I must wake up, Dolley thought. I must wake up and save Payne. The British are coming and we have to flee to the woods. No, that’s wrong, she thought. It’s Willie who’s crying. Baby Willie. The infant’s red face returned to her, fever-flushed, the little withered scrap of body that looked so much like that of a newborn kitten. It’s just a little summer fever, she told her mother, as she wrung out the damp cloth, over and over again. Sponged the delicate skin that seemed to bag so horribly over bones more fragile than a bird’s. Just a little summer fever. If we can keep him cool, we’ll be fine. The stone cottage John had rented on the banks of the Schuylkill had a good, deep well behind it. The water came up so cold, even in the sticky October heat, that she had to settle it out in a pan, so it wouldn’t be too cold for poor little Willie’s flesh. How could she feel so passionate a love for someone whose face she’d first seen only seven weeks ago? In her nightmare she sat beside the infant’s cot, in the small chamber her mother had laid claim to when first they’d come to Gray’s Ferry.
