Samuel Adams and his friends were opposed to the idea, but suddenly Mr. Peter Faneuil sent a message to Samuel that made him smile and change his mind. The meeting closed, and the day was carried for Mr. Peter Faneuil. He was to build his hall just as he wished, and give it to Boston.
Every one watched it with great excitement. It looks a low, humble enough building now, but it seemed quite huge to old Boston. The people who had been opposed to it grew to like it when they realized how much they had needed a market. The magistrates and other officers of the town found that they could hold their meetings quite as well over the market as downstairs. They could come down and help their good wives carry home the day’s dinner when they had finished with more weighty matters.
Every one liked the weathervane. It could be seen for a long distance on land or sea, and its arrow never failed to fly north, south, east, or west. At first all Boston was puzzled by the figure on the top of the weathervane. It was different from any that they had ever seen. Persons came from a distance by stage-coach to see it. It shone and glittered in the sunlight.
“Who wrought it?” the people of Boston asked, and when they found out, the maker was acclaimed as almost a hero.
Patient old Deacon Drowne! He lived long enough to look up through his spectacles and see his great copper grasshopper perched on top of the weathervane of Faneuil Hall.
The grasshopper is there to-day. It has been on Faneuil Hall since 1742. It saw the Boston Tea Party, and heard the shots of the Lexington farmers. It heard the hoof beats of Paul Revere’s horse, and the splash of the oars of the British troops, rowing into Boston Harbor. It watched battle and ruin, and then saw the coming of peace and plenty again.
Thousands of storms have beaten against its copper wings and legs, but the good workmanship of the old smith has helped the grasshopper to stand them all. It has been replated and strengthened in places, but the main part of the figure remains just as Deacon Drowne made it, an emblem of the humble, but preserved for almost two centuries in beautiful workmanship.
[Patience Arnold’s Sampler]
“Count your threads, Patience, child. You will do well to give better heed to your sewing than to the window. Methinks your eyes have been following the garden path over often the last half hour, and your work has suffered the while.