Johnny Tremain

by Esther Forbes

  'Of course, sir.'

  'How many other boys could you find for the night's work? Strong and trustworthy boys—for if one ounce of tea is stolen, the whole thing becomes a robbery—not a protest?'

  Rab thought.

  'Eight or ten tonight, but give me a little time so I can feel about a bit and I can furnish fifteen or twenty.'

  'Boys who can keep their mouths shut?'

  'Yes.'

  Paul Revere said, 'I can furnish twenty or more from about North Square.'

  'Not one is to be told in advance just what the work will be, nor who the others are, nor the names of the men who instigated this tea party—that is, the gentlemen gathered here tonight. Simply, as they love their country and liberty and hate tyranny, they are to gather in this shop on the night of December sixteenth, carrying with them such disguises as they can think of, and each armed with an axe or hatchet.'

  'It will be as you say.'

  The discussion became more general. Each of these three groups must have a leader, men who could keep discipline.

  'I'll go, for one,' said Paul Revere.

  Doctor Warren warned him. 'Look here, Paul, it has been decided this work must be done by apprentices, strangers—folk little known about Boston. The East India Company may bring suit. If you are recognized...'

  'I'll risk it.'

  Uncle Lorne was motioning to the boys to leave the conspirators. They did not want to leave, but they did.

  4

  Both the boys were in their truckle beds. The loft still smelled of tobacco and the spices of the punch.

  Johnny moved restlessly on his bed.

  'Rab?'

  'Uh?'

  'Rab ... those boys you promised. Am I one?'

  'Of course.'

  'But my hand ... What will we have to do?'

  'Chop open tea chests. Dump tea in the harbor.'

  'Rab?'

  'Hummmmm?'

  'How can I ever ... chop?'

  'You've twenty days to practice in. Logs in back yard need splitting.'

  'Rab...'

  But the older boy was asleep.

  Johnny was so wide awake he couldn't close his eyes. Old Meeting struck midnight. He settled himself again. Surely if he tried hard enough he could sleep. He was thinking of those tea ships, the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, the Beaver, great white sails spread softly, sweeping on and on through the night to Boston. Nearer, nearer. He was almost asleep, twitched, and was wide awake. He would not think of the tea ships, but of those logs in the back yard he would practice on. He thought of Doctor Warren. Oh, why had he not let him see his hand? Cilla, waiting and waiting for him at North Square—and then he got there only about when it pleased him. He loved Cilla. She and Rab were the best friends he had ever had. Why was he mean to her? He couldn't think. He would take an axe in his left hand and chop, chop, chop ... so he fell asleep.

  Something large and white was looming up over him—about to run him down. He struggled awake, sat up, and found he was sweating. It was the great sails of the tea ships.

  From the bed next to him he heard the soft, slow breathing of the older boy. So much more involved than Johnny in the brewing storm, Rab had been able to drop off immediately. Somehow Johnny must draw into himself something of Rab's calm, his nerveless strength. He began to breathe in unison with the sleeping boy—so slowly, so softly. He fell into a heavy sleep.

  5

  Next morning Johnny was up and out in the back yard early. At first it seemed impossible to hold an axe in his left hand, steady it with his bad right. He gritted his teeth and persevered. Rab said nothing of his struggles. He merely set type, pulled proofs as usual. But often he was gone from home, and Johnny knew he was 'feeling about' for those fifteen to twenty boys he had promised. Would the others go and Johnny be left behind? He could not bear the thought, and Rab had promised him that in twenty days he might learn to chop. Having finished the logs in Mr. Lorne's back yard, he began chopping (free gratis) for the Afric Queen.

  Almost every day and sometimes all day, the mass meetings at Old South Church went on. Tempers grew higher and higher. Boston was swept with a passion it had not known since the Boston Massacre three years before. Riding this wild storm was Sam Adams and his trusty henchmen, directing it, building up the anger until, although the matter was not publicly mentioned, they would all see the only thing left for them to do was to destroy the tea.

  Sometimes Rab and Johnny went to these meetings. It happened they were there when the sheriff arrived and bade the meeting forthwith to disperse. He said it was lawless and treasonable. This proclamation from Governor Hutchinson was met with howls and hisses. They voted to disobey the order.

