Johnny Tremain

by Esther Forbes

  VII. The Fiddler's Bill

  BUT when that bill came—the fiddler's bill—that bill for the tea, it was so much heavier than anyone expected, Boston was thrown into a paroxysm of anger and despair. There had been many a moderate man who had thought the Tea Party a bit lawless and was now ready to vote payment for the tea. But when these men heard how cruelly the Town was to be punished, they swore it would never be paid for. And those other thirteen colonies. Up to this time many of them had had little interest in Boston's struggles. Now they were united as never before. The punishment united the often jealous, often indifferent, separate colonies, as the Tea Party itself had not.

  Sam Adams was so happy his hands shook worse than ever.

  For it had been voted in far-off London that the port of Boston should be closed—not one ship might enter, not one ship might leave the port, except only His Majesty's warships and transports, until the tea was paid for. Boston was to be starved into submission.

  On that day, that first of June, 1774, Johnny and Rab, like almost all the other citizens, did no work, but wandered from place to place over the town. People were standing inangry knots talking, gesticulating, swearing that yes, they would starve, they would go down to ruin rather than give in now. Even many of the Tories were talking like that, for the punishment fell equally heavily upon the King's most loyal subjects in Boston and on the very 'Indians' who had tossed the tea overboard. This closing of the port of Boston was indeed tyranny; this was oppression; this was the last straw upon the back of many a moderate man.

  The boys strolled the waterfront. Here on Long Wharf, merchants' counting houses were closed and shuttered, sail lofts deserted, the riggers and porters stood idle. Overnight, hundreds of such, and sailors and ropemakers, wharfingers and dock hands, had been thrown out of work. The great ships of Boston which had been bringing wealth for over a hundred years were idle at their berths. Not one might come and go.

  At first it was the men of the ships and wharves that were thrown out of work and could not get food for their families. The paralysis that started there would soon spread out and include everybody. For who now could buy new clothes? The clothiers and tailors would close shop. Not one man in Boston could afford a silver basin. The silversmiths would not last long. Nobody could pay rent. The wealthy landowners were headed for bankruptcy.

  'So,' said Rab cheerfully, 'looks like we'd all starve together.'

  They stood at the very end of Long Wharf which ran a half-mile out into the harbor. They could see the Captain, British flagship, stationed between Long and Hancock's Wharf, and over by Governor's Island, the Lively, and beyond, the Mercury, the Magdalen, the Tartar. His Majesty's fleet surrounded Boston, enforcing the Port Act.

  'Uncle Lorne is upset. He says the printers will not be able to go on with the newspapers. He won't be able to collect subscriptions, or get any advertising. He won't be able to buy paper nor ink.'

  'He's sending the Webb twins home?'

  'Yes. Back to Chelmsford. But he and I can manage. The Observer is to be half-size. He won't give up. He'll keep on printing, printing and printing about our wrongs—and our rights—until he drops dead at his press—or gets hanged.'

  There had been a good deal of talk about hanging. Governor Hutchinson was ordered to England. General Gage from now on would be in charge. Regiment upon regiment of the finest British troops were arriving. They were planning to put down sedition all right. And everyone knew that Gage had the right to send any man whom he believed a leader in this revolt against England to London and the parody of a trial, certain death on the gallows. Or, if he wished, Gage might erect his gallows over here.

  Sam Adams and Hancock, Doctor Warren, perhaps still James Otis, would be the first to go. Certainly all the other members of the Observers, if ever their names were known, would follow, and so would all the Whig printers of Boston. No wonder Uncle Lorne was a little nervous. By nature, he was a timid man, yet timid or bold he would go on printing, begging the people of Massachusetts to wake up and resist this tyranny before it was too late. He would print until he had not a sheet of paper left to print on, or until the very day the gallows was set up for him.

  As yet, only the British men-of-war had arrived. But the transports were on the seas. Soon it seemed that almost every day another transport put in. There was the rattle of drums, with the shouts of officers, and off the ships poured a flood, scarlet as a tide of blood. Boston was inundated with British soldiers, and now every third person one met in the street wore the handsome uniform of King George the Third.

