Johnny Tremain (3 page)

When the meal was over, Mr. Lapham told Madge to hand him the family Bible.

'Johnny, I'm going to ask you to read to us today.'

Of the three boys, only Johnny read easily and well. His mother had lived long enough to see to that. Dove stumbled shamefully. Dusty usually had the first chapter of Genesis, so that by reading the same thing over and over he might eventually learn.

Madge and Dorcas never cared even to try to read. Mrs. Lapham could not so much as write her name. 'Book larning,' she declared, 'scalded no pigs.' Cilla was so anxious to learn (and teach Isannah) that whenever Johnny read she leaned over the book and shaped the words to herself as he said them. They sat beside each other at table. To help her Johnny always kept a finger on the lines as he read.

Johnny now opened the book, keeping it between himself and Cilla.

'Where, sir, shall I read?'

Mr. Lapham's selections for his boys were sometimes designed to point out some fault in a member of his household, especially in the reader. Dove was always being asked to read about sluggards and going to ants.

Johnny was told where to begin in Leviticus.

'Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image
...' (What was old master driving at? Couldn't a silversmith put a dragon's snout on a chocolate pot?)

Soon the surging roll of the words, the pleasure of the sound of his voice coming so clearly out of his mouth, made him stop looking for possible object lessons in the text. Cilla was leaning over him, breathing hard in her efforts to keep up. Mrs. Lapham sat agape. Soon she'd be saying it was just like having a preacher live with them to hear Johnny Tremain read Holy Writ.

'Finish with the nineteenth verse.'

'...
And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass.'

'Turn to Proverbs eleven, second verse.'

'When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom.'

'Proverbs sixteen, eighteenth.'

'Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.'

'Now close the book. Stand up and expound to us all the meaning of God's Word.'

Johnny stood up. His skin was thin and he could feel himself flush. So the old gentleman was after him for his pride again, was he?

'It is all another way of saying—God's way of saying—that pride goeth before a fall.'

'Yes, and why?'

'Because God doesn't like pride.' Johnny sounded sulky.

'Do you think God would like you?'

'Not especially.'

Dusty was the first to snicker.

'What does God like?'

'Humble people,' said Johnny wrathfully. 'He sends punishments to people who are too proud.'

'Now, Johnny, I want you to raise your right hand and repeat after me, "I, Johnny Tremain..." '

'I, Johnny Tremain...'

'Swear from this day onward...'

'Swear from this day onward...'

'To walk more humbly and modestly before God and man.'

'To walk more humbly and modestly before God and man.'

'Just because some folks are not so smart' (the old master gave Dove and Dusty a pitying glance), 'it's no reason why other folks should go around rubbing their noses in their own stupidities.'

Either Dove or Dusty kicked Johnny under the table. Madge and Dorcas were giggling. Mrs. Lapham was already scraping the trenchers clean, getting on with her work. She did not hold much by Grandpa's soul-searchings.

The master, followed by Dove and Dusty, left for the shop.

Johnny heard Cilla give an exaggeratedly pious sigh. He stopped.

'When the meek inherit the earth,' she said, 'I doubt Johnny gets as much as one divot of sod.'

This was too much for Johnny. He turned on the little girls.

When
they do!' he stormed. 'Cill, you can just about keep your mouth shut until then.'

'You know you did look pretty funny standing up there, and saying all those humble things Grandpa told you to.'

Isannah was almost jumping out of her pinafore in glee.

'Johnny's mad,' she chanted. 'Johnny's mad.'

'Yes,' murmured Cilla, looking at him critically, 'you're right, baby dear. His ears are red. That always means he's mad.'

'Johnny's ears are red,' squealed Isannah.

Johnny stalked out of the kitchen as stiff-legged as a fighting tom-cat. His ears were scarlet.

He decided to do nothing that would lay him open to such criticism for at least a morning, but he couldn't help it. First, if he had not jumped on Dusty, the furnace would have gone out. Then he had to explain to his master how badly Dove had done the spoon. Although he tried to sound humble, he was soon behaving perfectly naturally, standing over Mr. Lapham with his notebook in his hand, reading off exactly how those spoons had been ordered.