  Sometimes the boys slipped over to Griffin's Wharf. By the eighth of December the Eleanor had joined the Dartmouth. These were strange ships. They had unloaded their cargoes—except the tea. The Town of Boston had ordered them not to unload the tea and the law stated they could not leave until they had unloaded. Nor would the Governor give them a pass to return to England. At Castle Island the British Colonel Leslie had orders to fire upon them if they attempted to sneak out of the harbor. The Active and the Kingfisher, British men-of-war, stood by ready to blast them out of the water if they obeyed the Town and returned to London with the tea. The ships were held at Griffin's Wharf as though under an enchantment.

  Here was none of the usual hustle and bustle. Few of the crew were in sight, but hundreds of spectators gathered every day merely to stare at them. Johnny saw Rotch, the twenty-three-year-old Quaker who owned the Dartmouth, running about in despair. The Governor would not let him leave. The Town would not let him unload. Between them he was a ruined man. He feared a mob would burn his ship. There was no mob, and night and day armed citizens guarded the ships. They would see to it that no tea was smuggled ashore and that no harm was done to the ships. Back and forth paced the guard. Many of their faces were familiar to Johnny. One day even John Hancock took his turn with a musket on his shoulder, and the next night he saw Paul Revere.

  Then on the fifteenth, the third of the tea ships arrived. This was the brig, the Beaver.

  6

  The next day, the sixteenth, Johnny woke to hear the rain drumming sadly on the roof, and soon enough once more he heard all the bells of Boston cling-clanging, bidding the inhabitants come once more, and for the last time, to Old South to demand the peaceful return of the ships to England.

  By nightfall, when the boys Rab had selected began silently to congregate in the office of the Observer, behind locked doors, the rain stopped. Many of them Johnny knew. When they started to assume their disguises, smootch their faces with soot, paint them with red paint, pull on nightcaps, old frocks, torn jackets, blankets with holes cut for their arms, they began giggling and laughing at each other. Rab could silence them with one look, however. No one passing outside the shop must guess that toward twenty boys were at that moment dressing themselves as 'Indians.'

  Johnny had taken some pains with his costume. He had sewed for hours on the red blanket Mrs. Lorne had let him cut up and he had a fine mop of feathers standing upright in the old knitted cap he would wear on his head, but when he started to put on his disguise, Rab said no, wait a minute.

  Then he divided the boys into three groups. Beside each ship at the wharf they would find a band of men. 'You,' he said to one group of boys, 'will join the boarding party for the Dartmouth. You for the Eleanor. You for the Beaver.' Each boy was to speak softly to the leader and say, 'Me Know You,' for that was the countersign. They would know the three leaders because each of them would wear a white handkerchief about the neck and a red string about the right wrist. Then he turned to Johnny.

  'You can run faster than any of us. Somehow get to Old SouthChurch. Mr. Rotch will be back from begging once more the Governor's permission for the ships to sail within a half-hour. Now, Johnny, you are to listen to what Sam Adams says next. Look you. If Mr. Adams then says, "Now may God help my country," come back here. Then we will t
ake off our disguises and each go home and say nothing. But if he says, "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country," you are to get out of that crowd as fast as you can, and as soon as you get into Cornhill begin to blow upon this silver whistle. Run as fast as you are able back here to me and keep on blowing. I'll have boys posted in dark corners, close enough to the church, but outside the crowd. Maybe we'll hear you the first time you blow.'

  About Old South, standing in the streets, inside the church, waiting for Rotch to return with the very last appeal that could be made to the Governor, was the greatest crowd Boston had ever seen—thousands upon thousands. There was not a chance, not one, Johnny could ever squirm or wriggle his way inside, but he pushed and shoved until he stood close to one of the doors. Farther than this he could not go—unless he walked on people's heads. It was dark already.

  Josiah Quincy's voice rang out from within. 'I see the clouds roll and the lightning play, and to that God who rides the whirlwind and directs the storm, I commit my country...'

  The words thrilled Johnny, but this was not what he was waiting for, and it was not Sam Adams speaking. He was bothered with only one thing. Quincy had a beautiful carrying voice. It was one thing to hear him and another Sam Adams, who did not speak well at all.

