The Power and the Glory Read Online Free PDF Page B

that for the Cutler family, this affair was an intensely personal one. Cutler vessels bound to and from the West Indies were among those being targeted by French pirates and privateers.
    Richard bowed to Lincoln and took his leave, anxious to join his family at the docks, a reunion that on this splendid day included his brother Caleb.

Three
    Hingham, Massachusetts October 1797
    T HE PEALING of church bells diminished gradually as the afternoon wore on, and then ceased altogether as lamplighters armed with flasks of spermaceti oil went about their business on the village streets. Inside the home of Thomas Cutler, a short way up from the village proper on Main Street near the Old Meetinghouse, the glow of celebration continued well into the night, until Jamie and Diana fell asleep on a sofa in the parlor and Caleb, drugged with fatigue and wine and no longer able to resist the allure of goose-down bedding, shuffled upstairs to his room on the second floor.
    At 10:40 the next morning he appeared in the kitchen down the back stairway, unshaven and unkempt. He noted the time with astonishment and slid onto a chair at the long kitchen table just as Edna Stowe, the Cutler family’s housekeeper since 1783, plopped down a plate of six fried eggs, rashers of bacon, and a healthy wedge of cheese; a basket of freshly baked biscuits; tins of strawberry jam and freshly made butter; and a mug of steaming coffee.
    Caleb’s jaw went slack. “Sweet Jesus in heaven, Edna!” he exclaimed as he gazed down at the bounty. “Is this all for me? It’s a week’s ration in Algiers, and this is real food .”
    â€œGood morning to you, too,” Edna replied in a mock scolding voice. “And I’ll hear no more blasphemy from you, young man, thank you very much. I put the eggs on when I heard you rumbling about upstairs.
Now sit there and eat. More eggs and bacon are on the way. I aim to put some meat on those pathetic-looking bones of yours, whether you like it or not. You heard me! Eat!”
    â€œYes, ma’am.” Caleb picked up a fork, smiling at the thought of Edna’s reaction had she witnessed his skeletal frame at its worst. Smiling, too, because he was home in his kitchen in Hingham, with Edna fussing over him the way she used to do, as though he had never left. Ten years suddenly seemed not such a vast span of time.
    â€œWhere is everybody?” he asked after he had made short shrift of the first helping of eggs and bacon and was happily into the second.
    â€œAnne and Lavinia are with Katherine,” Edna answered as she refilled his cup from a fresh pot of coffee. “They’re going riding with Diana. Your father and Richard are with Dr. Percy down at Barker Yard,” she added, referring to the area of Hingham Harbor where the Cutler family maintained a modest office, as much for nostalgic as for business reasons. It was where Cutler & Sons had first taken root in colonial America.
    â€œI should be with them,” Caleb said, pushing away his coffee.
    â€œNo, you should not. You were exactly where you should have been: upstairs asleep. And now you’re doing exactly what you should be doing: eating in my kitchen like a horse. Besides, they said they wouldn’t be gone long. I expect them home at any moment.”
    True to her prediction, a few minutes later they heard the front door open and footsteps approach through the parlor.
    â€œUp at last, I see,” Richard teased Caleb as he and the elder Cutler entered the kitchen. He doffed his jacket, hooked it on a peg on the wall, and walked over to the table. “Hungry, are we?” He nodded at Caleb’s plate smeared with egg yolk and freckled with breadcrumbs and bits of bacon.
    â€œFamished. What’s for dinner?”
    â€œSheep stomach and fish guts cooked in olive oil, parsley, and sesame and served over rice,” Richard responded grandly. “Edna’s been preparing for your homecoming,