Chapter One July 18 1776 On the day the Declaration of Independence was read in Boston the air was hot and humid Jonathan Stone loosened his collar making room against his skin for whatever breeze might stir and cool him off He was harvesting wild strawberries in the garden behind the small house he shared with his mother The strawberry plants were his pride and joy and if he waited any longer to pick the tender red fruit he risked losing them entirely The days were hot and although he watered the plants every day still their leaves drooped a little The stems and leaves were as important for teas as the berries so he worked quickly and efficiently A year ago when his father had been killed 6
at the Battles of Lexington and Concord it had been his idea to sell their bit of farm and move to Boston to set up a small shop selling tea and homespun clothing Ever since the Townshend Acts which had ended six years earlier in 1770 colonists had become clever about tea either smuggling it in from the Dutch or simply making it themselves Homemade and illegal tea did not taste as good as the tea sold by the East India Company but to buy and sell tea from the East India Company meant accepting British taxation without representation Jonathan still found himself chanting No taxation without representation the singsong slogan that had once been so popular and that put into words some of the colonists anger about their mistreatment under British rule And then there had been the Boston Tea Party just three years ago in 1773 when the Sons of Liberty dressed up like Mohawk Indians climbed aboard East Indian Company boats in the harbor and threw all 7
it they couldn’t smuggle the tea overboard The water in the harbor had been stained for days The Sons of Liberty had gone out in dinghies to push down any boxes of tea that floated up But what about tea Colonists needed their tea in When they improvised And Jonathan had become pretty good at improvising instinctively understanding the art of crafting tea So he and his mother set up shop in Boston hoping for business which they found but Jonathan also hoped his mother would find comfort in the security of living in the city He thought maybe this hope had been realized but he couldn’t be sure Since his father’s death she had closed up like a paper fan And for himself he had hoped that by moving to Boston he would be closer to the heart of the revolution He longed to be a part of the freedom movement his father had helped start even though he did not speak of 8
that longing with his mother He didn’t know how she would react All of her family was back in England Her response to the war had been less clear than her husband’s That she worried about her son though was obvious You have many fine ideas she told him when she found out he had been to a Sons of Liberty meeting with Simeon You’re like your father always looking to the future She smiled sadly But some of your ideas contradict my own Like what he said Like about your safety she said You think nothing bad can happen to you because you’re just a boy But you need to be careful Please be careful He hadn’t liked being told he was just a boy but neither did he want to cause her further heartache and worry So for the most part he stayed close to home working in the garden working in the shop testing new varieties of herbs and 9