  There wasn't much work to do. Rab by himself could set the entire newspaper in a day. The subscriptions had dropped, partly because many people could not afford a paper, and partly because so many Whig families were leaving Boston for the country. Johnny could deliver the Boston papers in a morning—instead of taking all day. June was ending and the boys stood about the Common watching the soldiers of the First Brigade camped there under Earl Percy. Row upon row of identical tents, cook fires, tethered horses of officers, camp followers, stacked muskets, the quick, smart pacing of sentries. All was neat and orderly.

  Muskets. It was the muskets which interested Rab the most. Already on every village green throughout New England, men and boys were drilling in defiance of the King's orders. They said they were afraid of an attack from the French. These men had no uniforms. They came from the fields and farms in the very clothes they used for plowing. That was all right. But the weapons they brought to their drilling were not. Many had ancient flintlocks, old squirrel guns, handed down for generations. Rab, for instance, all that spring had been going to Lexington once or twice a week to drill with his fellow townsmen. But he could not beg nor buy a decent gun. He drilled with an old fowling piece his grandsire had given him to shoot ducks on the Concord River. Never had Johnny seen Rab so bothered about anything as he was over his inability to get himself a good modern gun.

  'I don't mind their shooting at me,' he would say to Johnny, 'and I don't mind shooting at them ... but God give me a gun in my hands that can do better than knock over a rabbit at ten feet.'

  The British soldiers went about their business as though oblivious of the many hostile, curious eyes watching them. They were confident that these provincials, these yokels now gaping at their equipment, gauging the manner of fighting men they were, would be so impressed they would never stand up and fight them. Rab, so concerned over a gun as he was, did an uncharacteristic, foolish thing. The two boys were standing close to a stack of muskets. As Rab explained to Johnny their good points, he put out a hand and touched the lock on one.

  Without even showing bad temper, almost impartially, a mounted officer sitting his horse close by chatting with a couple of Boston's Tory girls, swung about and struck Rab a heavy blow on the side of his head with the flat of his sword. Then he went on flirting with the girls as though nothing had happened. Rab never knew what hit him.

  Now a sergeant came bawling, 'Spectators are not to intrude. Get back behind them ropes! Get back all of you! Get back!'

  Johnny stayed where he was beside the unconscious Rab. Yet, after this act of sudden violence, the boys were well treated. Johnny was not run through because he stayed with his friend, did not obey the sergeant. A gray, older man, a medical officer, approached, called for water, sponged Rab's face for him, and said he was coming to. Johnny was not to worry.

  'What was he doing?'

  'Just looking at a gun.'

  'Touching it?'

  'Well ... yes.'

  'And only got hit over the head? He got off easy. Filching a soldier's arms is a serious misdemeanor. Wonder Lieutenant Bragg didn't kill him.'

  Rab said thickly. 'I hadn't thought to filch it! Not bad idea. Guess I'll ... guess I'll...' He was still groggy from the blow. 'If ever I get a chance I'll...'

  The medical man only laughed at him.

  'Now, boys,' he said seriously, 'you forget talk like that. You remember that we don't like being here in Boston any
better than you like having us. I'd rather be with my wife and children in Bath. We're both in a tight spot. But if we keep our tempers and you keep your tempers, why, we can fix up things between us somehow. We're all one people, you know.'

  As he talked, Johnny had an experience he was to have many more times. The troops would do something he considered unforgivable (like nearly braining Rab for merely touching a gun) and then the next moment be so civil and friendly he could not help but like them—at least some of them, as individuals. The medical man, noticing Johnny's riding boots and spurs, was saying, 'I've a cousin lives over in Cambridge. Haven't had a chance to send him a letter. Do either of you know a boy with a good horse who'd ride for me?'

  Rab was mouthing 'yes' at Johnny.

  'I've got a good horse.'

  'Come to me at one o' the clock sharp this noon. I'm quartered on Mr. Shaw, North Square.'

  On the way home Rab said: 'If you can get started carrying messages for him, others may follow. Might be we could learn things Sam Adams and Doctor Warren and Paul Revere would like to know. They wouldn't dare send their own orderlies—fearful somebody might kill them.'

