by Pam Berkman
“Not so fast, Lobsterback!” Filigree barked. He grabbed the leg of the soldier’s pants and pulled. He tore a piece of cloth from it and fell onto his rump.
The soldier hissed in anger and tried to stomp Filigree. Filigree barely scrambled out of the way.
Hurry up, Jove, he thought.
There was a stable across from the tavern. Filigree could smell the horses inside. He backed against the stable wall. The soldier followed. Filigree was cornered. The soldier grinned down at him.
“There’s about to be one less cur in Lexington,” he said. “And I don’t even need to shoot you.” He lifted his boot up high. Filigree tried to woof, but his breath was stuck in his chest. His legs screamed at him to run, but he had to wait. The plan would fail if the Redcoat spy left too soon.
He heard a crash and a shout. Jove burst out of the tavern. He was carrying two muskets in his jaws.
The soldier’s boot came down fast. At the very last instant, Filigree dodged. The Redcoat stumbled.
At least six patriots ran out of the tavern after Jove, still laughing and shouting. They all had their muskets and pistols. The Redcoat saw them and bolted for the trees.
“Look there!” a patriot shouted.
Quickly the men loaded their muskets. Then they all aimed and fired. BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG!
The loud gunfire made Filigree yelp.
His legs gave way under him. He couldn’t believe it. His plan had worked! The men had fired at the Redcoat spy! Now he could only hope that it was enough.
An older man came out of the tavern. “Quiet!” he said to the militia men.
“We saw someone in the dark,” one of the men said. “A spy, maybe.”
“Or a possum,” the older man muttered. “The Redcoats aren’t here yet. And what in tarnation are you doing making so much noise? Get inside and stop imagining things.”
The men grumbled. But they filed back inside.
Jove walked up to Filigree, chuckling.
Filigree looked up at him. “You stole their guns???”
“You didn’t say how you wanted ’em out of the tavern,” Jove grunted. He sauntered across the road. Together they stood guard at the edge of Lexington Common. Moments later, Filigree heard hoof beats. It was the Redcoat patrol! They stopped almost right next to Filigree and Jove.
Filigree’s heart sank. The patrol had come to Lexington anyway. They would search the town! They would find Mr. Adams and Mr. Hancock, and the militia, too!
But the soldiers didn’t ride any farther into town. Instead, they talked in whispers. They seemed to come to a decision. Then they spurred their horses and rode on away from Lexington.
“Well done, patriot,” Jove said.
Filigree was too surprised to even wag his tail.
Filigree and Jove waited at the edge of town. At last they heard familiar footsteps. Three shapes moved carefully through the swamp. Filigree recognized the one in the lead immediately. Mr. Revere crept through the darkness.
Filigree raced toward him. Jove followed at a quick march.
“Filigree!” Mr. Revere grinned. “Good boy. And if it isn’t Jove!” He patted Filigree’s head. “You’ll never guess what happened. The Redcoats brought me almost here. Then they heard a volley of musket fire. It made them believe my story that we had hundreds of militia in Lexington! They said they were going to ride straight past town. They let us all go and got out of there.”
He stopped and looked down at Filigree. “Now, you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, boy?”
Filigree yipped joyfully. The patriot leaders were safe, and the militia was gathering.
He could feel that the night was far from over, and that the real fight was still to come. The patriots—including Filigree—would be ready for it.
Epilogue
July 1775, Watertown, Massachusetts
“Filigree!” Frances called out from the edge of Watertown Common. “Race you to that oak tree! And you, Jove!” Mr. Adams was in Watertown too.
She had almost won when Mr. Revere appeared across the common. Frances, Jove, and Filigree all fell over one another in a heap of arms, legs, and paws. Frances giggled and even Jove laughed.
“There’s my girl!” Mr. Revere said to Frances as he reached them. He patted Filigree’s head. “Strong as . . . as . . .”
“Filigree?” laughed Frances. Anvil lay curled in the sunshine just out of the shade of the oak tree. She lifted her head, blinked at Filigree, and went back to sleep.
“One more time?” Frances said to the dogs.
