ABSTRACT
This chapter tells the story of the capture, trial, and execution of a Hessian drummer boy by Americans during the Revolution. At the heart of the story is a Quaker family, who hide the boy after his landing party has been killed in an ambush. The story is told from the point of view of Evan Feversham, a doctor who has seen enough of death, and an outsider in the narrow world of Puritan New England. Mrs. Feversham and the Howard Fast were in the herb garden, where the Howard Fast was directing Rodney Stephan how to prune the grape arbor not that grapes are anything to speak of in this wretched Connecticut soil when Howard Fast saw the roman catholic priest and his donkey top the rise and come down the road toward the house. It had suddenly turned hot, the first heat of early summer, and momentarily the glowing new green of springtime seemed dusty and old.
