Fever 1793: Chapter 19 Summary & Analysis

Mattie is dreaming of a juicy roast beef when, suddenly, she’s snapped awake by the sound of a footstep by the window. She hears a strange voice say, “What was that?” A second voice urges the first to hurry up. Mattie sees a tall, thin man standing in the moonlight, and he’s soon joined through the window by a shorter one. She realizes she’s no longer dreaming and that the men are thieves. She wonders what to do. If she screams, Grandfather will wake up, and the men might attack them both. And who could she run to for help?

Mattie watches in horror and anger as the men paw through her family’s things, speculating about the value of a chess set her Grandfather won from a ship’s captain. One of them even lifts down Grandfather’s sword and laughs that it’s worthless; every man in America drags around a rusty sword and tells tall tales about his exploits in the War. Mattie glares but holds steady, even as the man playfully weaves around the room, brandishing the sword. But when the sword comes toward Mattie’s neck in the darkness, she screams, “No!” and collides with the man as she bolts toward the kitchen.

The men pursue Mattie out the kitchen door toward the gate. One of them catches up with her and yanks her back into the house. He ties her wrists together and says that Mattie can tell them where the silver and money are hidden. When Mattie spits at him, he slaps her. The other man protests, and before the two men finish their argument about what to do next, they hear a thump upstairs. Mattie wishes she hadn’t screamed—she needs to protect Grandfather and get these men out of the house.

Mattie tries to convince the men that the noise was just her cat. The tall man thinks she’s hiding something and hits her again, demanding to know where the money is. Suddenly, Grandfather appears in the doorway with his rifle, shouting, “Get away from my granddaughter!” He warns the hesitating men that he’ll count to three. Mattie knows that means he’s not fooling around. Mattie sees how hard Grandfather is breathing and urges him to put the gun down.

Grandfather finishes counting to three. Then several things happen at once—the gun fires as the tall man leaps aside (the first man has fled out the window); the blast knocks Grandfather against the door frame, giving the man the chance to jump on Grandfather and punch him in the face. Mattie kicks the man but is sent sprawling. With her bound hands, she grabs Grandfather’s sword—“Grandfather had taught me a bit about swordplay along with his other army lessons,” she recalls. When the man strikes Grandfather’s head against the floor, Mattie screams and gashes the man’s shoulder with the sword. He howls and rolls aside.

When the man looks at Mattie in disbelief, she raises the sword again and runs at him, “screaming the kinds of words that would have raised every hair on my mother’s head.” He scrambles out the window, and Mattie chases him for a block before realizing that Grandfather needs her at home. When she returns, she finds him sitting up. “Always knew you had it in you,” he says hoarsely, smiling at Mattie.

Mattie starts to go for water, but Grandfather stops her. He’s struggling to keep his eyes open. He takes her hand and says, “I’m sorry, Mattie […] I’m leaving you alone.” Mattie shakes her head mutely, then is unable to hold back a torrent of words and tears, begging Grandfather not to die. He just whispers, “Strong […] Beautiful. Clever. My sweet Mattie.” A moment later, he’s dead.

Mattie feels as though the world has stopped. She shrieks and pounds the floor with rage. She picks up the sword again and “attacks a chair as if it were Death itself.” When the chair is splintered, she kneels by Grandfather’s body, which is growing cold, and tries to arrange his limbs with greater dignity. Feeling like “a baby girl just learning to walk,” she wonders what she should do next.

Mattie gently closes Grandfather’s eyes and tries to remember funerals she’s seen. She finds some of their finest napkins and uses them to bind Grandfather’s jaw closed. She decides he should be buried in his nightshirt, smiling when she remembers him describing death as “the eternal sleep.” She covers him with a linen tablecloth, leaving his kindly face uncovered. Then she kneels beside him and gives way to tears for “the finest man I had ever known.”