April Morning (6 page)

As for the materialism, Father held it was the only way to counter superstition properly, and high among the various superstitions that were an anathema to Father was the so-called interpretation of dreams. I remember an argument he had with Jonas Parker. Ever since Jonas Parker had been elected Captain of Militia for the township, things went less than smoothly between himself and my father—Father taking the point of view that the chairmanship of the Committee had precedence over all other titles of authority. Jonas Parker, with some justice on his side, said that a military situation demanded that the command of the militia be the supreme command at the moment of military crisis. You can imagine how my father rose to this; he hated all things military, and immediately accused Parker of desiring the prime goal of the enemy, to turn us into a garrison state. The argument was hot and heavy, with no clear-cut decision. Father awaited his moment. A day came when Parker announced militia drill for the following evening. My father reminded him that a strong, wet wind was blowing from the east, and that even in New England, where the weather was erratic enough to drive a prudent man mad, a steady, wet east wind meant rain. Well, up comes Parker with a particularly strong dream about the next day's weather being as fair as feathers, with a blue sky everywhere you looked.

“Now if that doesn't signify good weather, what does?” he demanded of Father.

“A dry west wind,” Father replied. It rained that night and for the two following days, and Father had a time rending every theory of dreams into shreds. I agreed with him about dreams, so when my brother Levi ran into my room and dived into bed with me, trembling with fear over a nightmare, I was not disturbed, except that I resented being awakened in the middle of the night.

“Calm down,” I said to him.

“The whole sky is red.”

“It isn't.” I pointed to the window. “If it was red, we'd see it from here, wouldn't we? Anyway, people aren't supposed to dream in colors. They say you dream in blacks and grays.”

“I had a dream, Adam, that the whole sky was a terrible red, and I died.”

“You can't dream you died. You'd never wake up if you did.”

“Then I almost died. Are you mad at me?”

“Not any more. Go to bed.”

“Why ain't you mad at me?”

“Look, Levi,” I said. “I'm tired and sleepy. So why don't you go back to bed.”

“Because I'm afraid.”

“I'll tell you why you're afraid. I'll tell you why you dreamed that the sky was red. It's because you and all those other crazy kids spend all your time playing war. Bang, bang! There goes another redcoat. You have red on your mind even when you're asleep. That's why you dreamed that the sky is red.” I got out of bed and pulled him over to the window. “Now look for yourself. Is the sky red or isn't it?”

Levi pressed close to me at the open window. We became silent as we stared out into the night. A few shreds of cloud lay across the moon, but plainly enough we could see the treetops, the common, Cousin Simmons' house, the Peabody house, and Buckman's Tavern, where the road to Menotomy bent around the common. It must have been about an hour past midnight then, perhaps a little earlier, but already the time of the night when silence settles like a heavy blanket, and a voice above a whisper is cursed and interdicted. I took comfort in the fact that Levi and I were sheltered by a strong house, with our mother and father nearby and with so many friends and neighbors within call. I have heard our relatives from Boston talk with some disdain about the few cultural offerings of a little town like ours, and about the bigotry and narrow-mindedness that is inevitable in a village, but at this moment I wouldn't have changed the security of my bedroom for all the wonders of the world. I can assure you that if you are thinking about going adventuring, or the sea and the wonders of far Cathay and the Indies, the middle of the night is no time for it.

Levi's skinny body was pressed up against mine, and I could feel him shivering under his nightshirt. I forced myself to be gruff and assured as I said to him, “There. Are you satisfied?”

“Adam—listen,” he whispered.

He has ears like a bat. I listened, but I couldn't hear anything but the soft, sighing night noises.

“Adam, I hear hoofbeats.”

“Well, suppose you do, Levi. There are travelers by night.”

“Travelers don't race their horses in the darkness.”

I heard it now, and Levi was right. The sound was of a horse being raced through the night, and clearer and clearer came the drumbeat of its hoofs. I strained my eyes toward the Menotomy Road, but it was too dark and there were too many trees obstructing my vision for me to make out a rider. But the rider was nearer now, and the hoofbeats echoed through the whole village; and then he pulled up in front of Buckman's, and I heard him shouting at the top of his lungs, although I couldn't make out his words. Being that Buckman's is a way station, they always keep night lights burning, and now lights began to flicker in the windows of the tavern. I heard the rider shouting again.

Father came into the room, pulling on his trousers over his nightshirt. “What are you boys doing at the window?” he asked.

Levi told him breathlessly.

“You're sure the rider was racing?”

We heard him shouting again. Mother came in, carrying a candle. Lights were beginning to flicker in some of the houses. “I don't see why,” Mother said, “a rider by night must take us all out of our beds. You get under the covers this instant, Levi, or you'll take a death of cold from this night air.” Granny then appeared behind her, demanding to know why everyone was up and about in the middle of the night.

“Is someone sick, Moses?”

“No one is sick,” Father replied. “Why don't you all go back to bed?”

“Why don't you?” Mother countered.

“Now look, Sarah. That was an express from Cambridge. He came up the Menotomy Road, didn't he?”—turning to me.

“That's right.”

“Well, if it's an express, it's Committee business. A man doesn't take a chance on breaking his neck on a dark, rutted road without it being a matter of some importance. And if it's Committee business, I have to be there.”

Mother shook her head speechlessly, and Granny said that she might as well go downstairs and put up coffee, because it didn't look like there'd be much sleep in this house for the rest of the night. Father went back to his room to finish dressing, and Mother went downstairs after Granny.

I pulled on my shirt and trousers, and Levi wanted to know what I thought I was doing. Through the window, I could see lights in almost all of the houses by now. I told Levi that I had no intentions of missing whatever was going on out there.

“Then I'm getting dressed too,” he said.

