The Smallpox Blanket Ships and the Variolation Chain to Boston (1721)
The Smallpox Blanket Ships and the Variolation Chain to Boston (1721) — a history story. 10 illustrated pages, narrated, free to read on Wonder History.
Page 1
The gangplank of the Seahorse groaned under the weight of two sailors hauling a sling of stretched sailcloth, their crewman inside it blistered and shaking with fever, his skin pocked in ugly clusters. Onesimus pushed through the dockside crowd to steady the plank as it bucked, his broad shoulders bracing the rope-rail while the sailors staggered the last steps onto Long Wharf. Behind them a boy dragging the dead man's sea chest lost his footing on the ice-slicked boards; the chest slammed down and burst, scattering shirts, a dented pewter cup, and a cascade of oranges that rolled bright and strange between the boots of gathering onlookers. Mather dropped to a crouch amid the rolling fruit, snatching one up before it could vanish underfoot, his spectacles sliding down his nose as he stared past it at the sling-borne man's ravaged face. Onesimus knelt too, gathering spilled shirts into his arms, his eyes fixed on the same blistered skin with a recognition that tightened his jaw.
Page 2
The cask was heavier than it looked, slick with harbour frost, and Onesimus ran it up the plank at a trot before the weight could drag him backward into the lighters below. He slammed it down onto the wharf planking, braced his shoulder against the rolling wood, and shoved his sleeve to the elbow to get a better grip, baring the pale crescent scar on his forearm. Mather, trudging past with his inkhorn swinging, stopped mid-stride at the sight of it, fumbling the brass horn so badly it tumbled from its strap and buried itself in a snowbank. He did not curse — he dropped to his knees right there in the slush, dug the horn free with stiff fingers, and instead of refilling it, snatched up his quill dry and began scratching the crescent's shape straight into the frost crust, glancing up again and again to check the scar against his own hasty drawing, while the cannons of the Battery stood ranked and silent behind them both.
Page 3
The selectman swung his hammer against the quarantine order, driving it flat to the Town House door with three hard strokes, the nails biting splinters loose. Above him the red flag climbed the staff on its halyard, cracking out stiff in the harbour wind. Boylston reined his horse hard at the corner, but the hammering set the animal sideways, hooves skidding on the iced cobbles, and it kicked straight through a basket of folded flags waiting on the exchange steps. Red cloth burst loose and unrolled across King Street in long frozen ribbons, flapping under passing boots. Onesimus lunged forward, stamping one clogged shoe down on a length before it could blow under the wagon wheels, then another, pinning the cloth flat with his weight while Boylston fought the reins. Mather came down the Town House steps two at a time, gown flapping, inkhorn banging his ribs, shouting over the noise.
Page 4
Onesimus took Boylston's hand in his own broad grip and pressed the thorn into it, guiding the point against the wool-stuffed leather glove laid out on the hip-high counter. 'Shallow,' he said. 'Not deep. A scratch, no more.' Boylston's fingers trembled as the thorn broke the glove's surface, and Onesimus steadied his wrist, drawing the line of a quill-scratch across the leather. Mather leaned close, inkhorn swinging on its strap, craning to watch the lesson. Boylston straightened too fast, pleased with the motion, and his russet elbow caught the edge of a glass vial perched near the gallipots. It toppled, spun off the counter and cracked open on the flagstones below, spilling a creeping glisten of matter across the stone. All three men flinched back as one, boots scraping, the hanging alligator above swaying gently on its wire as though it too recoiled from the sight pooling at their feet.
Page 5
The ground at Copp's Hill had frozen hard as iron, and the gravediggers swung their picks in short, grunting arcs, chipping dark wedges out of the earth that skittered down the slope toward the harbour. A sledge groaned uphill through the slush, hauled by two boys, four small coffins stacked and lashed upon it, their raw pine boards bright against the grey stones. Onesimus set down his canvas bundle, spat into his palms, and took the pick from a staggering digger's hands, driving it again and again into the frost until the grave widened enough. Mather murmured over the little coffins as they were lowered. Then Onesimus straightened, rolled his shoulder, and lifted his bundle onto it, turning not toward the town but down the far slope, toward the Charlestown road. Boylston caught his sleeve. Onesimus only shook his head, walked on, and did not look back. Mather bent, found the folded paper left weighted beneath a slate stone, and held it up against the wind, reading his own hand upon it while the ferry bell rang faintly below.
