2. Puzzles
Chapter 2
Puzzles
Nine-year-old Adoniram Judson lay down the goose quill he had been writing with and picked up the bottle of sand. He shook the sand gently over the paper, blotting the ink. When the ink was dry, he carefully tipped the sand back into the bottle and folded the paper. He placed the paper in an envelope, sealed the envelope with wax, and quietly slipped out of the house. He smiled with relief as he rounded the big elm tree opposite the church and realized that for once his little sister Abigail had not followed him. Adoniram guessed she was probably playing with their baby sister, Mary.
As he walked along the dusty street, Adoniram felt the envelope in the pocket of his woolen pants. He was on a secret mission, a mission that he hoped would bring him fame!
When he reached the general store, he walked purposefully up the three wooden steps that led to the door. He stopped at the top of the stairs to make sure no one from his father’s congregation other than the postmaster was inside. Thankfully, only a farmer and his two children, whom Adoniram did not recognize, were in the store. Adoniram entered the store and walked to the back where the post office was located. He placed the envelope on the counter. “I would like to mail this to Boston, sir,” he said politely.
“Boston, eh? And what would a young man like you be wanting with someone in Boston?” quizzed the postmaster. After reading the address on the envelope, he added with a chuckle, “A newspaper editor, is it? Has something been happening around Wenham that I should know about?” He reached over and tousled Adoniram’s curly, chestnut brown hair.
Adoniram felt himself blushing. He had not imagined he would have to explain himself to the postmaster.
Just then the door opened and several men entered the store. “You got any of that apple cider left, Jonah?” one of them asked in a booming voice.
To Adoniram’s relief, the postmaster took his attention off him. “Sure have, I’ll be right with you,” he said to the man, placing the letter on the back counter and smiling at Adoniram. “It’s as good as sent, young man,” he said. “Now be sure and give my regards to your father. He preached a mighty fine sermon last Sunday.”
Adoniram nodded politely and headed out the door into the early fall air. As he walked home, he hoped winter would not arrive too soon. The last two winters, 1795 and 1796, had been particularly harsh in Wenham. Although Adoniram liked to play in the snow, sometimes it had fallen so heavily he hadn’t been able to get to Master Dodge’s school. More than anything else, Adoniram loved going to school.
“Adoniram, it’s dinnertime,” he heard his mother call later that day.
Adoniram put down the book he was reading and hurried into the kitchen. It was Wednesday, which meant that his mother had roasted a large leg of beef in the open fireplace in the kitchen. The savory aroma of the cooked meat greeted him as he entered the kitchen. As he sat down at the table, he caught a glimpse of something white in his father’s hand. Adoniram froze in terror. It was the letter he had mailed two hours before.
“Does this belong to you?” his father boomed, waving the letter in the air.
“Yes, it does,” stammered Adoniram.
“What is it about?” asked his father, changing to the flat tone Adoniram had long ago learned meant trouble.
“It’s the answer to the weekly ‘enigma’—you know, the one that’s in the newspaper each week. I solved it and was sending in the answer.”
“But those puzzles are for adults, not nine-year-old boys,” said his father. “Open it and let me see what kind of fool my oldest son was about to make of himself. It’s just as well the postmaster had the good sense not to mail it without my permission.”
With trembling hands Adoniram took the envelope from his father and broke the seal. He unfolded the page he had written on so hopefully earlier that afternoon.
“Read it out loud to me. This will be the last time you try to do anything behind my back, young man,” growled his father.
Adoniram read aloud the letter he had written to the editor explaining the solution to the enigma of the week. He held his breath when he finished, waiting to hear what his father would say.
“Get me the newspaper,” ordered his father.
Adoniram scurried away to the room he shared with his younger brother, Elnathan, to retrieve the newspaper, glad to be out of his father’s presence for a moment. He grabbed the paper from his bed and walked with dread back to the kitchen. “Here it is, sir,” he said, handing the newspaper to his father.
Mr. Judson read the puzzle and then compared it to his nine-year-old son’s answer. He repeated the process a second and a third time. “Huh,” he finally said, laying the paper down and staring at the fire for a few moments.
Adoniram waited for him to say more, but the only sound in the room was the crackle of the fire and the occasional tiny cough from Mary, tucked in her crib in the corner.
After what seemed like the longest minute of Adoniram’s life, his mother finally said in an overly cheerful voice, “Husband, would you be so kind as to carve the meat, and then we’ll be ready to eat. I’ve cooked some fine carrots that Mrs. Grady brought in this morning. Wasn’t that kind of her?”
“Hand me the knife,” replied Adoniram’s father.
After dinner, Adoniram’s father read a passage from the Bible, as he always did, and then the three children were dismissed to do their cleanup chores. Adoniram emptied the water that had been heating over the fire into a large wooden bucket and began washing the dishes. Abigail, who had hardly spoken a word the whole meal, dried the dishes and stacked them neatly on the sideboard. Four-year-old Elnathan put the dishes away, except for the breakable china, which Adoniram put back on the shelf above the pantry cupboard.
Not another word was said about the letter, and as Adoniram curled up in bed next to Elnathan that night, he wondered what his punishment would be for sending the letter without his father’s permission.
The following morning nothing was said about the letter, and Adoniram was more nervous than ever. Finally, when he arrived home from school, his father called to him, “Adoniram, come here.”
Adoniram walked into the living room, where his father was seated in his brown leather wingback chair beside the fire. “I have something for you,” his father said.
Adoniram stared in astonishment as his father offered him a book.
“I have bought you a book of puzzles. When you finish it, I will buy you a more difficult one.”
