Johnny Tremain

by Esther Forbes

  'Why do you call my mother Vinny?'

  'We all did. Vinny Lyte, the wildest, handsomest girl in Boston. I was only a schoolgirl, but she was so beautiful and so gay. Oh, if you could but have seen her...'

  'But I did...' He remembered the sweet, sad face of his sick mother. Was the wild and beautiful Vinny Lyte really the same woman? His mother patiently sewing and sewing to keep life in her son's body. She wanted no more life for herself. Teaching him to read. Making him those smocks. Knowing she had changed so much in such few years, she dared as Mrs. Tremain return to Boston, so her boy could grow up there, learn a decent trade. He thought of her agreeing with Mr. Lapham for his indenture. Smiling as she told him that when she died he was to go there.

  'When I first saw you,' Miss Lavinia went on, 'I noticed one thing—but it set me thinking. I did nothing for a while, but this spring I asked one of my father's captains, bound for Marseilles, to feel about and find out the truth. I did so behind Papa's back. Papa was already too ill to be bothered, but I knew he would want to do right.'

  'Like swearing in court there never were but four Lyte cups.'

  She colored angrily.

  'Please let me do the telling. Don't you dare criticize the best man ever lived.'

  Johnny had his own opinion on that.

  'What was the one thing?' he asked.

  'The way your hair turns down upon your forehead. That little peak. She was a dark girl. That widow's peak on her was very striking. And then that day in Mr. Dana's court. I did notice you walked like her, light and wild—like a panther, or'—she shrugged—maybe only like a tom-cat. I admired my cousin so, I may tend to exaggerate her qualities.'

  'And what did your captain find out?'

  'What I have just told you. And one thing more. Your father, the naval surgeon, was ashamed to be a prisoner of war. He told folks here his name was Latour. That's why your name Tremain meant nothing to us.'

  'That is my true name?'

  'Yes. But I haven't much time to talk. Only yesterday I told Papa. He's too ill to speak to you himself. He does want you to know that he did not deliberately cheat you—steal your cup.'

  'Mother did take it with her?'

  'Yes. It belonged to her. And her maid, Mrs. Dennie, went with her. It was Margaret Dennie who got her and you out of the convent and onto a ship her brother commanded and so to Townsend, Maine.'

  'That's where I grew up. I remember Aunt Margaret. She died just before Mother took me to Boston.'

  'Yes. And Papa says I am to promise you that he will write the whole thing out in black and white. When the war's over'—she shrugged—'you can put in quite a claim for property—if there's any property left, which I doubt. Anything more you wish to ask me?'

  'Yes. What relationship are you to me? What ought I to call you?'

  She laughed out loud. 'Mercy, I don't know. What am I? Why, I suppose I'm sort of a cousin—but you'd better call me Aunt. Aunt Lavinia.'

  He said it tentatively.

  'Aunt Lavinia?'

  You couldn't even secretly have a romantic passion for an aunt. The queer hold she had had on him for a year snapped.

  She went to Johnny, stretched out a hand, and touched the widow's peak—all that he had ever got from the beautiful Vinny Lyte. Then she was gone.

  5

  Johnny almost forgot the principal reason for his visit to the Lytes. He would have liked to sit quietly for a moment, brood over what Miss Lavinia had told him. Now was not the time to brood. Cilla and Mrs. Bessie came back together. He told them he must have Pumpkin's uniform. Mrs. Bessie said he was not to think of such a thing.

  'If they catch you, Johnny, they will shoot you for impersonating a British soldier in wartime.'

  'Lots of better men got shot today—Lexington—Concord ... The British are sending boats back and forth tonight, taking off their men from Charlestown. I can sneak along over with them.'

  'No, I forbid you, Johnny. You're going to stay right here and help Cilla and me look after this house.'

  'I've got to go.'

  'Who's going to look out for the Lyte horses if you walk out on us? General Gage has given his word no person or horse or any household gear will be touched, but we need a man to mind the stable.'

  Johnny had an idea.

  'Cilla, there is a thing you can do for me.'

  'What?'

