“Just listen to that wind outside,” said Aunt Martha; “that’s blustery enough too!”
The wind had been blustery and sharp for several days, and almost before the boys realized it winter had set in in dead earnest. And with the cold came increased suffering. Fuel was scarce, and the army had hard work getting it. But they did get it, nevertheless, and the way they went about it added another grievance to the long list that the townsfolk held against them. Buildings were torn down—usually they were the poorest structures, but not always—fences disappeared overnight, and gates that had creaked on their hinges one day were missing the next morning.
In December the town presented its most deplorable aspect. Hostile cannon glowered in position on hill and thoroughfare, and insolent soldiers such as Sergeant-Major Bluster and Private Snell sat about hearthstones where once happy families had been wont to gather. Food as well as fuel was extremely scarce, and prices were so high that more than one person was driven to steal. Faneuil Hall had been turned into a playhouse for the amusement of the Redcoats, and in it the fine spirit of the people, their intense desire for peace and liberty and fair treatment, were turned into ridicule. Even when snow fell and covered the suffering town in a soft white blanket, and few soldiers were on the streets to jostle and mock pedestrians, the guns on Beacon Hill boomed forth as if to remind them that Howe and the King’s troops still held sway.
Hundreds of persons, too poor longer to support themselves, had obtained Howe’s permission to depart in boats to Point Shirley, whence they made their way into the country—homeless, penniless and miserable. But still Aunt Martha’s will would not allow her to yield. “No—no,” she declared more than once, “I’ll not go! The good Lord knows how I long to be with David, but I know that he is being well cared for. Glen gave me his word, and he is a man I’d trust to the ends of the earth.”
Mrs. Lancaster, who happened to be calling, only shook her head.
“Yes, I know you think I’m stubborn,” Don’s aunt continued. “Perhaps I am, but I intend to remain right here in my own home, and that’s an end of it.”
One day in January, Don and Jud went to Aunt Martha with a request that Don be permitted, as Jud said, to “go some place” the following evening.
“Where do you want to go, Don?” she asked.
“Down to Faneuil Hall,” Don said quickly. “There’s something or other going on there, and we’d like to see it.”
“There’ll be music,” added Jud.