Adoniram took the book, unable to think of what to say.
“You are a very smart boy,” continued his father. “Your mother and I have known that since you learned to read when you were three. Train your mind, son, and you will be a great man someday.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” stammered Adoniram, hardly able to take in such praise from his father.
“And one more thing. I am going to enroll you in Captain Morton’s School of Navigation. How would you like that?” asked his father.
“Yes, sir, very much,” replied Adoniram, wanting more than anything to escape to his room where he could be alone to think.
Finally, in his room, Adoniram sat on the bed and thought about the things his father had and hadn’t said. He hadn’t said anything about how well Adoniram had done answering the enigma in the newspaper, but from his father’s reaction, he decided he must have done reasonably well. And what his father said about his being smart was true. Everyone in school knew it. The other students had nicknamed him “Virgil” because of the speed at which he could read and write Greek and Latin, and arithmetic was so easy for him that he had all the answers figured out before his teacher had finished explaining the lesson to the rest of the class. He could name all the thirteen states and their capitals and was able to recite all of George Washington’s inaugural speech by heart. Despite this, his father’s words had surprised him. Did he, Adoniram Judson, have what it took to be a great man? But then, what was a “great” man? Was it a preacher like his father? What about a teacher like Master Dodge? Or a sea captain like his grandfather? Adoniram did not know.
True to his word, Mr. Judson enrolled Adoniram in the navigation school in nearby Salem, the richest town in New England. Adoniram loved attending the school, where he learned to use a sextant to take readings from the sun and stars to chart his position, as well as how to read marine maps so as not to run aground. But even more than the school, he loved being in Salem. When his father came to visit, they walked together all the way from Derby Wharf to Crowninshield’s Wharf, watching as exotic cargo from far-off ports in China and Europe was unloaded. As they watched, brilliantly colored parrots from the Malay Islands fluttered their wings in the gentle breeze or perched on their owners’ shoulders. And the smell of unknown spices filled the air.
Three weeks after Adoniram began attending the new school, disaster struck the Judson family. Six-month-old Mary died. She had been sick for several weeks and eventually got so weak she just stopped breathing. All of the Judson children were saddened by her death, but none more than Adoniram. He had recently been paying closer attention to his father’s sermons and knew that in his father’s opinion a child, even a tiny baby, had to make a decision to become a Christian or would be damned to hell. As he looked down at his tiny sister in her white smocked dress lying in a wooden coffin, Adoniram wondered about a God who would be so cruel as to send his innocent sister to hell. Something about it didn’t seem right, and although he was far too scared to discuss it with his father, he secretly wanted nothing more to do with the God his father preached about so passionately in church on Sunday mornings.
No sooner had Mary been buried than Mr. Judson became ill. He was so sick that the doctor told him if he did not rest at Saratoga Springs in New York, he too would die. So Adoniram’s father spent six weeks recuperating at Saratoga Springs. However, when he finally returned to Wenham he was not much better. Since there was no way he could fulfill all his duties as pastor, on October 22, 1799, he resigned from his position in the church.
As a new century dawned, the Judson family found themselves in a precarious situation. They had moved to Braintree, several miles south of Boston, where Adoniram’s father thought he could find work. Indeed, he found a job, but it paid so little that Abigail Judson, Adoniram’s mother, found herself eking out the family budget from only a third of the money her husband had been earning in Wenham. Somehow the Judsons managed to scrape together enough money to keep their three children in school. Adoniram continued to outshine his peers academically.
In 1797, there had been great celebrations in Braintree (today called Quincy) as a farmer and lawyer from the town was elected president of the United States. Adoniram and his father often walked past the farm where John Adams had grown up. As they did so, the conversation was always the same. If John Adams could make something great of himself, so could Adoniram Judson!
The Judson family struggled on in Braintree for two years until the newly established Third Congregational Church of Plymouth, Massachusetts, offered the Reverend Mr. Judson the pastorate of the church. Adoniram’s father felt much better now and eagerly accepted, moving the family to Plymouth.
Fourteen-year-old Adoniram loved his new hometown with its bustling population of thirty-five thousand people. On the undeveloped east side of town, his father bought a plot of land that sloped down to the sea where the family built a wonderful new house. The family had lived in the house only a few months when Adoniram himself became very ill. It was a year before he was up and about again and able to return to school. It was 1803, and Adoniram was determined to catch up on all the schoolwork he had missed during the year he was sick. He threw himself into his studies. In fact, he worked so hard that he not only caught up on the year he had missed but also completed his next year’s work. He was pronounced ready to go on to college.
Adoniram’s father was a graduate of Yale University, but since New Haven, Connecticut, was a long way from Plymouth, he looked for a college closer to home for his eldest son to attend. Harvard University was only fifty miles to the north, but Adoniram’s father was not impressed with the religious education given there. It was too watered down for his liking. Eventually, it was decided that Adoniram should attend Rhode Island College at Providence, fifty miles to the south.
On August 15, 1804, just six days after his sixteenth birthday, Adoniram, accompanied by his father, set off by stagecoach for Providence. He carried with him a spare set of clothes and his books, all stuffed into the same old leather duffel bag his father had used when he went to college. As they stood in the August afternoon heat in Providence, waiting for the wooden gates of Rhode Island College to be swung open, questions swirled through Adoniram’s mind. What would it be like to be away from his family? He had scooped the academic prizes in his local school, but could he keep up with the influential young men who normally attended colleges such as this? And what kind of man would he be when, after four years of study, he passed back out through the gates with his degree in hand?