Just a few hours after Mr. Revere had made it safely to town, the Battle of Lexington had begun. The patriots had been ready, thanks to the midnight riders. But it meant that the patriot fighters couldn’t go back to Boston.
Mr. Revere had his family meet him in Watertown as soon as he could. Ever since her nighttime adventure on the streets of Boston, Frances just wouldn’t stay in bed and inside any longer. Little by little, Mr. Revere realized she was strong now. He hadn’t treated her like a weakling since she arrived in Watertown.
Mr. Revere hadn’t told anyone about Filigree’s help that night. That was their secret. “I might need you again, boy,” Mr. Revere had said to him. “A spy never reveals his best weapons.” And of course, he never knew exactly how Filigree had helped him escape the Redcoats and scare them away from Lexington.
But Jove did, and word had spread. Now every dog in the Massachusetts Bay Colony knew how Filigree had helped the patriot cause.
Frances took off running across the common.
“Think you can keep up, Dormouse?” Jove said.
This time, Filigree didn’t mind the nickname.
AUTHORS’ NOTE
The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere
Many people have heard or read Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” which was published in 1861. It’s an exciting poem, but the real story is pretty different. We based our story on a report called a deposition that Paul Revere wrote in 1775, telling his story of the ride. We also read a lot of books and accounts of the midnight ride, and talked to people who work at the Paul Revere House in Boston and the Lexington Historical Society.
Paul Revere never did shout, “The British are coming!” He would have needed to warn the patriots very quietly, because the countryside was full of British patrols. Also, many people in the colonies were still loyal to England’s King George, and Revere would not have wanted them to know what the patriots were up to. Paul Revere was also not a lone hero. Other patriot riders were out that night, spreading the word, including William Dawes.
Many people think that Revere’s main mission was to ride to Concord and alert the patriots that the British patrols were coming. Instead, his job was to get to Lexington, which is halfway between Boston and Concord, to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams they were about to be arrested. He went on to Concord afterward because the patriots didn’t know if anyone had made it there. No one knows exactly what Adams and Hancock were doing after Revere left or why they took so long to leave town. Sources say they even went to the tavern to get “refreshment”!
Paul Revere really was captured by a British patrol on the way to Concord. And gunshots fired from Lexington really did convince the British patrol to let their prisoners go and to ride away from the town. No one knows who fired the shots, and there is nothing to say that a little dog did not make it happen.
Paul Revere had many children, including a daughter named Frances, who was nine years old at the time of the ride. Very little is known about her, and we added her illness to the story. No one knows if Paul Revere had either a Pomeranian or a house cat. However, Samuel Adams’s big Newfoundland, who was trained to bark and nip at Redcoats, was real. His name was probably Queue, but for our story, we named him Jove. There were laws against keeping big dogs in Boston. Samuel Adams doesn’t seem to have paid any attention to them at all.
General Thomas Gage was the leader of the British
troops in Boston. Some of his troops thought he was too nice and gentlemanly to the patriots. His American wife, Margaret, may have been a spy for the patriots. He eventually sent her away to England. Mrs. Banks and Mr. Banks weren’t real people, but we added them to represent the loyalists in Boston.
Paul Revere’s friend Robert Newman was one of three people who took the job of lighting the lanterns in the Old North Church. The others were John Pulling and Thomas Bernard. Two of Revere’s friends, Joshua Bentley and Thomas Richardson, rowed him across the Charles River. The nearly full moon really was unusually low in the sky that night, which very likely helped Revere get across the river without being seen. John Larkin’s speedy mare, Brown Beauty, was real too.
A few hours after Paul Revere made it safely back to Lexington, another shot was fired on Lexington Common. Revere heard it, but he was busy helping John Hancock move a trunk full of important papers. This shot is often called “the shot heard round the world.” It started the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and was the beginning of the American Revolution.
Some Information About Slavery in Massachusetts
It is important to remember that there were slaves in Boston and throughout the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The first record of slavery in Boston dates from 1638. It was abolished in Massachusetts in 1783. There is no data or documentation that shows that the Revere family owned slaves.