  'Go to the Afric Queen and get my Goblin. Take him up here and turn him out to pasture with the Lyte horses. I guess he won't mind being a Tory for a while.'

  'Can I ride him?'

  'Yes, if you don't mind falling off.'

  'I don't mind.' She looked excited and pleased.

  Mrs. Bessie shook her head. 'And who's to care for the animals? You adding your Goblin makes things worse—not better—for us two womenfolk.'

  'The coachman's going with the Lytes?'

  'Of course. He's English-born.'

  'Look here, Mr. Lorne, the printer—he's not what you'd call a coachman, but he was reared on a farm and he's in trouble.'

  'British haven't arrested him yet?'

  'He hid in a feather bed. But he can't stay there until we've driven the British out of Boston. Couldn't he and his wife and child move up here into the coachman's quarters and you sort of act as though he had always worked here?'

  'Of course, they could. I'd be proud to have them. Cilla, just as soon as the Unicorn sails, you go to the Lornes and tell 'em to come right up and settle in.'

  The girl nodded.

  Johnny said, 'If he can get his little press to working again, I think he might like to bring that with him—go on with his "sedition," as they call it. He just about has to print.'

  'We can hide his press, too. Nobody would dare hunt here for sedition—not after what Gage promised.'

  'He'll be a very happy man, and now I've got to go. Cil, where's that uniform of Pumpkin's?'

  'I hid it under my bed. I'll fetch it down.'

  Mrs. Bessie shook her head, but she wasn't going to argue any more.

  'How old are you, Johnny?' she asked.

  'Sixteen.'

  'And what's that—a boy or a man?'

  He laughed. 'A boy in time of peace and a man in time of war.'

  'Well, men have got the right to risk their lives for things they think worth it. God go with you, my young man. But if they shoot you, remember, I warned you.'

  'I'll remember all right.'

  Pumpkin had been a little stouter than Johnny. The uniform went on easily over the boy's breeches and jacket. Mrs. Bessie braided his hair for him and tied it tightly as the British regulars wore theirs.

  'You couldn't say, could you,' Cilla asked him, 'why it is you have to get out tonight?'

  'Yes. Doctor Warren told me to. Told me things to watch for and report on to him. I've got to find him—and Rab.'

  'Rab?' The girl's voice sounded frightened.

  'He was with the Lexington men. They stood up at dawn and the regulars killed quite a few of them.'

  'Oh, but Rab?'

  Johnny did not answer immediately. He was sitting at the kitchen table and Mrs. Bessie was still fussing with his hair. Not once since Doctor Warren had left had he spoken his name. He hadn't dared to let himself begin thinking about him. If he did, he knew he could not think of anything else. Now he had spoken his name, and emotions, fears, that he had held in check all day surged up through him. But he said quietly, 'I've got to find him. So be a good girl, Cil, and mind Mrs. Bessie.'

  He stood up and put on a shiny black hat with a silver cockade on it and saluted smartly. He knew that the last man to wear this uniform had been shot for putting it off and there was a chance he'd get shot for putting it on.

  The scarlet tunic, with its pale blue facings, the white crossbands on his chest, the white breeches, made him feel like a different person. Now he was a private of the King's Own. He felt confident and happy. And Rab? Of course, he was all right. You couldn't kill a fellow like Rab with just a handful of bullets.
/>   He shook hands with Mrs. Bessie and, because his uniform made him feel grown up, he kissed Cilla goodbye just as he had the Sunday before seen Rab kiss his aunt. Not at all like a child being kissed by female relatives. But Cilla said mischievously, 'Why, I feel as if I were kissing Pumpkin.'

  So Johnny stalked off down Beacon Hill with the proper martial strut. The littler they are, he thought, the more they strut. The physical act of strutting lifted his spirits. Made him feel bigger than he was. Of course that was why the little fellows do it.

  And he wondered what had happened to Sergeant Gale.

  XII. A Man Can Stand Up

  BY INSIGNIFICANT back alleys and little-trod lanes, Johnny made his way to the ferry slip in North Boston. From there to Charlestown boats were going back and forth. The wounded were taken off first.