  The crowd made way for a chaise. 'Rotch is back! Make way for Rotch!' Mr. Rotch passed close to Johnny. He was so young he looked almost ready to cry. This was proof enough that the Governor had still refused. Such a turmoil followed Rotch's entry, Johnny could not hear any one particular voice. What chance had he of hearing Sam Adams's words? He had his whistle in his hand, but he was so jammed into the crowd about the door that he did not believe he would be able to get his hand to his mouth.

  'Silence.' That was Quincy again. 'Silence, silence, Mr. Adams will speak.' Johnny twisted and turned and brought the whistle to his lips.

  And suddenly there was silence. Johnny guessed there were many in that crowd who, like himself, were hanging on those words. Seemingly Mr. Adams was calmly accepting defeat, dismissing the meeting, for now he was saying,

  'This meeting can do nothing more to save the country.'

  Johnny gave his first shrill blast on his whistle, and he heard whistles and cries seemingly in all directions, Indian war whoops, and 'Boston Harbor a teapot tonight!' 'Hurrah for Griffin's Wharf!' 'Salt-water tea!' 'Hi, Mohawks, get your axes and pay no taxes!'

  Johnny was only afraid all would be over before Rab and his henchmen could get to the wharf. Still shrilling on the whistle, he fought and floundered against the tide of the crowd. It was sweeping toward Griffin's Wharf, he struggling to get back to Salt Lane. Now he was afraid the others would have gone on without him. After all, Rab might have decided that Johnny's legs and ears were better than his hands—and deliberately let him do the work that best suited him. Johnny pushed open the door.

  Rab was alone. He had Johnny's blanket coat, his ridiculous be-feathered knitted cap in his hands.

  'Quick!' he said, and smootched his face with soot, drew a red line across his mouth running from ear to ear. Johnny saw Rab's eyes through the mask of soot. They were glowing with that dark excitement he had seen but twice before. His lips were parted. His teeth looked sharp and white as an animal's. In spite of his calm demeanor, calm voice, he was charged and surcharged with a will to action, a readiness to take and enjoy any desperate chance. Rab had come terrifyingly alive.

  They flung themselves out of the shop.

  'Roundabout!' cried Rab. He meant they would get to the wharf by back alleys.

  'Come, follow me. Now we're really going to run.'

  He flew up Salt Lane in the opposite direction from the waterfront. Now they were flinging themselves down back alleys (faster and faster). Once they had a glimpse of a blacksmith shop and other 'Indians' clamoring for soot for their faces. Now slipping over a back-yard fence, now at last on the waterfront, Sea Street, Flounder Alley. They were running so fast it seemed more like a dream of flying than reality.

  The day had started with rain and then there had been clouds, but as they reached Griffin's Wharf the moon, full and white, broke free of the clouds. The three ships, the silent hundreds gathering upon the wharf, all were dipped in the pure white light. The crowds were becoming thousands, and there was not one there but guessed what was to be done, and all approved.

  Rab was grunting out of the side of his mouth to a thick-set, active-looking man, whom Johnny would have known anywhere, by his walk and the confident lift of his head, was Mr. Revere. 'Me Know You.'

  'Me Know You,' Johnny repeated this countersign and took his place behind Mr. Revere. The other boys, held up by the crowd, began arriving, and more men and boys. But Johnny guessed that many who were now quietly joining one of those three groups were acting on the spur of the moment, seeing what was up. They had blacked their faces, seized axes, and come along. They were behaving as quietly and were as obedient to their leaders as those who had been so carefully picked for this work of destruction.

  There was a boatswain's whistle, and in silence one group boarded the Dartmouth. The Eleanor and the Beaver had to be warped in to the wharf. Johnny was close to Mr. Revere's heels. He heard him calling for the captain, promising him, in the jargon everyone talked that night, that not one thing should be damaged on the ship except only the tea, but the captain and all his crew had best stay in the cabin until the work was over.

  Captain Hall shrugged and did as he was told, leaving his cabin boy to hand over the keys to the hold. The boy was grinning with pleasure. The 'tea party' was not unexpected.

