Johnny Tremain (21 page)

He turned to Johnny. 'What's your horse's name?'

'Goblin.'

'We'll drink to Goblin. Pot-boy, give that tankard to this young man. You know, of course, there's no real cure for a horse that shies as badly as that?'

'I've been told he'll never be gentle.'

'If he was as good as he looks, I'd hate to guess what he'd be worth. As it is, I'd not give fifteen shillings for him—except'—and he smiled suddenly—' for myself to ride. Have you schooled him in jumping?'

'No, we're not fancy riders over here.'

'At the foot of the Common you'll find a series of hurdles we've put up. If happens you are over there sometime when I am, I'll show you a bit.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Does he still throw you sometimes?'

'Sometimes. I'd have gone off fast enough when that sheet let loose.'

'That sheet! Ha, ha. That was a trick. That was good. That was fine. Hi, you black wench ... you finish this beer for me and take the tankards back to the kitchen.' And off he stalked, still chuckling to himself.

Beginning with that day when Goblin had tumbled Lieutenant Stranger in the mud, Johnny had no more trouble with the British stable boys. When it became hard for him to get the oats and hay for Goblin, they told him he might use theirs.

But Dove, who was always swearing allegiance to England, and Johnny knew that he honestly was a Tory, was the butt of all their jokes. Dove clung to Johnny like a drowning man and Johnny did protect him. He could not help himself. So Dove began oozing into his life. He spent most of his free time at the
Observer's
office and was always complaining, always gorging himself on the scarce food, and bored both Johnny and Rab. But Rab said, and Johnny knew this was true, sometime the British would not stay tamely shut up in Boston. Sometime they'd strike out and seize the military supplies they knew the provincials were collecting. A colonel's horse boy might very well know a day or so, or even a few hours, before a colonel marched. It was up to Johnny to keep in touch with Dove. It was all right for Rab to talk. Rab was training with the armed forces. But what could Johnny do? Not much, it seemed to him, except be bored to death for his country.

As he came back from Milton, riding the long lonely stretch of the Neck, with the gallows and the town gates still before him, Johnny realized how long ago it was that he had burned his hand, and how he had hated Dove when he found out the part he had played in that accident. How he had sworn to get even with him (the lying hypocrite—telling old Mr. Lapham that all he had meant to do was to teach a pious lesson). Now, as he saw Dove daily about the Afric Queen, he could hardly remember this feeling of hatred, his oaths of vengeance. Seemingly hatred and desire for revenge do not last long. He had made new friends. The old world of the Lapham shop and house was gone. Yet he remembered old Mr. Lapham, who had died that spring, with more affection than when he had been serving under him. Even Mrs. Lapham now did not seem so bad. Poor woman, how she had struggled and worked for that good, plentiful food, the clean shirts her boys had worn, the scrubbed floors, polished brass! No, she had never been the ogress he had thought her a year ago. There never had been a single day when she had not been the first up in the morning. He, like a child, had thought this was because she liked to get up. Now he realized that there must have been many a day when she was as anxious to lie abed as Dove himself. He remembered when there was no money to buy meat and how she would go from stall to stall until she found a butcher who would accept payment by a new clasp on his pocketbook, or a fishwife who would exchange a basket of salt herrings for a black mourning ring. Her bartering and bickering had then seemed small-minded to him; now he was enough older to realize how valiantly she had fought for those under her care.

True, Madge would make another of those big-fisted, hearty women—but women can be worse than that. He thought with some pity of Dorcas and her craving for elegance. Was she never—no, not once—to eat off china—always nothing but pewter? Poor girl—she'd not live too high with Frizel, Junior. But Johnny wished her well.

Priscilla Lapham. Ever since Rab had taken her home and left Johnny to eat six fried eggs by himself, he had felt differently about Cilla. She had been his best friend during the years he worked at the Laphams'. And then for some months she had been a drag on him. He had not bothered much with her. Overnight that had changed. He was always looking forward to Thursdays and the seed cakes and the half-hour sitting out under the fruit trees with Cilla. And sometimes he would see Miss Lavinia Lyte. Then Johnny would hold his breath a moment and enjoy the chill that went up his spine.

