Free Bound by Sally Gunning

buy West India cotton or English wool or Irish linen the spinning wheels our women have sent to the attics must come down and be put back into motion. We must marshal the women to the cause, gentlemen. And once we do, I have every faith they will quickly turn homespun into high fashion.”
    Some more general noise went around.
    Then, from Cobb: “I’d take a wife in homespun if it would serve our purpose.”
    “Yes, but would your wife?” Thacher asked.
    The men laughed. “A fair point,” Cobb said. “I admit I’m in some doubt of it.”
    “You think she’d prefer to pay a king’s ransom for a bit of cambric?”
    Alice looked up from cutting the rind off a new cheese. The widow. It was the widow who had spoken. Hopkins, whose mug the widow had just filled, straightened out his smile of thanks and looked away in embarrassment. Someone else coughed. A pair of boots scraped the floor. The widow continued to move around the table, filling mugs, the clink of earthenware and the swish of her skirt the only sound.
    It didn’t surprise Alice that it should be Freeman who would break the silence, as she had already observed him to be uncommonly unruffled at the widow’s forwardness. “The widow makes a fair point, gentlemen,” he said. “If the wheels don’t come down now, this tax they put on cambric and other goods will continue, and you may be sure of it, if we let this one slip by another will follow. What slave, once broken, is then offered his freedom? And make no mistake, this is what we shall be—slaves—our English blood and sweat going straight into another Englishman’s pocket, an Englishman who thinks he’s earned it for no other reason than that he lives on the other side of the ocean. So there you have it, gentlemen: ’tis a choice you make now between slavery and freedom. And what’s the price of that freedom? A little sugar and tea and coffee and cloth. Leave it on the shelf now, and you may cast away your chains forever.”
    Storekeeper Sears clapped his mug onto the table and stood up. “You mean leave it on my shelf. How the devil do you expect me to eat, Freeman?”
    “The same as we all will,” Freeman answered. “Your shelves, our ships, Thacher’s straitened custom, all will suffer for a time, but if we don’t suffer a short time now, we’ll suffer the rest of our lives. Otis reports they’ve received commitment from most of the merchants in Boston to cease import of all English luxuries come August; he’s proposed our leading citizens to correspond with merchants throughout the other colonies; he’s asked that we all go home and organize our villages in support of the leaders at Boston and see that they stand behind the non-importation agreement. So, what say you, gentlemen? Will you leave here committed? Will you go home and enlist your women?”
    Thacher said, “My wife should make up for the foodstuffs well enough, but I don’t know about the cloth.”
    The table rumbled. Hopkins had grave doubts of his wife agreeing to chain herself anew to a spindle. Winslow, who raised sheep but sold off most of his wool now that his daughters were married away and his wife not well, couldn’t promise any great change in his household. Cobb declared confidence in bringing his wife to the cause. Thacher began to think better of his own wife. Hopkins allowed that if indeed homespun became the thing, his wife would be sure to follow along, although as to taking up the wheel again…. Seth Cobb admitted some doubt of his wife turning out any great yardage. Winslow spoke of working his fulling mill up to the old rate of production, and where Sears took loud note of one man’s making his hay while another’s out licking the bottom of the barrel, it appeared to Alice that the general mood around the table began to lighten.
    The talk of non-importation ran down. Someone made comment on the fine run of herring. Someone else reported on the successful repair of the mill wheel. Someone else noted