subway wall, stuck his arm into the mud beyond, and pulled out a priceless Revere tea set?
Sure, he had a nice office in the Back Bay, his clients seldom bounced checks, and most of his research was as dull as scraping old paint from a fluted column. But when Peter Fallon went after something—at the Harvard-Dartmouth football game or on the other side of the world—he became, as his ex-wife once said, “Indiana Jones in a monogrammed shirt,” a bonus-miles adventurer traveling through time, chasing down books and manuscripts, buying them when he could, brokering them when he couldn’t, investigating, negotiating, mediating, and once in a while, running for his life.
The pedestrian light in front of Holyoke Center flashed WALK . Peter and Tom Benedict started across Mass. Ave. But right in the middle, Peter stopped.
“Come on.” Benedict pointed to the digital clock beside the little animated pedestrian on the traffic light. Fifteen seconds to cross . . . fourteen . . . thirteen . . .
Peter was looking at a pair of brass plates embedded in the street and worn smooth by decades of traffic. “Do you know what those are, Tom?”
“What?” Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .
“Corner bounds. They mark the foundation of Peyntree House, the first building at Harvard. It was discovered when they excavated the subway about 1910.”
Peter looked around . . . at the ten-story glass cube of Holyoke Center, glowing in the night . . . at Wadsworth House and the other old buildings . . . at the cars on Mass. Ave., all ready to run him over in just six . . . five . . . four . . . “Imagine what all this looked like, Tom. Imagine it on a summer’s day in 1638. That’s when the first of the Wedges would have seen it.”
Chapter Three
1638-1639
I SAAC W EDGE first saw Cambridge on a glorious June morning from the back of a borrowed horse. He had said little on the journey, because the man with whom he rode had said even less.
That man was John Harvard, and he was dying. One needed only to look upon his consumed body to know his fate. But such knowledge was unspoken between the teaching elder of the Charlestown church and his best student, between a man with no children and a fatherless boy of sixteen.
It was not until they came to the gate at the end of the Charlestown Path that Harvard peered from under the brim of his hat and said, “You’ll not regret this, Isaac.”
“Thank you, master.” Isaac jumped down and opened the gate that led into the Cambridge Cow Commons. “I fear, however, that my Latin and Greek are—”
“More than adequate.” Harvard stifled a cough, but to those who spent time in his company, his coughing had become as common as his breathing, and the familiarity of it made it all but unnoticed. The bloody flecks that splattered his neckcloth, however, could not be ignored.
“I fear the opinion of Master Eaton,” said Isaac.
“Fear not,” answered Harvard. “His writings, his family background, his work with Reverend Ames at Leyden—these have given the Great and General Court good cause to name him master of this new college. But for all his learning, you’ll find him a simple man in many ways, direct, blunt, and the better for it.”
They rode south across the Common, followed by the curious cows. They went through another gate and passed the watchhouse, which overlooked the place where the roads of the village converged. There were fifty solid dwellings between there and the river, all roofed in slate or shake, not a bit of thatch to be seen. Only recently had the name of the settlement been changed from Newtowne, to honor the place where most of the learned men in the colony had studied, and to bestow upon this new Cambridge an air of importance commensurate with that of the old.
As for Isaac Wedge, he would have been happier to keep riding . . . right down to the river . . . and spend the day fishing. He could see the brown curl of water on the marshland to the south, and he
Sure, he had a nice office in the Back Bay, his clients seldom bounced checks, and most of his research was as dull as scraping old paint from a fluted column. But when Peter Fallon went after something—at the Harvard-Dartmouth football game or on the other side of the world—he became, as his ex-wife once said, “Indiana Jones in a monogrammed shirt,” a bonus-miles adventurer traveling through time, chasing down books and manuscripts, buying them when he could, brokering them when he couldn’t, investigating, negotiating, mediating, and once in a while, running for his life.
The pedestrian light in front of Holyoke Center flashed WALK . Peter and Tom Benedict started across Mass. Ave. But right in the middle, Peter stopped.
“Come on.” Benedict pointed to the digital clock beside the little animated pedestrian on the traffic light. Fifteen seconds to cross . . . fourteen . . . thirteen . . .
Peter was looking at a pair of brass plates embedded in the street and worn smooth by decades of traffic. “Do you know what those are, Tom?”
“What?” Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .
“Corner bounds. They mark the foundation of Peyntree House, the first building at Harvard. It was discovered when they excavated the subway about 1910.”
Peter looked around . . . at the ten-story glass cube of Holyoke Center, glowing in the night . . . at Wadsworth House and the other old buildings . . . at the cars on Mass. Ave., all ready to run him over in just six . . . five . . . four . . . “Imagine what all this looked like, Tom. Imagine it on a summer’s day in 1638. That’s when the first of the Wedges would have seen it.”
Chapter Three
1638-1639
I SAAC W EDGE first saw Cambridge on a glorious June morning from the back of a borrowed horse. He had said little on the journey, because the man with whom he rode had said even less.
That man was John Harvard, and he was dying. One needed only to look upon his consumed body to know his fate. But such knowledge was unspoken between the teaching elder of the Charlestown church and his best student, between a man with no children and a fatherless boy of sixteen.
It was not until they came to the gate at the end of the Charlestown Path that Harvard peered from under the brim of his hat and said, “You’ll not regret this, Isaac.”
“Thank you, master.” Isaac jumped down and opened the gate that led into the Cambridge Cow Commons. “I fear, however, that my Latin and Greek are—”
“More than adequate.” Harvard stifled a cough, but to those who spent time in his company, his coughing had become as common as his breathing, and the familiarity of it made it all but unnoticed. The bloody flecks that splattered his neckcloth, however, could not be ignored.
“I fear the opinion of Master Eaton,” said Isaac.
“Fear not,” answered Harvard. “His writings, his family background, his work with Reverend Ames at Leyden—these have given the Great and General Court good cause to name him master of this new college. But for all his learning, you’ll find him a simple man in many ways, direct, blunt, and the better for it.”
They rode south across the Common, followed by the curious cows. They went through another gate and passed the watchhouse, which overlooked the place where the roads of the village converged. There were fifty solid dwellings between there and the river, all roofed in slate or shake, not a bit of thatch to be seen. Only recently had the name of the settlement been changed from Newtowne, to honor the place where most of the learned men in the colony had studied, and to bestow upon this new Cambridge an air of importance commensurate with that of the old.
As for Isaac Wedge, he would have been happier to keep riding . . . right down to the river . . . and spend the day fishing. He could see the brown curl of water on the marshland to the south, and he
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