Johnny Tremain

by Esther Forbes

  Although the very young officer was proud and class-conscious enough when they met indoors at the Lytes' or Afric Queen, once both were in their saddles they were equals. He was an ardent teacher who had at last met a pupil worth bothering with. Or rather two pupils, for at the end of the first lesson he said Goblin was the finest natural jumper he had ever seen. Johnny knew he longed to own him himself. He could, any moment, by merely saying 'commandeer.' And Johnny knew he never would say it.

  From that day he and Johnny spent hours together jumping or exercising horses. Johnny almost worshiped him for his skill and almost loved him, because, ever and anon, he looked so much like Rab; but still it was only where horses were concerned they were equals. Indoors he was rigidly a British officer and a 'gentleman' and Johnny an inferior. This shifting about puzzled Johnny. It did not seem to puzzle the British officer at all.

  3

  Now Johnny did not ride all over the countryside on Fridays and Saturdays, to get back late and tired, taking the last ferry from Charlestown home to Boston Saturday night. First, there was no ferry, and, second, the guards at the town gate were too curious. They would demand to see what was in his dispatch bag and after looking at the papers dump them in the mud. They would pretend it was an accident, but it was not. Uncle Lorne arranged with one of the Silsbees of Lexington to smuggle out the papers in his farm wagon when he came in every week to market.

  One day late in March, Johnny started out to deliver his papers, for it was Thursday. But Goblin was so unmanageable, he decided to take him over to the Common first and let him get the kinks out of him. As usual he walked the horse through the British encampment, through the idle men, stacked muskets, military stores, camp kitchens. The sentry let him by, but the next moment an officer, half-shaved and in shirt sleeves, was shouting at him. Something about 'Getting that fool out of here,' and, 'What's that boy doing here?' 'Heh! Stop him. Grab his bridle.'

  So Johnny knew that the troops were getting edgy. Never before had they bothered him as he merely walked his horse through the encampment down to the open fields close to the Charles.

  There was nothing for him to do but sit tight and take what was coming. The men rushed at Goblin and grabbed him so roughly the horse was frightened. One man was knocked down and another kicked before Johnny could quiet him. The dispatch bag of newspapers fell to the ground at the feet of the burly half-shaved shirt-sleeved officer.

  'Let's see what sort of sedition this rogue is bringing in among His Majesty's loyal troops.' His face, behind lather, darkened as he glanced at the paper in his hands. 'Sedition. Incitement to rebellion. Why, if it isn't that damned Boston Observer. If I were Gage I'd hang the printer of it and this young imp as well. Boy, you're going to get a horsewhipping. Perhaps you still are allowed to peddle such lies about the streets of Boston, but not among the ranks of His Majesty's First Brigade. Sergeant Clemens—thirty lashes on his bare back.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  Then Johnny noticed that the private holding Goblin's head had orange hair; a freckle-faced little fellow no bigger than himself. It was Pumpkin who earned extra money working at the Lytes' stable. Their eyes met. Pumpkin didn't say the word, only formed it with his lips—' Spurs.'

  Johnny struck his spurs into Goblin. The already excited horse leaped into the air, whirled about, lashing out with his heels, then bolted. Johnny saw redcoats going down in heaps, but one, more persistent than the others, a sergeant, still hung to his bridle. By sheer weight he was wearing the horse down. Johnny, like every boy in Boston, had a claspknife in his pocket. He got it out, reached forward and cut the headstall. So he lost both the sergeant and the bridle as well. Goblin flung up his beautiful head and went off on a dead run.

  Johnny never understood how the horse could run so fast without tripping over tent pegs, campfires, stacks of muskets, sheep bought for slaughtering. He heard a pistol shot—that would be an officer. They alone carried pistols. Probably he had fired into the air; they were always doing that. Soon he was off the Common shooting up the Hancock Drive. Without a bridle he had no control whatever over the runaway. Goblin chose to double and weave through fields and orchards, with Johnny flat on his neck to keep from being scraped off by low branches, behind the Hancock and Lyte houses, over a stone wall, down a back alley, over a fence like a tom-cat, frightening an old lady who was hanging up clothes, so she almost swallowed a clothespin, down into West Boston and again up Beacon Hill.