However, many people in the colony, patriot and loyalist alike, owned slaves and profited from slavery. Even after slavery was abolished in Massachusetts, many people continued to be subjected to discrimination and slavery conditions.
We also know that slaves took part in spreading the word that the British were on their way on the night of the midnight ride. In the town of Needham, for example, a slave named Abel Benson warned some of the town with blasts on his trumpet after an unknown patriot rider stopped there.
Along with people of African descent who were slaves, there were also those who were free who lived in Boston and the Massachusetts area. Some individuals born in the colonies were part African and part another nationality. For example, Crispus Attucks was of both African and Native American decent. He worked as a stevedore (someone who loads and unloads ships). He died in the Boston Massacre. Even free people of African descent lived under some threat of being cast into slavery.
Both slaves and free men of African or multiracial descent fought in the American Revolution. Prince Estabrook was an African slave who was wounded in the Battle of Lexington Common and received his freedom by fighting in the Revolution. Some slaves who fought were freed. However, many were not.
Acknowledgments
When we got the idea for the At the Heels of History series, we could only have dreamed of working with a team as skilled and supportive as the one at Margaret K. McElderry Books. Heartfelt thanks to the wonderful Ruta Rimas and Nicole Fiorica, whose editorial guidance and advice strengthened and enriched this book, and to illustrator Claire Powell, whose talents brought Filigree’s adventures to life.
A million thanks to the always brilliant Mollie Glick and the team at CAA, with a special shout-out to Emily Westcott, whose early feedback helped us imagine the dogs of Filigree’s world.
Many thanks to Patrick Leehey and Alex Powell at the Paul Revere House for sharing their research and knowledge, and to Chris Kauffman and Sarah McDonough at the Lexington Historical Society. Thank you to Dr. Carla Walter for her insights and guidance on the experience of people of African descent in colonial Massachusetts, and to Nick Grossman and Ruel Mac for detailed information on eighteenth-century guns. Thanks to Dian Bodiford for cat consultation. David Hackett Fischer’s Paul Revere’s Ride was an invaluable resource. Thank you to the Berkeley Public Library and Contra Costa Public Library for the wealth of information within their walls.
We could not have written this book without the guidance and support of our writing partners: Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Michelle Hackel, Mary Mackey, Lisa Riddiough, and Elizabeth Stark. Thank you to Debbie Notkin for helping us successfully navigate the world of coauthoring a creative project.
Pam would like to thank Max and Caspian for their patience and understanding while Mom was busy writing, and her husband, Mehran, and sister, Brenna, for their support and love. Dorothy would like to thank her family and friends for their love, encouragement, and support. None of this happens without all of you. Thank you to the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto and Word of Mouth Bay Area. And, of course, thank you to dogs. You’re all very good dogs.
About the Author and Illustrator
Pam Berkman has written books for grown-ups, and this is her first book for kids. She loves writing about events in history and thinking about how they connect to things that are happening today. She also works as an editor. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and twin sons.
Dorothy Hearst is the author of the Wolf Chronicles trilogy. She loves writing about canine characters, birds, and other creatures who can give us the chance to see ourselves in new ways. She is an acquiring editor, a martial artist, a self-defense-instructor-in-training, an avid hiker and reader, and a dog lover. She is not entirely domesticated, but is very food-motivated.
Claire Powell is a bestselling children’s book illustrator working in London, UK. She started out designing for big-hitting television brands before an impromptu visit to a children’s book exhibition led her down the path of illustration. Self-taught, Claire got her first book deal in 2016 and has never looked back.
Margaret K. McElderry Books
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MARGARET K. McELDERRY BOOKS
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2019 by Pamela Berkman and Dorothy Hearst
Illustrations copyright © 2019 by Claire Powell
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Also available in a Margaret K. McElderry Books paperback edition
Book design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover and Rebecca Syracuse
Jacket design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover
Jacket illustrations copyright © 2019 by Claire Powell
Cover art has been rendered by hand and colored in Photoshop. All interior illustrations have been drawn by hand using pencil and graphite.
First Margaret K. McElderry Books hardcover edition August 2019
CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-5344-3332-8 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-5344-3333-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-5344-3334-2 (eBook)
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