  'I'd thought of that myself.'

  But at one o'clock, as he stood beside Goblin in North Square receiving money and the letter from the medical captain (also a pleasant smile), one thing upset him. Paul Revere's house was almost next door. There was a girl there about his age. She was standing before her house, almost bent horizontal at the hips. She was sticking out at him the longest, reddest tongue he had ever seen. And as he mounted and swung about to leave the British officer, he heard her shrilling in a horrible sing-song, 'He loves the Brit-ish. He loves the Brit-ish.'

  But that night, on his return, when he went to tell Mr. Revere there was no question but that Mr. Shurtleif of Cambridge, always considered a lukewarm Whig, was in reality a leader of Tories in Middlesex County, he saw little Miss Revere again. 'Father says,' she apologized handsomely, 'that I'm not to believe everything I see and...'

  'Believe anything you like.' Johnny was feeling good. He had charged the medical man three times the price he would have dared charge a Yankee, and by what Mr. Shurtleif had said to his wife on reading this letter he had found out something worth—not much—but at least worth knowing.

  'I like to see you stick out your tongue,' he went on. 'It is so long and red I thought at first it was a hound-dog dressed up in pink petticoats. I never guessed it was a young lady.'

  2

  Now Johnny no longer kept half of the money he and Goblin earned carrying letters. He charged the British officers such a figure (and they never complained), he was bringing in a considerable sum and he gave it all to Aunt Lorne to buy food for her family, of which he was one. At first she wouldn't take it, then she cried and kissed him on the little peak of hair that turned down upon his forehead, and did take it.

  No gallows was set up to hang 'rebels.' General Gage was doing his best to make friends with the people of Boston. He did not stop the flood of treasonable oratory which poured forth from men like Warren and Quincy. He did not prohibit the publication of such inflammatory presses as the Observer. The Whigs had their say. The papers were allowed to print outrageous things about himself and his troops. He was not brilliant, but he was no tyrant. In time he confidently expected all the trouble would smooth out by itself ... if only the soldiers and the inhabitants did not get to quarreling.

  Nor did Boston starve. From one end of the Atlantic seaboard to the other, towns and even villages sent great shipments of food. Rice from South Carolina or quintals of fish from Marble-head; money even from London, for there was much sympathy in England for Boston. Flour, corn, beef, sheep, all day were passing through the town gates upon the Neck, in carts and wagons. This was the only road connecting Boston with the mainland. Formerly almost everything she used came to her on her hundreds of famous ships. Now the ships were lying like dead birds along her wharves. So July was ending.

  Johnny had not seen Priscilla Lapham for three weeks. His schedule was now so much upset he never did know when he would be in North Square on a Thursday. And every Sunday oflate he had gone out to Lexington to watch the Minute Men drilling, a little secretly, behind Grandsire Silsbee's great barn. It might be Sabbath-breaking, but these men were so sure they were doing God's will in preparing to resist tyranny they did not care. Johnny could only stand and watch. True enough, there were boys no older than he drilling there, but his crippled hand made it impossible for him to pull a trigger. This incapacity fretted him badly and he would sometimes take it out on Rab ... The militia troops didn't look like much. They had funny-looking guns. They were funny-looking men and ... Rab let him talk. He knew why Johnny was criticizing. It was because he could not be one himself.

  So he had not seen Cilla since late in June.

  Thus far she had never once come to the Observer's office in Salt Lane. It was as if she recognized it as that other world into which Johnny Tremain had disappeared and knew that she could not follow him. So Johnny was surprised one afternoon, riding back from Plymouth where he had delivered a letter for Major Pitcairn, to find her sitting in the shop with Rab. She did not look at all forlorn, in her fresh lavender muslin frock, her neat white stockings and black pumps. Her head was tipped back and she was laughing. She had been drawing a picture and Rab was telling her what to draw. For once—for the first time since Johnny had left the Laphams—Isannah was not with her. Johnny was so glad to see her, he wondered could it have been that it was Isannah always hanging onto her, always showing off, that had irritated him—made him not care whether he kept his rendezvous with the girls or not?