Page 6
James cranked the press, the great wooden screw groaning down twice his own height, and the fresh broadside came off wet and black as tar. Boylston lunged for it where it hung drying on the line above his head, snatching the sheet before it could smear, but his boot caught the leg of the type case standing waist-high beside the frame. The whole case toppled with a shriek of wood, and thousands of lead letters cascaded across the floorboards in a hissing silver flood, burying the hearthstones. Mather, stooping to help gather them, overbalanced against the ink trough — a shallow lead tray wide as a washbasin — and his enormous grey periwig flew from his head and landed square in the black ink with a wet slap. He came up bareheaded, scalp shining, spluttering, while Franklin seized his elbow to haul him upright before he too went down among the scattered type.
Page 7
The ferry's hull ground against the icy shingle of Spectacle Island, and the boatmen jumped down into ankle-deep shallows to drag it fast. Hurdles of woven lathe, each bearing a fever-blistered patient wrapped in sailcloth, were hauled up the steep frozen path toward the low pest-house. Boylston swung himself over the thwart to help steady the nearest hurdle, and in doing so his chest of lancets slid from the bench and tipped into the freezing shallows with a splash. "My lancets!" he shouted, lunging after it, but the current had already carried it past his reach. Franklin dropped the drying sheet tucked under his arm, waded in boots and all, and hooked the chest's handle with his boathook, dragging it dripping back to shore. Mather, soaked to both knees, threw his weight onto the bow line to keep the ferry from sliding back off the shingle, grimacing against the cold. "Haul, Reverend, haul!" Boylston called, scrambling up the bank with the rescued chest clutched to his chest, ice water sheeting from its seams.
Page 8
Glass burst inward with a crack like a pistol shot, and the iron grenado tumbled across the floorboards trailing sparks, its fuse knocked loose against the hearthstone. Mather shouted and threw himself backward into his own bookshelf, grabbing for the night candle to smother it with his sleeve. Boylston lunged for the coal shovel by the grate, scooping the smoking iron ball up in one motion before it could catch. He ran three strides to the broken window and pitched it out into the street, where it struck the cobbles and rolled harmlessly into a snowbank. In the same instant the jolted shelf gave way above them, folios sliding and crashing down in an avalanche of leather and paper, burying all three men to the knees. Franklin hauled a heavy volume off Mather's shoulders, coughing in the dust, while Mather clawed books off his own chest, periwig knocked sideways and spectacles gone. Boylston stood gasping by the shattered window, shovel still smoking in his hand, staring at the street below for whoever had thrown it.
Page 9
The stair boomed under staves, each blow jarring dust from the brick arch overhead. Franklin shoved Boylston bodily toward the chimney-closet, the narrow brick recess taller than a man but barely shoulder-wide, and crammed him inside before slapping a broad cask lid, round as a cartwheel, across the gap and wedging it fast with his knee. Mather, wheezing, threw his whole weight against the trestle table, waist-high and laden with pewter tankards, and sent it crashing over so that ale sheeted down the stone steps in a dark flood. Boots slid and cursed above, a lantern swinging wildly on the landing. Franklin planted himself before the papered door, ink-black arms spread wide, bracing palms flat against the brick on either side as though to hold the wall itself shut, while Mather snatched up a fallen tankard and hurled it clattering into the shadows to draw the lantern away. The mob's light swam through the haze, found nothing but barrels and spilled drink, and withdrew cursing up the slick stair. Only then did Franklin's trembling arms drop from the door, and he hauled the cask lid free to let Boylston stumble out gasping.
Page 10
Spring came up Beacon Hill like a tide, and the townsfolk came with it, dragging the red flags down from every post in Boston and hauling them up the slope in armfuls to heap at the foot of the tarred mast. Boylston set his boot into the lowest cleat and climbed, the mast twice his own height, the iron fire-basket swaying black above him. The last flag still flew from the crossbar, stiff with old frost. He hauled his knife free and sawed the cord, the fabric tearing loose and spilling down through the air. Franklin ran beneath, flinging up his ink-black arms, and caught it against his chest before it could touch the heaped bonfire. Mather stood braced against the wind with the tally-book open, its pages cracking, shouting the count over the noise of the crowd and the lowing of cattle on the Common below. Boylston dropped the last yards down the cleats, boots thudding into the cinders, and grabbed the flag back from Franklin to fling it himself onto the fire, where it caught and roared up orange against the pale harbour sky.
About this story
- Audience: general readers
- Format: 10 illustrated pages, narrated, free to read on Wonder History
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