Harvard Yard by William Martin Read Free Book Online Page B

coughed again. “But I have no children.”
    “No, John. No, you don’t.”
    It seemed to Isaac that Nathaniel Eaton was all but salivating as the direction of Harvard’s words came clear.
    “So the other half,” said Harvard, “some eight hundred pounds’ worth, I give to the college.”
    “Eight hundred,” whispered Eaton with awe. “Why . . . that’s twice what the Great and General Court give to start the school. You’ll never be forgot for this, John.”
    “Let Isaac and all his brethren and all their descendants remember me. Let them be my heirs.” John Harvard shifted his eyes to Elder Nowell.
    “I shall be the witness,” said Nowell.
    Eaton and Isaac restrained themselves, though for different reasons, until they had left Harvard’s home and gone halfway down Windmill Hill.
    Isaac fought the impulse to run off and seek comfort at his mother’s house. But he could not fight the sob that burst from his chest or the tears that finally came.
    Eaton, on the other hand, seemed unable to stop a pleased expression from becoming a smile, which grew into a grin. “Come, lad. You’ve known for months that he was dyin’. ’Tis a mercy.”
    “’Tis hard, still, sir.”
    “You lose a friend, Isaac, but our lives as scholars are assured. I planted this seed in Harvard’s mind when I saw how sick he was.” Eaton mounted his horse. “Books be a rare flower in this land, but money be the blossom that bears fruit we can eat.”
    Isaac realized that Eaton had not hurried to Harvard’s bedside out of anything but self-interest. And he had gotten there in good time, for two days later, on September 14, John Harvard died of the consumption. He was thirty years old.

iii
    All through that glorious autumn and bitterly cold winter, Nathaniel Eaton continued to teach his students, and to beat them, and to beat his servants and his children, and perhaps his wife, too, all in the name of Christian knowledge and obedience.
    Isaac Wedge grew inured to the beatings and learned to remove the pain from his mind. Whether receiving a rap on his knuckles for an incorrect response, or a caning across his back for some greater transgression, he would think on higher things, on the Passion of Christ, on the gifts of Master Harvard, and on the beauty of a girl named Katharine Nicholson, who appeared to him as out of a vision one brilliant January day.
    Isaac was returning from Reverend Shepard’s when the Nicholson sleigh stopped in front of Peyntree House, and Isaac was smitten straightaway by a bright smile, milk-white skin, delft-blue eyes, and strong black brow. The whiteness of the day served only to complement her coloring, and if winter could enhance her so, he wondered, what would summer do?
    “Good afternoon,” said her father. “Be this the home of the new college?”
    “Yes, sir. I’m a student. My name is Isaac Wedge.”
    “And we be the Nicholsons,” said the father.
    “The family of James?” asked Isaac. “James Nicholson of Boston?”
    “Do you know him?” she asked.
    And Isaac found that months of recitation under the threat of Eaton’s rod made it easy to find words before a beautiful girl. “Miss, there be only ten of us. We are all acquaintances, and I’m pleased to say we are all friends.”
    He wished for more talk, but Eaton appeared now in the doorway, and Isaac, knowing his place, excused himself with a polite bow.
    The Nicholsons bore gifts of food—ten packages for ten young men who had eaten too little beef and too much spoiled fish at the School of Tyrannus. Each package contained molasses cakes, hardtack, a small round of cheese, and a jar of pickled oysters.
    Eaton did not object to their distribution, since the Nicholsons brought a larger basket of food for the master and his wife. He did, however, object to the attention that several of the boys paid to Master Nicholson’s daughter.
    “This be a godly school,” he shouted after the Nicholsons had left. “I will not have any of