  'I'll show you,' the boy volunteered, 'how to work them hoists. I'll fetch lanterns, mister.'

  The winches rattled and the heavy chests began to appear—one hundred and fifty of them. As some men worked in the hold, others broke open the chests and flung the tea into the harbor. But one thing made them an unexpected difficulty. The tea inside the chests was wrapped in heavy canvas. The axes went through the wood easily enough—the canvas made endless trouble. Johnny had never worked so hard in his life.

  He had noticed a stout boy with a blackened face working near him. The boy looked familiar, but when he saw his white, fat hands, Johnny knew who he was and kept a sharp eye on him. It was Dove. He was not one of the original 'Indians,' but a volunteer. He had on an enormous pair of breeches tied at each knee with rope. Even as Johnny upended a chest and helped get the tea over the rail, he kept an eye on Dove. The boy was secretly scooping tea into his breeches. This theft would come to several hundred dollars in value, but more important it would ruin the high moral tone of the party. Johnny whispered to Rab, who put down the axe he had been wielding with such passion and grabbed Dove. It wasn't much of a scuffle. Soon Dove was whining and admitting that a little of the tea had happened to 'splash' into his breeches. Johnny got them off and kicked them and the many pounds of tea they held into the harbor.

  'He swim good,' he grunted at Rab, for everyone was talking 'Indian' that night.

  Rab picked up the fat Dove as though he were a rag baby and flung him into the harbor. The tea was thicker than any seaweed and its fragrance was everywhere.

  Not a quarter of a mile away, quite visible in the moonlight, rode the Active and the Kingfisher. Any moment the tea party might be interrupted by British marines. There was no landing party. Governor Hutchinson had been wise in not sending for their help.

  The work on the Dartmouth and the Eleanor finished about the same time. The Beaver took longer, for she had not had time to unload the rest of her cargo, and great care was taken not to injure it. Just as Johnny was about to go over to see if he could help on the Beaver, Mr. Revere whispered to him. 'Go get brooms. Cleam um' deck.'

  Johnny and a parcel of boys brushed the deck until it was clean as a parlor floor. Then Mr. Revere called the captain to come up and inspect. The tea was utterly gone, but Captain Hall agreed that beyond that there had not been the slightest damage.

  It was close upon dawn when the work on al
l three ships was done. And yet the great, silent audience on the wharf, men, women, and children, had not gone home. As the three groups came off the ships, they formed in fours along the wharf, their axes on their shoulders. Then a hurrah went up and a fife began to play. This was almost the first sound Johnny had heard since the tea party started—except only the crash of axes into sea chests, the squeak of hoists, and a few grunted orders.

  Standing quietly in the crowd, he saw Sam Adams, pretending to be a most innocent bystander. It looked to Johnny as if the dog fox had eaten a couple of fat pullets, and had a third in his mouth.

  As they started marching back to the center of town, they passed the Coffin House at the head of Griffin's Wharf. A window opened.

  'Well, boys,' said a voice, so cold one hardly knew whether he spoke in anger or not, 'you've had a fine, pleasant evening-for your Indian caper, haven't you? But mind ... you've got to pay the fiddler yet.'

  It was the British Admiral Montague.

  'Come on down here,' someone yelled, 'and we'll settle that score tonight.'

  The Admiral pulled in his head and slapped down the window.

  Johnny and Rab knew, and men like the Observers knew, but best of all Sam Adams knew, that the fiddler would have to be paid. England, unable to find the individuals who had destroyed this valuable property, would punish the whole Town of Boston—make every man, woman, and child, Tories and Whigs alike, suffer until this tea was paid for. Nor was she likely to back down on her claim that she might tax the colonists any way she pleased.

  Next day, all over Boston, boys and men, some of them with a little paint still showing behind their ears, were so lame they could scarce move their fingers, but none of them—not one—told what it was that had lamed them so. They would stand about and wonder who 'those Mohawks' might have been, or what the British Parliament might do next, but never say what they themselves had been doing, for each was sworn to secrecy.

  Only Paul Revere showed no signs of the hard physical strain he had been under all the night before. Not long after dawn he had started on horseback for New York and Philadelphia with an account of the Tea Party. He could chop open tea chests all night, and ride all day.