The Rebellion of Jane Clarke by Sally Gunning

of the soldiers before the Main Guard! And speak to no one but Mr. Knox, the bookseller!”
    Jane supposed if she’d been allowed out and about the town her first day there she might have stepped out with greater hesitation; as it was, she leaped so precipitously through the door she almost landed in the gutter, a construction not found in Satucket. She took a deep breath and received her second surprise—this was no Satucket air, but a thing full of too-old food, too-new chamber dung, and too many kitchen fires set too close together.
    It being early in the day, the tavern on the corner was almost quiet, but King Street was busy with the usual traffic Jane had come to know from her window. She looked left toward the Custom House as she entered the road, having learned since her first trip past that this was where the king’s duty money was stored; as she looked she happened to catch the sentry’s eye. She looked away but soon met another eye, and another and another, all looking the wrong kind of question at her. After a time Jane sensed her mistake; in Satucket she looked at everyone as she passed because they were sure to know each other; in Boston if she looked at someone as she passed it could only be taken as either an inappropriate invitation or an unwanted intrusion. The moment Jane became acquainted with her mistake she fixed her gaze hard on the ground, but she found herself unable to keep it there. She wanted to keep an eye out for all the novelties of town. And its dangers. And Phinnie Paine.
    Phinnie’s business involved barrel staves and shingles, things that came first to the port of Boston and next from there to the other parts of the colony. He was often in town, traveling by ship or horseback, depending on the required stops along the way. Disembarking from the ship Jane had been occupied with other concerns, and while trapped indoors at Aunt Gill’s there had been no cause to worry, but now, out in the street, all was changed. He could be anywhere. She heard that singular laugh from across the road; she saw his unique nose coming toward her through the crowd; she spied the long triangle of his back walking away from her down an alley. It made no difference that in actual fact none of them were Phinnie—at each sighting her mind turned into knots, chasing after an acceptable greeting, as if by chance he would even greet her. What could she possibly say? A letter was difficult enough; a conversation was an impossibility.
    Jane continued along King Street. Just before the Town House she spied a small crowd gathered around what turned out to be the whipping post; Jane peered between two pairs of shoulders and caught a glimpse of the fleecy black head of a Negro, eyes rolling in either a state of intoxication or swooning. Beyond the whipping post she was forced to pass two sentries at the Main Guard, but she kept her eyes straight ahead as Aunt Gill had directed. She felt free enough to look in the shop windows, however, and although the butcher’s window was bursting with more meat than she’d see in a month at Satucket and the goldsmith’s wares blinded her eyes it was as if she’d seen nothing— nothing— till she stepped through the door at Wharton & Bowes.
    So many books lined the walls it seemed the bookshop had been built of them; more filled the tables and even parts of the floor. Jane picked a book off the nearest table and opened it to its title page: P AM ELA: Or Virtue Rewarded. IN a SERIES of F AM ILIAR LETTERS from a Beautiful Young
D AM SEL to her PARENTS.
    A young man near her age but far too tall and broad for the size of the store emerged from between the shelves. “Good-day to you, Miss. Henry Knox, bookseller. How may I assist you?”
    Jane looked at the book in her hand, her curiosity over the beautiful young damsel driving the real purpose of her errand from her mind. She looked at the book again. A series of familiar letters . . . “Letter paper. ’Tis to go to the account