"Yes, to Mr. Samuel Adams' lady."
Poor John! he was so vexed that he ordered another canister and sent it by a surer hand. He bids his wife "send a card to Mrs. S. A., and let her know that the canister was intended for you, and she may send it you, if she chooses, as it was charged to me. It is amazingly dear; nothing less than forty shillings, lawful money, a pound."
Meantime Abigail was writing:
"The herbs you mention I never received. I was upon a visit to Mrs. S. Adams about a week after Mr. Garry returned, when she entertained me with a very fine dish of green tea. The scarcity of the article made me ask her where she got it. She replied that her sweetheart sent it to her by Mr. Garry. I said nothing, but thought my sweetheart might have been equally kind, considering the disease I was visited with, and that it was recommended as a bracer. A little after, you mentioned a couple of bundles sent. I supposed one of them might contain the article, but found they were letters. How Mr. Garry should make such a mistake I know not. I shall take the liberty of sending for what is left of it, though I suppose it is half gone, as it was very freely used. If you had mentioned a single word of it in your letter, I should have immediately found out the mistake."
Moral: Don't send "surprises" unless you are sure of the hand by which they are sent.
There are no letters between October, 1776, and January, 1777, which means that John Adams had a happy visit at home with his dear ones. A winter, too, of tremendous excitement, of breathless waiting for mails and despatches. We can see Mr. Adams in his arm chair, one January day, trying to read—let us say Xenophon! he would be good reading in those days—one eye on the book, the other out of window: Madam Abigail opposite, with Abby beside her, both at their tambour work.
"Isn't it time he was here?" says Mr. Adams for the tenth time; and he gets up and starts on parasangs of his own up and down the room. Madam Abigail probably suggests patience, after the manner of women, but she looks out of window just as often as he does.
At last! at last comes the clatter of hoofs. The post-rider (only nine years old, and he has ridden all the way from Boston!) is here. The gate clicks, and Master Johnny's legs come flying up the path. He is waving a paper over his head; I don't know who gets to the door first, but I seem to see the Head of the Family tearing the despatch open in unstatesmanlike haste.
On Christmas night, he reads, General Washington crossed the Delaware above Trenton, amid ice and snow, storm and tempest. He surprised the British camp, captured a thousand Hessians and carried them off with him to Pennsylvania.