inoculation.”
“The selectmen have agreed to let the inhabitants try it, Mother,” Nathaniel said carefully.
“But it’s dangerous!”
“What choice do we have, Mother?” he asked. “Boston fought against inoculation in the epidemic of twenty-one, but we are now ready. Dr. Sprague has agreed to come to the house and do it. He and Drs. Warren, Kast, Perkins, and Lloyd are wearying themselves to the bone, inoculating people all over town. Dr. Clark is doing it free for the poor.”
Of a sudden Mary gave a choking sob. “What about John?”
“Reverend Lathrop has already been inoculated, Mary,” Nathaniel told her. “He sent word to the countinghouse that he did it to give good example.”
“Then I can do no less,” Mary said.
“Brave girl,” Nathaniel told her.
Mary nodded, white faced.
“Then you have made arrangements?” his mother asked.
“Sprague comes tonight,” Nathaniel said.
At that moment we heard a yowl and a great crashing sound. It came from the kitchen. We got up and ran.
Aunt Cumsee lay on the floor. Sulie stood over her, screaming.
Prince, Nathaniel, and Mr. Wheatley lifted Aunt Cumsee to bed. By the end of the day we knew she had the pox.
Mr. Wheatley went to the selectmen for a flag to put out in front of our house. And a guard.
I went to my room and closed my door. I would not be inoculated. I was not afraid, no. It was more than that. God had sent the disease to scourge me. He wanted repentance! And now Aunt Cumsee was sick. I must repent and save her.