Johnny Tremain (17 page)

'But if the Governor won't agree?'

'He won't. You don't know Hutchinson. I do. And you saw how happy Sam was this morning? He knows the Governor a lot better than I do.'

'And then ... and what next, Rab?'

Johnny heard blows and oaths from the street outside. His hands shook. He put down the knife so Rab wouldn't know. They were doing something—something awful, to the Tory.

'As soon as we go upstairs with our punch, we'll know. Look at Sam Adams. If he looks as pleased as an old dog fox with a fat pullet in his mouth, we'll know they've agreed to violence if everything else fails. He doesn't care much any more about our patching up our differences with England. He'd just about welcome a war.'

'But the King's warships are in the harbor. They'll protect the tea. They'll fight.'

'We can fight, too.' Rab was putting the last delicate touches to his ketteleful of brew, for tonight the punch would be hot. He was grating nutmegs, cautiously sprinkling in cloves, and breaking up cinnamon bark.

'Taste it, Johnny. That Madeira Mr. Hancock brought with him is first-class.'

But Johnny heard a low moaning in the street, close to the shut door. That Tory, who had been so brave—and foolish—as to follow the Sons of Liberty down a black alley was alone now—was sobbing, not from pain but from humiliation. Johnny declined to taste the punch.

Mr. Lorne called down the ladder.

'Boys, ready with your punch?'

'They made up their minds fast tonight,' said Rab. 'I rather thought they would.'

Johnny carried a handful of pewter cups and the big wooden bowl. Rab followed with two pitchers of his spicy brew.

The attic where the boys commonly slept looked strange enough with those chairs pulled out and arranged for the meeting. John Hancock sat in the moderator's chair. His face looked white and drawn. Probably his head still ached. Beside him was Sam Adams leaning toward him, whispering and whispering. Johnny thought how the Tories were saying that Sam Adams seduced John Hancock, even as the Devil had seduced Eve—by a constant whispering in his ear.

Adams turned his face as Johnny set down the wooden bowl on the baize-covered box before the moderator. Johnny had never seen an old dog fox with a fat pullet in his mouth, but he recognized the expression when he saw it. Rab poured the punch and instantly the tense silence was broken. The men were on their feet, crowding up about the bowl. Rab and Johnny were well known. Here was Paul Revere clinking his cup with Rab, and John Hancock was telling Johnny how far too well his old slave woman guarded his privacy. Actually three men had come to the house to tell him the first of the tea ships had been sighted, but he had not known anything was afoot until he got Johnny's 'bill' on his tray. Then he guessed what had happened.

'Here's to December the sixteenth.'

'Hear! Hear!'

They drank to that last day, the day on which the tea must be destroyed—unless it was allowed to return to England. And Johnny saw that Sam Adams had carried them all with him. They did not honestly want the tea returned and a peaceful settlement made. They wanted grievances and more grievances ... well, yes, armed warfare. Things were in such a state they did not honestly believe there could be any permanent, friendly settlement with the mother country.

Johnny looked about through the haze of tobacco smoke. There was Doctor Warren. He was talking with Uncle Lorne and John Adams about that article he had written for the newspaper. Suddenly he lifted his head, smiled, almost laughed.

Johnny did not know why Warren smiled. Why had Johnny been such a fool ... why couldn't he have shown his hand to the doctor? He bit into his lower lip. After his rudeness to Doctor Warren, he did not see how he ever could go to him and say, 'I've changed my mind. I want you to look at it. I think you are the only person in the world who can help me.' So when Doctor Warren, a little later, looked toward Johnny ready to smile, forgive his discourtesy, the boy looked away. He was so embarrassed he was rude again.

Sam Adams was standing at the far end of the room and Mr. Hancock still sat, his head in his hands. Adams clapped slightly and instantly conversation stopped.

'Gentlemen,' he said, 'tonight we have made our decision—and know the method by which the detested tea can be destroyed, if the ships are not allowed to return. Here we have with us two of exactly—ah—the sort of boys or young men we intend to use for our great purpose. Two boys in whom we have implicit trust. If it is the wish of the assembled club members, I suggest we approach them with our proposition tonight ... enlist their aid. Twenty days will be up before we know. We'd best get on with our plans.'

The members once more took their seats, but the pewter cups of punch were passing from hand to hand. Only Will Molineaux was too restless to sit. He was muttering to himself. Ben Church sat alone. He often did. No one really liked him.

All agreed the boys were to be told.

'First,' Adams said to the boys, 'raise your right hands. Swear by the great name of God Himself never, for as long as you live, to divulge to anyone the secret matters now trusted to you. Do you so swear?'

The boys swore.

Hancock was not looking at them. He sat with his aching head in his hands.

'There's no chance—not one—those ships will be allowed to return. The mass meetings which will be held almost daily demanding the return of the tea are to arouse public opinion and to persuade the world we did not turn to violence until every other course had been blocked to us. When the twenty days are up, on the night of the sixteenth of December, those ships are going to be boarded. That tea will be dumped in Boston Harbor. For each ship, the
Dartmouth,
the
Eleanor,
and the brig, the
Beaver,
we will need thirty stout, honest, fearless men and boys. Will you be one, Rab?'

He did not say Rab and Johnny, as the younger boy noticed. Was this because he thought Johnny too cripple-handed for chopping open sea chests—or merely because he knew Rab better and he was older?

'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.

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.

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.

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 take 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.'