  As he came in, booted and spurred, sunburned and hatless, Cilla glanced at him. Her eyes were happy, filled to the brim with happiness. She had been having such a good time with Rab; and unconsciously and unreasonably Johnny stiffened. He couldn't see why she and Rab should have been having such a good time.

  They were explaining. Rab had wanted a picture of Boston being strangled to death by a British grenadier. It was for the newspaper and—she, Cilla, having chanced in, had drawn it beautifully—now Johnny would have to cut a block of it for printing.

  'I can do it—not very well, of course, but I can. You certainly can draw better and better.'

  'Mr. Tweedie can draw. He's giving me lessons. And Rab posed for the British grenadier. Look, I've pictures of him here.'

  'Those Rab? They look more like woodchucks than Rab to me,' he said. But Cilla knew he thought they were fine pictures and was proud of her.

  She was so pretty Johnny could hardly think where all this prettiness came from, and sourly he thought it came from Rab. He had a way of lighting people up, showing them at their best. No, partly at least it was because of that lavender dress, and her face had color in it because she was eating enough. When the troops came and times were so hard, Cilla had always given a large share of her food to Isannah and had grown to look more peaked and worried every week. Now she looked fine.

  'Sit there, like that, Johnny. I'm going to draw you too. You're easier than Rab.'

  'Why'm I easier than Rab?'

  'Because,' she said, intentionally hurting his feelings, 'you're just a child yet—Rab's grown up. There! You don't mind if I make you look a little like a raccoon, do you?'

  'I'll draw a bushy tail for you, Cilla,' Rab said.

  Johnny fidgeted, as people do who are having their pictures drawn, crazy to see what somebody else thinks they look like. It wasn't much of a picture. Between them they had drawn a funny, half-raccoon, half-boy. Somehow it did look like Johnny, and they all laughed.

  'Four o'clock! I must be getting back. I was told to pick up a pair of gloves on Queen Street and be back at five.'

  She got up, tied a flowered bonnet on her head, and started for the door.

  'Wait ... Cilla, you haven't told me any news.' He had forgotten how recently her news had bored him.

  'That's right. I've just told Rab. Johnny, I won't be able to mee
t you regularly any more. Things have changed.'

  'How so? Your mother mad?'

  'No ... that is, yes, she is mad, but about something else. She's mad because Dorcas really did have the guts to run off and marry Frizel, Junior, just as soon as Mr. Tweedie declared for her.'

  'Dorcas isn't going to get much of that elegance she was always out after from Frizel, Junior.'

  'No, but she doesn't care.' The young girl's voice softened. 'She says when you really are in love, you don't care much about anything—except him.'

  Johnny, remembering the gawky, callow, but upstanding young leather-dresser of Fish Street, was surprised that anyone could value him so highly.

  'She ran off with Frizel, Junior, just as soon as Mr. Tweedie came out and said he preferred her to Madge. But what put Ma right through the roof was when he said he was in no hurry. He didn't mind passing up Madge and waiting for me.'

  'You!' cried Johnny hotly; 'that old man—if he is a man! Why, he must be about forty. Cilla, you're lying to me if you say anybody's talking of marrying you.'

  'I was fifteen last month. And you were fifteen way back in January.'

  'I'd not stopped to think. Rab, did you hear that? I'm only a year younger than you are now.'

  Rab grinned. 'I was seventeen last week.' Johnny thought that was like Rab—slipping off by himself, getting ahead of you and then grinning at you out of the corner of his mouth.

  'Mother didn't like it—Mr. Tweedie stalling like that. Then one thing happened after another.'

  'For instance?'

  'Ever since—well, last fall—the Lytes have been giving us work to do. Mr. Tweedie is clever—although so queer. A couple of weeks ago Miss Lyte came in. She wanted her arms, that old rising sun, engraved on the top of her riding whip. So she stands about and I stand about and Mr. Tweedie and Ma. The shop door was open into the back yard ... and Isannah was standing about too, in the back yard.'