She is cared for by your
friends in town, and prefers that you remain until the winter comes,
rather than venture back to be thrown into prison."
"You say she is cared for?"
"Master McCleary attends to it that she wants for nothing. She is now with
his mother; the crops have been harvested, and there is no longer reason
why anyone should stay on the farm. There have been brave doings in town
since you left, and unless the Sons of Liberty are all imprisoned, it
looks as if we might some day be freed from the heavy burden of taxes."
"Tell me everything!" and Walter threw himself on the ground in front of
the camp, looking positively happy, now he had been assured his mother did
not suffer because of his absence.
"In the first place, the New Hampshire Gazette appeared with a heavy
mourning border on the day before the Stamp Act was to go into effect, and
Master McCleary read aloud to the people on the street the article calling
upon those who would be free men to resist this most unjust tax. If so
many of the best citizens had not been abroad that night, I believe the
Governor would have called the guards out; but there were too many
prominent men mingled with the throng to make such a proceeding safe or
possible. On the first day of November the church bells were tolled, as if
for a funeral, and when a large crowd had gathered near Samuel Leavitt's
store, a figure called the Goddess of Liberty was brought out on a bier,
with Thomas Pickering, John Jones, Jotham Lewis and Nehemiah Yartridge
acting as pall-bearers.
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