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was sorely tempted.
    But Harvard was leading him up to the gate of a spacious two-story dwelling, one of a trio of houses on the south edge of the cow yards. This was the former home of a man named Peyntree and the new home of the college.
    The morning sun raised wisps of steam on the wet roof. Diamond-shaped panes of glass shimmered in the window casements. And a small cloud of dust puffed out the front door as a servant swept the foyer.
    A clean house, thought Isaac, which meant it would be a godly house, which gave him hope for his prospects there.
    But the morning peace was shattered by the cry of a woman. “Damn your eyes!”
    “No, ma’am!” came a male voice.
    “You’ll not dig a finger in me stew again!”
    “No, ma’am!” A blackamoor came tumbling out. “Put up the knife, ma’am.”
    “I’ll put up the knife . . . up your poxy nose, you little black squint!” And out of the house burst a great barrel of a woman whose voice proclaimed her a fishwife but whose bonnet, fine dress, and starched ruff suggested she was better born.
    “What’s all this, then?” A burly man with a black beard emerged after her, and the faces of several young men appeared in the windows of the upper chambers.
    “Stealin’ food he is, Nathaniel,” said the woman.
    “Well, we’ll put a stop to that.” The man slipped a bulrush rod from his belt.
    And John Harvard said softly, “Good day, Master Eaton.”
    It was plain that in their anger, the Eatons had not noticed the arrival of visitors. Mrs. Eaton slipped the knife back into her skirt. And a grin opened in the hairy nest of Nathaniel Eaton’s beard. “John Harvard. How fare thee?”
    “Well, but for a small cough.”
    Eaton turned his eyes to Isaac. “And who be this fine lad?”
    Isaac was still staring at the rod in Eaton’s hand.
    Eaton lowered it and said, “My rod and my staff, they’ll comfort thee, son. There be need for both in this life. But how often you see one or the other be up to you.”
    “Isaac Wedge will need no rod,” said John Harvard. “He’s a fine lad. I’ve come to vouchsafe him to you and pay for his schooling.” Harvard swung his leg carefully from the stirrup, as though he feared breaking were he to move too quickly.
    “John, you’ve lost weight,” said Eaton. “How bad is your cough?”
    “You’ll see before our business be done.” Harvard looked at the woman. “Now, then, Mary Eaton, might a thirsty traveler find a draft of beer in your home?”
    Eaton’s chamber was in the back of the house—a desk, two hard chairs, three bookshelves, and a bucket in which three more bulrush rods soaked and seasoned.
    “We only just moved in,” said Eaton. “’Tisn’t a great house, and the stink of the cattle be somethin’ fierce, but it must do till we build us a true college.” Eaton pointed out the window. “Do you see those lads swingin’ shovels in the middle of the cow yard?”
    The land behind Peyntree House and its neighbors, the Goffe and Shepard Houses, was divided into eight enclosures by long runs of split-rail fencing that reached a hundred yards north to the common pales, which in turn ran east a mile or more, from the Cambridge Common to the Charlestown line. Each night the cattle were driven into the yards to protect them from wolves; each morning they were let out to graze.
    “The ground is being cleared,” Eaton went on. “The governor and the General Court have approved four hundred pounds for the building of the hall.”
    “A great sum,” said Harvard.
    “Great, indeed. A quarter of the colony’s tax levy from last year, fully half from the year before.” Eaton looked at the boy. “You see how serious they do take to the task of educating you, young Isaac Wedge?”
    “Yes, master.”
    “’Tis only half as serious as I take the task they have laid upon me. None shall ever say this colony wants for learned ministers or educated freemen whilst I be master here.” Eaton leaned his hands on his