  The horse was winded and quieter now. Mrs. Bessie and Cilla were always giving him carrots. It was no wonder that he now turned in at the Lytes' and was ready to listen to Johnny's voice, 'Easy, easy; so, look, Goblin. I'm here. Nothing's going to hurt you. So, quietly, quietly. Softly now, easy, easy.' The bridleless horse came to a stop at the back door of the Lytes'. Soaked with sweat and heaving, he looked about him hoping for a carrot.

  One of Lyte's black coach horses was tied in the stable yard. A man was grooming him. It was Pumpkin, his military tunic off hanging on the fence. Pumpkin looked up, grinning, 'I'd rather take those thirty lashes than ride a horse like that without no bridle.'

  'Oh, I like riding,' Johnny said airily. He had really been a bit scared, but he wasn't going to admit it.

  'You tell your master,' said Pumpkin, 'those papers went where they'll do a deal of good.'

  'The British regulars?'

  'Yep. Lots of 'em are Whigs, you know. Lots of 'em, just like in England, are on your side.' He knocked his currycomb against the trunk of the tree. 'That's why there has been so much deserting. It's just about getting our officers crazy.'

  'But deserters get shot ... down by the hurdles at the foot of the Common.'

  'If they get caught.'

  'If it comes to fighting—when it comes to fighting, how'll they fight?'

  Pumpkin had little triangular green eyes in his freckled face. He stared at Johnny. 'Oh, we'll fight like hell. We always fight like hell.'

  'How about you, Mr. Pumpkin?'

  'Me?' The man spat. 'I'm not saying much, see? Actions speak louder'n words.'

  'You'd leave if you could?'

  Pumpkin screwed up his homely little face. 'Miss Cilla—and ain't she the sweetheart?—and Mrs. Bessie says you can be trusted. When I can get me a smock such as farmers wear. When I can get me an old hat with black hair sewed in it, hanging down like this, see? When I can get a farmer who'll swear I'm his hired man and can take me out past our guard on the Neck...'

  Johnny stepped closer to him. 'I can get you all that.'

  'You sure?'

  'Sure. You saved me from a flogging.'

  'I sure did. Boy, I like it here. I want to live here forever. A farm of my own. Cows. Poor folk can't get things like that over in England.'

  'You can here.' Their heads were close together. Pumpkin, glancing nervously about, picked up a heavy hoof and began cleaning it with his jackknife.

  'Sometime I've got to trust somebody ... Make a break for it. It might as well be you—and now.'

  'But if you're caught, you'll get shot.'

  'I'll get shot? Hell, what do you expect in the army?'

  'Look here. I can get those clothes. Bring them up here, hide them in the hay in the barn. Cilla will tell you when and where I put them. I can get in touch with a Lexington farmer who comes in every Thursday for market. He'll take you out. I'll tell Cilla and she'll tell you. And then—then you'll be free.'

  'Never hear another sergeant yelling at me as long as I live. A farm. Cows.'

  'That's it. And good land can still be had here for the clearing of it.'

  'I'm no soldier. I'm a farmer. I hate the smell of gunpowder. What I like is manure.'

  'But just one thing, Mr. Pumpkin. I'll do all that for one thing. I want your musket—for a friend of mine. Can you hide it in whatever place I decide to hide the farmer clothes for you?'

  'I could do that.'

  Before Johnny's mother died, she had made him four smocks. She made them so large she believed they would last him thro
ugh his indenture. But he had never worn them. Farmers wore smocks, as did teamsters, porters, butchers, brickmakers. But not silversmiths nor printers, and never a horse boy. He had not ever put one of them on. He looked down upon smocks. They were not the fashion in his trade.

  He took one of them from his sea chest in the attic. It was a fine light blue. He had never noticed before how beautiful was the stitching, and it hurt him to think he had been too proud to wear them, for now he was old enough to appreciate the love that had gone into their making. How little his mother had known of the working world to make smocks for a boy who she knew was to become a silversmith! She hadn't known anything, really, of day labor, the life of apprentices. She had been frail, cast off, sick, and yet she had fought up to the very end for something. That something was himself, and he felt humble and ashamed.