“It's no business of mine what you do. But Mother will pin your ears back.”

“Not if you don't tell on me. I'll go out the window and down over the shed. You going to tell on me, Adam?”

“Oh, believe me, you're a fine one to talk about telling,” I said to him. “Every time I take a step, you're there to play the rat. It would serve you right if I did tell.”

“But you won't, will you, Adam?”

“I won't,” I admitted, “but I won't lie either. If Mother asks me where you are, I'll tell her.”

“Maybe she won't ask you,” Levi said hopefully.

Father had just closed the door behind him when I got down to the kitchen, and Mother gave me one of her looks and said, “Well, I suppose it's morning, I suppose the good Lord forgot to bring the sun up this once but you know better. And just where do you think you're going, Adam Cooper?”

“Only over to the common, please, Mother.”

“March right up to bed!”

“Mother,” I said, slowly and carefully, “you know that I never disobeyed you.”

“I should think not!”

“But if you don't let me go, I got to disobey you. Every house in the village is lit up and all the men are turning out for the common. You can't make me stay here.”

“You're not—”

I think she was going to say that I was not a man, but Granny interrupted. It was the first time, as well as I could remember, that Granny had ever intruded into a discussion at odds between Mother and myself. She only said, quietly:

“I think Adam's right, Sarah. He ought to be there.”

I imagine Mother was too shocked to reply. She nodded, and without allowing the matter to cool, I dashed out of the house and took off for the common. Middle of the night or not, the village was up and awake, and every man and boy in town was either already at the common or heading for it. When I reached there, a crowd had formed around the rider, packed around his horse about ten deep; and you could see from the way he sat on his saddle, proud as a king, that he was enjoying the attention. As far as we were concerned, he was the most important man in New England—important enough to make my father and Jonas Parker and the Reverend, the three of them at the horse's head, wait until he had finished draining a mug of beer that someone had passed up to him. When he finished the beer, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and indicated his willingness to continue. He was a young fellow, and I noticed what a handsome pair of black riding boots he sported.

By then, I had wormed my way into the crowd. I had also gathered, from the talk around me, that he rode a warning express, that the British had marched out of Boston, and that a great army of them were headed this way, up from Charlestown to Cambridge and then on to Menotomy. I didn't believe it—not at first. For months and months, the talk had been that the British would send a force into our townships and put an end to the militia drilling and the Committee organization, but they never did, and somehow we had accepted the fact that they never would, and that all the hot talk would simmer down and that there would be a meeting of minds, what my father called “an intelligent and equitable settlement of all the points of dispute.” Yet here was a rider telling us that a British army was coming.

“Now just one thing,” my father was saying to him, “just one thing—what time did they start?”

“I told you they were getting into the boats to cross the Charles at ten o'clock.”

“That's three hours ago. Did you wait until they crossed the river? How long did it take them?”

“I waited until the first of them set onto dry land, I did—and they were forming up on the Menotomy Road. We just decided not to wait any longer.”

“Well, what time was it then?” Parker demanded.

“Heavens to Holland, mister—what did you expect us to do? Build a fire so as we could read our clocks? All they had to do was catch sight of us, and that would be the end of any hope of my being here.”

“Then you don't know what time they got across the river?”

“Well, just how long does it take an army to cross a river, mister?”

“That's what we're asking you,” my father said with unusual patience.

“And I don't know—which is what I'm telling you.”

“Did you come straight here?” the Reverend asked.

“By the Lord, I did, hell for leather—and I like to broke my neck on that pitch-black road. I'm here, ain't I? But I can't sit here all night. There was four of us, and one took off for Medford and another for Brookline and the third down to Watertown. You see, the meaning of it was that, one road or another, they'd be going to Concord where the stores are. Someone played the dirty rat and informed that the Committees were stashing away whatever they could put their hands on at Concord, so however they're coming, you can believe me that Concord is where they're headed at.”

“But they wouldn't need an army for that,” my father protested. “They wouldn't need an army just to confiscate the supplies at Concord.”

“Don't argue with me, mister, please.”

“Only how many troops?” Parker insisted. “Don't you see that we've got to know?”

“Mister, it was nighttime and we were hiding. Did you want me to count them?”

“A thousand—two thousand?”

“A thousand at least. Maybe two thousand, maybe more. They had a line of boats stretching across the river, and every boat packed full of redcoat soldiers. That's all I know—Now, make way for me. Let go of my reins, mister.”

The crowd opened up for him, and he spurred his horse. He was a good rider, but wild and careless. He saw the common rail at the last minute and jumped it, sailed over it light as a feather, and then rode hallooing and shouting down the highway toward Concord.

After the rider had departed, the common showed signs of becoming the liveliest debating area in all New England. The central argument involved the Committeemen and the militia officers and the Reverend, who was torn between the Committee and the militia on one hand and God and the church on the other. The secondary arguments involved the male citizens who supported one faction or another. The final arguments were mostly between mothers and their children, involving the chill of the night air, the general lack of decent attire, and the effects of the loss of sleep. Along with these three major areas of dispute, there were many subareas where tempers ran high, individual duels between man and wife, mother and daughter, father and son—all of it adding up to the briskest night scene I recollect in all my life. A dozen sputtering pine torches lit up the scene and gave it quality.

At the center of the dispute were four positions: Jonas Parker wanted an immediate muster of the militia. Since we had stored a hogshead of powder and another of lead shot in the cellar of Buckman's Tavern, Parker suggested that as our mustering point. Mr. Buckman agreed nervously. Everyone could see that his mind was oppressed with the question of whether each man would pay for food and drink consumed or whether it would be billed to the Committee. Things billed to the Committee had a way of being written off with a noble gesture, and there's nothing can be as destructive and disturbing to a small business man as a noble gesture.