A patriot lad of old Boston

During the next few days the destruction of the King’s tea was the main topic of conversation in and round Boston. Moreover, bells were rung in celebration of the event, and some persons said frankly that they believed the act to be a stroke toward independence. David Hollis said so one day at the dinner-table.

When he had gone out Aunt Martha turned to her nephew. “Donald,” she said, “your uncle is a good man, a brave man, and he is usually right; but, oh, I do hope that this time he is wrong. Do you realize what it will mean if the Colonies declare their independence of England?”

“It will mean fighting,” Don replied.

“Yes, it will mean—war.” Aunt Martha’s voice trembled. “War between us and our own kinsmen with whom we have been close friends for so long.”

Don thought of Tom Bullard, but he said nothing.

“I do hope that things will be settled peaceably before long,” said his aunt.

Not many days had passed before the inhabitants of Boston learned that tea ships that had tried to land cargoes at New York and at Charleston had fared no better than the three Indiamen at Boston. And again the people of Boston rejoiced, for they were sure that they had done right in destroying the tea.

For a while Don found things very quiet at the little house in Pudding Lane. He went regularly to the Latin School in School Street and after hours frequently helped his aunt to look after the store. He saw Tom Bullard almost every day, but Tom had not a word to say to his former close friend.

One day shortly after Christmas the two boys met unexpectedly near Tom’s house in Hanover Street. Don stopped short. “Say, Tom,” he said, “don’t you think we might be friends again even if we can’t agree on all things?”

“I don’t care to be friendly—with you,” replied Tom shortly.

“Oh, all right, then,” said Don.

For several minutes he was indignant and angry; then he decided that the best thing for him to do would be to forget the quarrel, and from that moment he did not allow it to worry him.

The winter dragged on slowly. January passed, and February came and went. There had been plenty of sledding on the Common; and there were numerous ponds and swamps, where Don tried his new upturned skates that his Uncle David had given him on his birthday.

March was drawing to a close when Don unexpectedly found a new friend. It was Sunday evening, and Aunt Martha and Uncle David and Don were seated in front of a roaring fire on the hearth, when two loud knocks sounded at the door. Before Uncle David could get to his feet it swung open, and a short heavy-set man dressed in deerskin entered.

“Glen Drake!” exclaimed Uncle David. “By the stars, what in the world brings you out of the woods?”

“Oh, I just meandered down,” replied the other, clasping the outstretched hand. “Thought maybe you’d be glad to see me.”

“Glad? I surely am! Here—you know Aunt Martha.” Glen Drake shook hands with Don’s aunt. “And here—this is my nephew Donald.”

Don felt the bones in his hand fairly grate as the man pressed it.

“Draw up a chair, Glen,” said Uncle David.

But Glen Drake had crossed to the door and slipped outside. In a moment he was back, carrying a large bundle in both arms. “A little present for Aunt Martha,” he said and dropped it on the floor in the centre of the room. “There’s a silver fox among ’em.”

“Furs!” cried Don.

“Why, Glen Drake,” began Aunt Martha, “you don’t mean to say——”

“Best year I ever had,” said Glen and, kneeling, cut the thong that bound the bundle.

Don’s eyes seemed fairly to be popping from his head as he watched the old trapper lift pelt after pelt from the closely-packed pile. There must have easily been several thousand dollars’ worth there on the floor. Perhaps one-fourth of the pelts were muskrat; the rest were beaver, otter, mink, martin, sable, ermine and finally the trapper’s greatest prize—a silver fox.

“You don’t mean to say——” Aunt Martha began again. “Why, you surely don’t intend to give me all these!”

At that the old trapper threw back his head and laughed for fully half a minute. “All!” he exclaimed. “Why, bless your heart, Aunt Martha, you should have seen the catch I made. This isn’t one-fifth—no, not one-tenth!”

He seated himself in front of the fire and began to fill his pipe. “Never saw so much fur in my life,” he said.

“Where have you been?” Uncle David asked.

“Up Quebec way and beyond.”

While the two men were talking, Don not only listened eagerly, but studied the visitor closely. He was a short man with broad sloping shoulders and a pair of long heavy arms. His musket, which he had carried in when he went to get the furs, lay beside his coonskin cap on the floor. Though the weapon lay several feet from him, Don was sure that the man could get it in a fraction of a second, if he needed it badly; for he had crossed the floor with the quick noiseless tread of a cat. Now he was lying back in his chair, and his deep-set black eyes seemed to sparkle and burn in the moving light of the fire. His face was like dark tanned leather drawn over high cheek bones; his hair was long and jet black. His pipe seemed twice the size of Uncle David’s when it was in his mouth, but when the trapper’s sinewy hand closed over the bowl it seemed very small. Glen Drake was just the sort of man to catch a boy’s fancy.