  A hat and an old black wig were not hard to find. He sewed them together as best he was able. There was a pair ofUncle Lorne's old breeches Aunt Jenifer said he might have, but he confided only in Rab. Rab must see to it that the uncle who every week smuggled out copies of the Observer also took out the British deserter.

  Ten days later, Cilla told him the farm clothes he had hidden in the hay were gone. And Pumpkin had left behind him his musket and uniform.

  The musket was smuggled out to Lexington by Rab's uncle. It was lashed to the tongue of the wagon so cleverly it never showed. But the British deserter did not show up in his blue smock and false hair to ride out of town with Rab's uncle. He seemed to have completely disappeared. At first the British were much excited and searched Boston from end to end.

  When Pumpkin had been gone a week, Johnny stopped worrying about him. Doubtless he had found some other way of getting out of town.

  Rab did not say much when Johnny showed him the musket he had got for him, but his eyes glowed.

  Johnny, trained in a silver shop to do such work, made a bullet mold. Together at night behind locked doors they cast bullets. From where they squatted by the hearth in their attic they could hear the carefree laughing, singing, and sometimes drunken quarreling of the officers billeted at the Afric Queen.

  All over New England people were casting bullets. There was little lead. Women were taking their beautiful pewter from dresser shelves, stoically watching it melt in crucibles. Porringers, tankards, spoons, teapots, were being re-formed into bullets.

  Aunt Jenifer herself gave Rab her pewter. Much of it had been in her family for a hundred years. She loved her pewter, but she stood dry-eyed and looking, for her, a little stern as she saw it disappear in Johnny's crucible.

  Gunpowder was even harder to get, but all over New England saltpeter, sulphur, and charcoal were being ground to a paste, made into gunpowder. It was going to be needed.

  Each Minute Man made his own bullets, and then his cartridges, to fit his own gun.

  The powder and ball were rolled up in a paper cylinder. Uncle Lorne contributed bound copies of sermons to be torn up for paper, but this paper was too tough. The soldier had to bite the end off his cartridge before he loaded his gun. Half the powder was poured into the pan. The rest of it and the bullet and the paper were rammed down the barrel. The sermons were so tough that not even Rab's strong teeth could get through them. Luckily notepaper was more delicate. Cilla collected a basketful of notes that the British officers had written Miss Lavinia. Rab's bullets were wrapped in an assortment of invitations to balls, protests of undying adoration: crude sonnets comparing her to Diana and Aphrodite. Once Johnny recognized Stranger's schoolboy hand.

  From now on, when the men drilled at Lexington, Rab would have his box full of cartridges, and, as he said, 'Thank God, a decent weapon in my hands.'

  4

  Then March was over and it was April. The tension in Boston grew. Everyone knew that with the coming of spring General Gage would leave the safety of Boston, strike out into the country as commanded by his King, and this time in considerable force. He would never dare send out a mere handful. He knew how well the provincials were arming, preparing to welcome him. King George was in a fury over the dilatory, cautious behavior of his general. Rebellion had not been put down as he had ordered and every day it was growing stronger. Few military supplies had been seized. Everywhere throughout New England men were drilling. His Majesty had expressly ordered all such militia companies to disband. Word came to Boston that three generals, more ferocious than mild General Gage, were already on the way over to take command—Generals Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne. Doubtless, perhaps against his better judgment, Gage would make his big sortie before the Cerebus arrived with the three new generals.

  Johnny continued to watch every move of Colonel Smith at the Afric Queen. He listened to every word Dove absent-mindedly let fall about what he had heard or seen. In spite of a slight fear that he might, once more, meet that half-shaved shirt-sleeved officer who had ordered him whipped, he went almost every day to the Common. Sometimes he exercised Colonel Smith's two horses, riding Sandy and leading Nan. Until he got on Sandy, he had no idea that riding could be so tame a sport. He had rather taken it for granted that whenever you rode a horse you risked a broken neck. The mildness of all horses after Goblin amazed him. He had learned the hard way, but he had learned.