His feelings for Isannah had changed too—and not for the better. It would break Cilla's heart if the little girl did not live up to her lovely face. But Johnny had not liked it that last Thursday when he had been sitting on the back stoop with Cilla and Miss Lavinia had driven up in her smart whiskey with a redcoat beside her and Isannah wedged in between. It could not be possible Isannah had not seen him. But she had glanced at him—and then looked away.

Johnny rode through the town gates, telling his business to the British sentries there, then went first to report to Paul Revere. A family of Tories in Milton wished to move into Boston and had written Colonel Smith about this move. Although a great many of the Whig families were moving out of the town, a great many Tories, frightened by the rough treatment they were getting in the inland towns, were moving in to be under the protection of the British troops. Then—as he had been thinking about the Laphams all the way over from Roxbury—Johnny decided to stop in and see them. He had not been in this house once since Mrs. Lapham and Mr. Tweedie had been so ready to cast him off for the sake of Mr. Lyte's patronage.

The squeak-pig was alone in the shop. He had not so much as one boy to help him with his fires or to sweep his shop. He liked to work alone. Johnny saw that he was mending the silver hilt of a British officer's sword.

'What are you doing here?' he muttered crossly at Johnny.

Johnny took off his spurs and showed the silversmith a broken rowel. 'I want you to fix that for me, this afternoon—Mr. Silversmith.'

'Yes, sir ... yes, indeed.' Once Johdidnnny was a patron, the past was forgiven him. 'If you'll take a chair, it shall be mended in fifteen minutes.'

Johnny couldn't help it. He said proudly. 'In ten minutes, Mr. Silversmith.'

'In ten minutes, sir.'

He walked into the kitchen. There was nobody about, but he could smell bread rising. He looked in the birth and death room. It was once more used for storage. It seemed strange beyond belief that he had ever lain so long in the room. And in a way he had died in that room; at least something had happened and the bright little silversmith's apprentice was no more. He stood here again at the threshold, but now he was somebody else.

Then he went outside to the little back yard with the coal house, the privy, and the old willow. Underneath the willow sat a British sergeant of marines with Madge Lapham in his arms.

He had rather guessed the Laphams would side with the Tories, but this was fraternizing with the troops at a great rate.

The sergeant was not half as big as Madge, but he was holding her in his lap. It is hard to hold even a small child very long in such a position. Johnny thought the sergeant must be very tough. They heard his feet and both looked up at him. Johnny laughed, as did the sergeant and Madge. She said, 'Just so it isn't Mother,' and she twisted and yearned down into her small lover's eyes. The bigger they come, thought Johnny, the harder they fall. Madge certainly likes that sergeant.

'Sergeant, dear,' she said, 'I'd like to make you acquainted with an old friend of the family—but, Johnny, how you have grown! I don't know whether to introduce you as Johnny or Mr. Tremain.'

Johnny had grown. Much of the last year had been spent out-of-doors and on horseback, and now he was always out in the sun and wind.

'Just Johnny.'

'Sergeant Gale, dear, this is Johnny Tremain.'

They both agreed they were glad to meet. Gale, whose legs must have been badly cramped, picked up Madge as though she were a pet cat and sat her down beside him. The little man must be prodigiously strong, thought Johnny, and he liked his ugly, lined face. He looked just about as tough as they come, even in the marines. Madge, whom he had always liked the least of the Lapham girls, was rosy, glowing and beaming. He had always heard that love was a wonderful thing. If it could make Madge Lapham so pleasant, he was ready to agree.

'Sit down, Johnny, and tell us about yourself.'

'There's not much to say. I'm making out.'

'Isn't Isannah in luck? Taken right into the family like a little sister.'

'Like a pet poodle dog,' Johnny said firmly.

'My! you haven't changed much. You always were sort of jumping on other people.'

'I still jump. How's Mrs. L.?'

'Don't mention her,' said Sergeant Gale.

'Ma says I've got to marry Mr. Tweedie. He doesn't want to and I don't want to. Oh, Johnny, you're too young to understand and I guess Ma's so old she's forgotten. I can't, can't marry Mr. Tweedie—not since I met Sergeant Gale.'

'I'll say not,' said the marine. 'Madge—in case you've been wondering—is going to marry me ... aren't you, you toothsome, plump, suet pudding?'

The skinny little red rascal evidently liked his ladies plump.