  No civilian except only the Boston doctors, who had offered their services, were allowed close to the wharf. It was well Johnny had thought to put on Pumpkin's uniform. Mrs. Bessie had been right about one thing. A Yankee caught impersonating a British soldier would be shot. He kept well out of the moonlight and away from the flare of torches, and huddled between a warehouse and a tanning shed.

  His uniform said he was a private in the Fourth Regiment—the King's Own. Pumpkin had not been big and bold enough for a grenadier nor clever enough for a light infantryman. Just a simple footsoldier. Obviously, a footsoldier of the Fourth would have left Boston that morning with Percy, would have mucked about for twelve hours shooting and being shot at. And he would not already be back in Boston unless he had been wounded. The smartness of the uniform which at first had delighted him he now saw was a danger. He lay down and rolled in the muck of the tanning shed. Tore his jacket on a nail and pulled off a button. The black and silver hat he stamped on, banged out of shape, and pulled on well over his eyes. He put mud on his face; pricked his wrist, and smeared his cheek with blood. Then he stepped out on the wharf.

  An officer who had been in town all day moved up to him. Johnny saluted.

  'Wounded?'

  'Not much, sir.'

  'Well, better report to the medical officers. They are using that house as a temporary hospital.'

  'Others are worse off than I. I'll wait till the bad ones have been tended to.'

  'That's the spirit. How was the fighting?'

  'Very heavy, sir.'

  'Can those damned Yankees shoot straight?'

  Johnny had been around the regulars enough to know that was a question that should be answered by oaths (in spite of Mr. Lapham's training).

  The officer laughed and moved down the wharf.

  Although no townsmen, except only the doctors, were permitted on the wharf, Johnny knew that hundreds of them stood well back and in darkness, gloating. They were not saying much, only watching. Then one man began to whistle and the next took it up and the next and the next. The whistling was shrill as a fife. They had not forgotten the prophecy of that morning, 'They go out by "Yankee Doodle," but they'll dance to it before nightfall!'

  'Yankee Doodle' filled the darkness as the eerie shrilling of the hylas fill black swamps in spring.

  Four more boats were coming in. Johnny dared move out onto the wharf, but he still kept well in shadow. More wounded. Could these be the very men who had started out so confidently? Bedraggled, dirty, torn uniforms, torn flesh, lost equipment. Faces ghastly with fatigue and pain. Some were twisting and crying out. The first two boats were filled with privates. They had been packed in, and now were being tossed ashore, like so much cordwood. Most of them were pathetically good and patient, but he saw an officer strike a man who was screaming.

  Johnny's hands clenched. 'It is just as James Otis said,' he thought. 'We are fighting, partly, for just that. Because a man is a private is no reason he should be treated like cordwood.'

  The third boat was moving in with a creak of oarlocks and he heard an exclamation, 'Colonel Smith.' There were only two wounded in this boat, for both were officers. Getting the fat colonel up and off the bottom of the dory was heavy work. He was rolled upon a stretcher and carried to the hospital. He had been shot through the leg. Johnny had never seen Colonel Smith except when he was rosy with good brandy, pompous with pride in himself and the men he commanded. Now he was tallow-colored and as deflated as a pricked bladder.

  The other officer crawled off unaided. The torch suddenly lighted his face. A dark young face, his lips locked to keep down any cry of pain. One arm in a bloody sling. Rab—oh, Rab ... Of course not. It was Lieutenant Stranger.

  Instinctively Johnny started forward to help him, for everyone else was so busy with the wounded colonel, Stranger was left to shift for himself. The boy thought in time of his own danger. How curious a thing is war! Last week—no, yesterday—this man was, in a way, his friend. Lieutenant Stranger walked stiffly and in agony toward the hospital.

  And then another boat, more wounded. The sight of them sickened Johnny. Gray and twisted lips. Hollow eyes. 'But I can't leave ... I've got to stay about, watch my chance for a ride over.'

  Next what was left of Colonel Smith's command began to arrive. They had been marching, and much of the time under fire, for twenty-four hours. They had gone without food or water. As the men stumbled off the boats, there were plenty of questions and answers. Johnny would not be able to tell Doctor Warren the exact number of casualties the British had suffered, but he could tell him that they thought they were heavy.