  5

  Johnny, riding Sandy and leading Nan, came down Frog Lane, skirting the Common. He was more cautious nowadays about crossing through the British encampment. Exercising Colonel Smith's horses was Dove's work, but Johnny always did it for him and let Dove sleep.

  On the Common he could see that Earl Percy was parading his entire brigade—all three regiments. But Percy was always doing that. He kept after his men, training and drilling them more than any other commander in Boston. He was a first-class officer.

  Although the heights of the Common were filled with men marching, forming columns, and what-not, Johnny believed he could sneak in by the hurdles and let Sandy and Nan graze along the Charles. He knew this fresh grass was as dear to them as sweets would be to him—if he could get them. The day was so warm he rode in his shirt-sleeves. April was more like May that spring. He was filled with lassitude and a sense of peace. As he turned in the path along the lower end of the Common, he was thinking of nothing except only how much the horses would enjoy the fresh grass and how much he would like some sweets himself.

  He did notice a small group of redcoats doing something down among the salt marshes. They might be catching eels for all he knew or cared. The horses dropped their heads, spread their legs a little, and tore ravenously at the green shoots of grass.

  Then he heard a somber rolling of the drums. Not the usual brisk tattoos. Seemingly all Percy's brigade were marching down upon him. The only place they did not inundate was the patch of hard earth where the hurdles were and where he now sat with Sandy and Nan. They were bringing up platoon after platoon. Sandy, the old war-horse, hearing the drums, the tramp of feet, immediately lifted his head, arched his neck, cocked his tail, and struck a martial attitude. Nan did not hold much by anything connected with the army. She went on eating.

  Johnny looked about him. For the first time he took in what that small band of redcoats, so close to the salt marsh, was about. He saw the chaplain reading from his open prayer-book, the wooden coffin, the hastily dug grave. Those eight men and their officer were not out catching eels (as they should have been on so fair and lazy a day), they were a firing squad. That man tied and blindfolded was a deserter. Percy had ordered out his entire brigade to watch, hoping it would cure them of any itch to desert.

  A blue smock, a mop of orange hair. So they had caught Pumpkin. He was not to die in the handsome uniform of the King's Own Regiment which he had disgraced, but in the farm clothes Johnny had procured for him.

  The boy gritted his teeth, but he was trapped among the hurdles. He could not get away. Standing at attention, eyes straight ahead, were one or two thousand men in front of him and behind him the firing squad. And the river. The drummers in their high bearskin caps stood with lifted sticks,
waiting. The sound of the volley and the roll of the drums came together. What had happened behind his back he saw reflected in the stony eyes, the white and sweating faces before him. One young officer looked positively green. Only Sandy seemed to enjoy the occasion. As he heard the drums and the firing, he lifted his head even higher. Nan squirmed—if Colonel Smith had been on her he would doubtless have rolled off.

  Johnny put his hands to his face. It was wet and his hands were shaking. He thought of that blue smock his mother had made him, now torn by bullets. Pumpkin had wanted so little out of life. A farm. Cows. True, Rab had got the musket he craved, but Pumpkin wasn't going to get his farm. Nothing more than a few feet by a few feet at the foot of Boston Common. That much Yankee land he'd hold to Judgment Day.

  'Hurrup! Hep! Hep!'

  The firing squad was coming up behind him. He did not turn his head. Now they were passing close to him, their backs coming into his range of vision. Grenadiers they were, in bearskin caps, coat tails buttoned back to show their white breeches. Squared scarlet shoulders—and on each shoulder a musket.

  Each musket ended with a wicked round eye—watching him so it seemed. Eight cruel eyes. It was like looking into the face of death.

  Johnny had always been bold enough, taking about what came, never fearing a fight, and there was much fighting among the boys along the wharves. He had never once doubted his physical courage. But now he did.

  He could not see how anyone, certainly not himself, could ever have the courage to stand up and face those murderous little eyes.

  That night for one horrible moment he was glad his hand was crippled. He would never have to face the round eye of death at the end of a musket. For days he felt his own inadequacy. Was the 'bold Johnny Tremain' really a coward at heart?

  Had Rab ever felt as he did now? You could not guess by looking at him. If he had had any qualms, he would never mention them. Johnny decided to do the same, but Pumpkin's death badly unnerved him.