Mr. Lapham was a fine craftsman. His weakness was that he never wrote down what was ordered or even listened very carefully. If a patron ordered a sauceboat, he would get a fine one—perhaps a month after it had been promised. Sometimes it weighed a little more, sometimes a little less, than it was supposed to. Sometimes it had splayed feet when a gadroon edge had been asked for. Mrs. Lapham herself had told Johnny he must always be on hand and write down exactly what the order was. This was necessary, but it did seem cheeky to see the fourteen-year-old boy standing there, telling his master what he was supposed to do.

Johnny, having started everybody off on his work (even Mr. Lapham), decided to go to the coal house and see if he should order more charcoal. It was such things Mr. Lapham never thought about until too late.

There were two basketfuls of charcoal and at least half another scattered over the floor. That was the other boys' fault. Johnny himself was too valuable to carry charcoal. He started to yell for Dusty, thought better of it, and went to work arranging the dirty stuff himself.

When
he
was a master craftsman, he wasn't going to buy charcoal by the basket. He was going to own his own willows—say, out in Milton. That would save—say, twopence a basket. In a year—he began to figure. And he wouldn't take just any boy whose father or mother wanted him to be a silversmith. He'd pick and choose. He saw himself sitting at his bench, his shop crowded with boys with mothers, boys with fathers, all begging to be allowed to work for him. He'd not talk to the parents—only to the boys. What church did they go to? King's Chapel? All right. Describe to me at least one piece of silver you see used every Lord's Supper. If they could not answer that, he'd know they hadn't got silver in their blood. But how could he find which boys had nice hands...?

'Johnny!' It was Madge's voice that pulled him out of his reverie.

He wiped his black hands on his leather breeches and stepped out into the sunlight of the tiny back yard.

'What is it, my girl?' He often thus arrogantly addressed his master's granddaughters—really his own mistresses.

'Ma sent me. Johnny, it's Mr. Hancock himself. He's in the shop ordering something. Stand by and listen or Grandpa will get it wrong.'

Dorcas next flung herself upon him, too excited to be elegant.

'Johnny, hurry, hurry! It's Mr. Hancock. He's ordering a sugar basin. Can't you go faster? Shake a leg.'

Isannah was jumping about him like a wild thing.

'Help, help!' she shrieked.

But it was Cilla who thought to offer him her clean apron for a towel as he washed off the charcoal at the yard pump.

Oh, but he must hurry! And there was Mrs. Lapham tapping at him from the kitchen window. Slowly he approached the house, the girls chattering about him.

Close to the shop door was a tiny African holding a slender gray horse by the bridle. Johnny noted the Hancock arms on the door of the gig. He felt so good he could not help saying to the black child, 'Mind that horse doesn't trample our flowers.'

There were no flowers in the Laphams' yard.

'Oh, no, sir,' said little Jehu, rolling his eyes. He thought, from the attention this boy was receiving from his escorting ladies, he must be a boy of consequence.

Johnny slipped into the shop so quietly that Mr. Hancock did not even look up. It was he who owned this great wharf, the warehouses, many of the fine ships tied up along it. He owned sail lofts and shops, and also dwelling houses standing at the head of the wharf. He owned the Lapham house. He was the richest man in New England. Such a wealthy patron might lift the Laphams from poverty to affluence.

Mr. Hancock was comfortably seated in the one armchair which was kept in the shop for patrons. (When I'm master, thought Johnny, there are going to be two armchairs—and I'll sit in one.)

Unobtrusively Johnny got his notebook and pencil. Dove and Dusty were paralyzed into complete inaction. 'Do something,' Johnny muttered to them, determined his master's shop should look busy. Dusty could not take his eyes off the green velvet coat, sprigged white waistcoat, silver buttons and buckles on the great man, but he picked up a soldering iron and nervously dropped it.

'...and to be done next Monday—a week from today,' Mr. Hancock was saying. 'I want it as a birthday present to my venerable Aunt Lydia Hancock. This is the creamer of the set. Only this morning a clumsy maid melted the sugar basin. I want you to make me a new one. I want it about so high ... so broad...' Johnny glanced at the delicate, lace-ruffled, gesturing hands, guessed the inches, and wrote it down.

