At Cape Cod the feud between Tory and Whig took on a comedy aspect in comparison with the vindictive civil war which it presented in many counties of New York and in the southern colonies. At Truro, as late as 1774, the house of a Whig doctor was attacked, and many still refused to employ him; a parson, for receiving a number of prominent Whigs, was admonished by some of his parishioners. At Barnstable the parties had their headquarters in rival taverns; and at Sturgis’s, where Whigs met every evening to comment on the news, the discussion, running high between moderates and radicals, sometimes slopped over into action. After one such meeting a man who had criticised the system of espionage that wasted energy in ferreting out old women’s secret stores of tea, had his fence destroyed by his irate neighbors. Otis and Freeman, it seems, were not popular with the militia who, at a review one day, clubbed muskets instead of presenting arms. “The Crockers are at the bottom of this,” cried Joseph Otis. “You lie,” gave back Captain Samuel Crocker. A fight between the two naturally ensued; in the midst of which Freeman, who was not the man to be an inactive spectator, turned upon another Crocker, a moderate Whig in politics, followed him into his house, slashing at him harmlessly enough, and in his turn was like to have been murdered by a younger member of the Crockers thirsting for vengeance. Freeman’s cutlass took effect only upon the “summer beam” of the house; and years afterwards, when it was used as a tavern, Freeman, who had come from Sandwich to attend court, was refused entertainment there. “My house is full,” quoth Madam Crocker. She pointed to the scars of the “summer beam.” “And if it were not, there would be no room for Colonel Freeman.” “Time to forget those old matters, and bury the hatchet,” protested Freeman. “Very like,” said she, “but the aggressor should dig the grave.” A certain young woman, suspected of disloyalty, and asked by the Vigilance Committee whether she were a Tory, answered in four emphatic words which the record leaves us to imagine from the dark comment: “The Committee never forgot them and ever after treated her with respect.” This woman, Amos Otis tells us, never lost her youthful vivacity; even in old age she was gay, responsive, able to discuss with equal zest the latest novel or parson’s sermon. Her wit was keen, and the point “never blunted in order to avoid an allusion which prudery might condemn.”