  The very last man of Colonel Smith's command to return was Major Pitcairn. His face still looked cheerful and confident. They had been licked, had they? All right. The tough old marine had been licked before. As he stepped ashore, suddenly the soldiers about the ferry slip began to cheer. 'Let's get back at 'em, Major,' they yelled.

  He grinned and stuck out his jaw. 'We'll take another try,' he said, 'and if next time we don't clean up on those...' he went off into the profanity for which he was famous to describe what he thought of their enemies, and a roar went up from the men.

  Now Johnny learned that the bulk of Percy's Brigade would be left over in Charlestown camped on Bunker Hill until the next morning. Johnny believed the time had come for him to act.

  The sailors from one of the boats were standing about arguing whether or not they were supposed to go to the Somerset for the night, or over to Charlestown. Johnny ran up to them. 'I've a message for Earl Percy.' He was breathing hard from excitement, but it might have come from running. 'Get me over quick, boys.'

  'Oh, you go whistle for your general,' said one of them. 'You go whistle for your mama. We're sailors, not soldiers, see?'

  'Just let me take your boat...'

  'That's irregular.'

  'Well, I've got to get over and I can't swim, can I?'

  'You ask Lieutenant Swift. He's in charge of us.'

  The last thing Johnny wanted was to be questioned by an officer.

  'Will you or won't you take me across?'

  'Not without orders—you little wabbler.'

  'What's up, men?' a quiet voice asked. The sailors saluted.

  'This here baby-boy says he's got a message for Earl Percy. He wants us to row him over.'

  'Then you will do so.'

  'Aye, aye, sir.'

  Nobody had asked to see Johnny's letter.

  Johnny was rowed across and landed at a wharf in Charlestown. Quickly he slipped up a cobbled street, turned into a garden, stripped off his uniform and hung it on a clothesline. He found a pump and washed his face.

  Although past midnight lights showed in all but the abandoned houses. The people of Charlestown were in a panic. They dared not go to bed with over a thousand British soldiers suddenly camped upon them—defeated soldiers whose mood might turn ugly. These soldiers only wanted to be let alone, allowed to sleep, but the inhabitants thought they might butcher them all.

  Johnny glanced in at two or three taverns. British officers were sleeping in chairs, on benches, on the floors, but he remembered that one of the tavern-keepers was a prominent Son o
f Liberty. There he tiptoed in among the sleeping guests, found a nine-year-old girl servant hidden behind a flour barrel in the pantry and got her to lead him to the summer house where the tavern-keeper and his wife had moved for the night.

  From the tavern-keeper he learned for the first time what had happened after the skirmish at Lexington. Colonel Smith had indeed marched on to Concord, possessed the town, destroyed such military stores as had not yet been hidden. And there had been another skirmish. You might even call it a battle, at North Bridge.

  But from everywhere, all about, had come the Minute Men. Obviously Smith had been a little afraid of leaving the safety of the village. He would wait where he was for the reinforcements he had sent for, even before Lexington.

  But Percy did not come and did not come. Every moment more and more Minute Men were arriving, surrounding the village. At noon Smith had decided to try to take his men back. He dared wait no longer. Then the shooting began. The Minute Men, from behind stone walls and barns, trees, bushes, had opened fire. Beaten and bloody, almost in a panic, Colonel Smith's troops struggled through to Lexington. Not until then did Percy's reserves arrive. If they had not come, every one of Smith's command would have been killed.

  And from Lexington the British had drawn back to Menotomy. And from there the wounded scarlet dragon had crawled over Charlestown Common, crossed into safety at Charlestown Neck, and were covered by the Somerset's guns. And here they were. They had been badly beaten.

  'What of Doctor Warren?'

  He had been everywhere, one moment fighting and dressing the wounds the next. He had fought like a wildcat. But the innkeeper had no idea where he was now.

  'He didn't get hurt?'

  'I'm told he had a lock of hair shot away. He came that close to death.'

  'Have you, by any chance, heard how it fared with the men of Lexington?'