Mr. Lapham was looking down at his own gnarled fingers. He nodded and said nothing. He did not even glance at the cream pitcher as Mr. Hancock set it down on a workbench. Johnny's hard, delicate hands, so curiously strong and mature for his age, reached quickly to touch the beautiful thing. It was almost as much by touch as by sight he judged fine silver. It was indeed old-fashioned, more elaborate than the present mode. The garlands on it were rounded out in repoussé work. Mr. Lapham would have to do the repousséing. Johnny hadn't been taught that. He looked at the handle. A sugar basin would have to have two such handles and they would be larger than the one on the creamer. He'd shape it in wax, make a mold. He had cast hundreds of small things since he had gone to work for Mr. Lapham, but nothing so intricate and beautiful as the woman with folded wings whose body formed the handle. He thought he had never seen anything quite so enchanting as this pitcher. It must have been the work of one of the great smiths of forty or fifty years ago. Although he had not intended to address Mr. Hancock, he had said, before he thought, 'John Coney, sir?'

Mr. Hancock turned to him. He had a handsome face, a little worn, as though either his health was bad or he did not sleep well.

'Look at the mark, boy.'

Johnny turned it over, expecting to see the familiar rabbit of the great Mr. Coney. Instead, there was a pellet, and 'L,' and a pellet.

'Your master made that creamer—forty years ago. He made the entire set.'

'You made it!'
He had never guessed there had been a time when Mr. Lapham could do such beautiful work.

At last Mr. Lapham raised his protuberant eyes. 'I remember when your uncle, Mr. Thomas Hancock, sir, ordered that set. "Make it big, and make it handsome," he said, "bigger and handsomer than anything in Boston. As big and handsome as my lady is. Make it as rich as I am." '

John Hancock laughed. 'That is just the way my uncle used to talk.' He was so sure of his own good breeding, he could laugh affectionately at the rich-quick vulgarities of the uncle who had adopted him and from whom he had inherited his fortune.

He stood up—a tall, slender man, who stooped as he stood and walked. The fine clothes seemed a little pathetic. He had a soft voice, and low.

'But you have not as yet said whether or not you can make my sugar basin for me—and have it done by Monday next? Of course I thought first of you—because you made the original. But there are other silversmiths. Perhaps you would rather not undertake...'

Mr. Lapham was in a study. 'I've got the time, the materials, and the boys to help. I can get right at it. But honestly, sir ... I don't know. Perhaps I haven't got the skill any more. I've not done anything so fine for thirty years. I'm not what I used to be, and...'

Although neither of the two men could see the door leading from the hall into the shop, Johnny could. There was Mrs. Lapham in her morning apron, her face purple with excitement, and all four girls crowded about her listening, gesturing at Johnny. 'Say yes,' all five faces (big and little) mouthed at him. 'Yes ... yes ... yes.'

So they had forgotten morning prayers, had they? Wanted him to take charge.

'We can do it, Mr. Hancock.'

'Bless me,'
exclaimed the gentleman, not accustomed to apprentices who settled matters while their masters pondered.

'Yes, sir. And you shall have it delivered at your own house a week from today, seven o'clock Monday morning. And it's going to be just exactly right.'

Mr. Lapham looked at Johnny gratefully. 'Certainly, sir. I'm humbly grateful for your august patronage.' He was not a proud man. He was relieved that Johnny had stepped in and settled matters.

Mr. Hancock bowed and turned to go, but none of the boys thought to run ahead and open the door for him, so Mrs. Lapham, apron and all, barged in, her red arms bare to the elbow, her felt slippers flapping at her bare heels, and did (or overdid) the courtesies for them all.

Hardly was the door closed than there was a rap on it. Little Jehu came mincing in, a glitter of bright colors. He solemnly laid three pieces of silver on the nearest bench and recited his piece.

'My master, Mr. John Hancock, Esquire, bids me leave these coins—one for each of the poor work-boys—hoping they will drink his health and be diligent at their benches.' Then he was gone.

'Hoping they will vote for him—when they are grown up and have enough property.'

'Don't you ever vote for Mr. Hancock, sir?' asked Johnny.

'I never do. I don't hold much with these fellows that are always trying to stir up trouble between us and England. Maybe English rule ain't always perfect, but it's good enough for me. Fellows like Mr. Hancock and Sam Adams, calling themselves patriots and talking too much. Not reading God's Word—like their parents did—which tells us to be humble. But he's my landlord and I don't say much.'