Sonnets inspired by the pathetic image of the eight little sisters in their childish mourning crowded the pages of American ladies' magazines for the next several months and were eventually anthologized in a hard-bound volume entitled The Greenwich Orphans. Constance's favorite is by a Mrs. Burroughs; she is appropriating its title for her history of Girls School. The poem is called "The Poison'd Pig" and it concludes:

"How much less cruel the lot of every tender, tiny sprig,
Had noble Papa never touched that plate of poison'd pig!"

According to the first witnesses upon the scene who survived the sight (at least two went mad immediately), nearly everyone present at the banquet died where he sat; the body of the vigorous Doctor Horace Greenwich was found near the door, collapsed over the corpse of his father, whom he must have thought he was carrying to safety. In the general panic that ensued the five pigs remaining in the sty were shot and buried with quicklime, while all remains from the feast were burned. Only afterwards, when it was too late, did speculation arise over what the pigs had eaten. The governess from Boston claimed to have fed them a diet of truffles she and her pupils had gathered in the woods; when pressed, she refused further comment. Then, calling in her social connections, which were in fact very numerous, she established a Board of Trustees to administer the property and estate of the orphaned Greenwich girls. The former students of The Greenwich School for Boys were never invited to return to their studies: Girls School opened the following fall, with the governess from Boston as its first headmistress and enrollment by subscription.


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