Johnny went back to the shop, paid Mr. Tweedie for his work, and buckled on his spurs. He had enjoyed his visit to the Laphams. Mr. Tweedie had bowed to him, called him 'sir,' and rubbed his hands in gratitude for even this small favor. Madge, so pleasant, and the smell of Ma's good bread rising.

Goblin, tied to the head of the wharf, was pawing, turning toward him and nickering. As he settled himself in the saddle and the horse moved off down Fish Street, he thought it had been a nice visit—but he would not go again. That was all over.

Mrs. Bessie, that 'monstrous fine woman' who cooked for the Lytes, always had an eye out Thursday afternoons for Johnny, and she usually could manage that Cilla was free then, for she was housekeeper as well as cook. This Thursday, as Johnny drew up, she shook her head.

'You come in, Johnny, but I guess today you'll have to put up with just me. Your little sweetheart'—Johnny's stomach turned over—'will be needed in the parlor. We've got nine or ten of those British officers in there and Miss Lavinia wants to put on a good show for them.'

Johnny had often noticed before how disrespectfully Mrs. Bessie spoke of Lavinia. And she was always telling Cilla that she needn't jump so fast when the bell rang for her. 'Let her blow her own nose for once,' she'd say. Johnny knew that it was no good omen that the old woman had no loyalty toward her mistress, whom she had known since her motherless infancy. In his heart he knew there was something unlikable about Lavinia Lyte. Mrs. Bessie knew what it was. And Cilla now knew. But she wouldn't tell him. Now, when he wanted to talk about Miss Lyte, she would veil her eyes and look at him from out of the corners, and say nothing. But he knew Cilla knew.

'All they in the parlor are fixing up to go to a ball at the Province House General Gage is giving tonight—masquerade. Miss Lavinia is going like the black Queen of Spades and all her special admirers are going as kings or knaves or jokers out of the pack. Isannah's going too.'

'Isannah?'

'Yep. Where Miss goes these days, that child goes too. Izzy'—no one had ever before called the little girl this—'goes dressed as a two-spot, holding up Miss Lavinia's train.'

Cilla shot into the kitchen looking bright and excited.

'Johnny, I thought you might be here. They are trying to make a scepter for the Queen of Spades out of tin. I told them you could do it. Miss Lavinia said show him in.'

The elegant dove-gray, lavender-and-yellow drawing room was in what Mrs. Lapham would call 'a state.' The officers seemed to have counted on their lady's help with their costumes, but they had also brought with them a military tailor who was sitting cross-legged on the floor, stitching at a black-and-yellow striped jerkin for a knave.

Miss Lavinia looked half in and half out of her costume as Queen of Spades. For a moment Johnny was confused. It was not because she had less clothing on than he was accustomed to, but because she was so beautiful. He had never seen her so happy, so animated before. She was laughing hilariously, as she attempted to fasten two flat surfaces of cardboard painted with two spots onto Isannah. But Isannah had on nothing but her undershift, her little pink legs bare to the middle thigh. Ma would die if she saw her daughter like this. Johnny did not care about that, but he could not bear to think of poor old Mr. Lapham turning over in his grave. Johnny paid no attention to the hilarious Miss Lyte. He went up to Isannah.

'Look here, girl. You go upstairs and you put some clothes on.'

Isannah stared at him, her beautiful, soft, brown eyes so blank she looked almost blind.

'You know your grandpa is just about flopping over and over in his grave. You weren't brought up to act like this.'

Isannah said, 'I'm too young to be lascivious.' She was evidently repeating what she had heard some adult say. Johnny slapped her. Not for himself, but for her grandpa. She went down in a heap, upended over a pile of finery brought down from the attic. While standing up, it was possible she did not have on quite enough clothes for mixed company, but upended she did not look to have on any. Then everyone began to laugh. Lavinia was wiping her eyes. Lieutenant Stranger—for it was he who picked the child up—was reduced to painful gasps...'Oh ... oh ... oh...' There was a ma jor in a corner who was vowing he was going to die. Only the military tailor never lifted his eyes, but went on with his stitching.

'Oh, Johnny,' Miss Lavinia managed at last, for the first time calling him by name. 'Will you come to the ball and slap all the ladies you think are underdressed? Oh ... lah! I've burst a stay string. Give me ... Cilla, fetch...'