ABSTRACT
The boy was young but his roots ran old and tough as the granite outcroppings that stabbed the thin New England earth here on Penn's Hill. He had grown, in fact, into a small New England boulder himself—short, square, permanent, with muscles made hard behind a plow. Here, atop this hill, amidst these rocks, his substantial frame belonged to the landscape, combat-ready, indomitable. Surveying the Braintree countryside from his chilly Penn's Hill overlook, the boy, John Adams, observed autumn cloak the land, watching the timeless, familiar trees and fields shifting hourly, minutely, into new seasonal nuances. The forms persisted, yet their colors and shadows ceaselessly emerged and receded in graceful, delicate harmony. In addition to the fact that they were men of both Massachusetts and England, two other factors shaped the background of John Adams and his Braintree neighbors. Certainly it was one of the better dwellings of Braintree, built to endure for generations.