All evening Don sat enthralled, listening to the stories the man told of the north, and Aunt Martha had to use all her power of persuasion to send her nephew off to bed. “No more pie for a week, Donald, unless you go this instant,” she said at last.

“You like pie, Don?” asked the trapper. “Well, so do I. And I like boys also, and since I hope to be here for some little time maybe you and I can get to be real friendly.”

“I—I surely hope so!” said Don and turned reluctantly toward the stairs.

He did not go to sleep at once; his room was directly above the sitting-room, and he could hear his uncle and Glen Drake talking until late into the night.

The month that followed was a delightful one for Don. After school hours he and the old trapper would often cross the Neck and go for a long walk through Cambridge and far beyond. The backbone of winter was broken; spring was well along, and the birds had returned from the south. Glen knew them all, by sight and by sound, and he was willing and even eager to teach his companion; he taught him also the habits of the fur-bearing animals and the best ways to trap them; he taught him how to fish the streams, the baits to use and the various outdoor methods of cooking the fish they landed.

“I declare,” said Glen one evening in May when they were returning with a fine mess of fish, “you’re the quickest boy to learn a thing ever I knew. I’m as proud of ye as if you were my own son.”

Don felt a thrill pass over him; he had not expected such praise as that. “I hope I can learn a lot more,” he said.

But that was the last trip the two made into the country together for a long time. On arriving at the house in Pudding Lane, they found Uncle David pacing nervously back and forth across the floor.

“What’s the matter, Dave?” asked Glen.

“Matter enough; haven’t you heard?” Uncle David paused. Then he said with a note of anger in his voice: “I was sure all along that the King would take some means of revenge for the affair of the tea, but it’s worse than I’d suspected. He’s going to close the port.”

Glen Drake whistled softly. Don paused at the foot of the stairs.

“Military governor is coming first,” continued Uncle David, “and troops later—Redcoats!”

“That won’t help the town,” said the trapper.

“You’re right; and it won’t help me; I’ve got a good supply of merchandise in the cellar—cloth mostly and a little powder. Bought it last week from the captain of the Sea Breeze and offered it right off to a friend of mine in Carolina, but can’t send it till I hear from him and know whether he wants it. By that time, though, I’m afraid there won’t be any ships sailing.”

“Sell it here in town,” suggested Glen.

“Can’t do it; my offer was as good as a promise.”

“Send it overland, then, though that would be more expensive, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would be; there wouldn’t be any profit left.”

But during the stress of the next few days Uncle David quite forgot about his merchandise. Captain-General Thomas Gage had arrived in a ship from England; and on the seventeenth of May he landed at Long Wharf and as military governor was received with ceremony. On the first of June, amid the tolling of bells and fasting and prayer on the part of most of the good people of Boston, the Port Bill went into effect. A few days later Governor Hutchinson sailed for England.

Uncle David was moody and preoccupied. He and Glen spent much of their time in the North End, and Don could not help wondering what they were doing there. He and the trapper had become such close friends that he missed his old companion greatly. “Where do they go every evening?” he asked his aunt.

“You must not ask too many questions, Donald,” Aunt Martha replied.

“Well,” said Don, “how long will the port be closed?”

“I don’t know. All I can say is that it is a wicked measure; I declare it is!”

Aunt Martha’s words soon proved to be only too true. Hundreds of vessels, prevented from sailing by the British fleet, lay idle at the wharfs. Hundreds of persons walked the streets, out of work; and many of the very poor people were without bread. Day by day the town seemed to grow a little more miserable. And still Aunt Martha hoped that there would be a peaceful settlement between the Colonies and the mother country. Uncle David and Glen Drake said very little except when they thought they were quite alone.

Don went frequently to the Common, where Redcoats were encamped; in the course of the summer the number of them increased. Barracks had been erected, and cannon had been placed at various points of vantage. It looked as if the British were preparing for a long stay.

Once Don overheard a conversation between two of the soldiers that made his blood boil. He was waiting for a school chum near the Province House, which General Gage was occupying as headquarters, when two Redcoats turned the corner at Rawson’s Lane and stopped near him. “We’ll teach these people how to behave in the future,” said one.

“It’s pretty hard for them,” remarked the other, “having all their trade cut off and having a lot of their liberties taken from them.”

“Hard!” exclaimed the first speaker. “It’s meant to be hard. Everything is done purposely to vex them. They talk of liberty; we’ll show ’em what liberty means. Maybe when they feel the pinch of starvation they’ll come to understand. Maybe they’ll need powder and ball to make them behave, but they’ll behave in the end!”

Don turned away, and from that moment he hoped that a time would come when the people of the Colonies would rise and drive the hated soldiers from the town. If he were only a little older! If he could only do something!

That evening when he returned to Pudding Lane he found the table set for only two persons. “Why, Aunt Martha,” he said, “where are Uncle Dave and Glen?”

“They’ve gone on a trip southward. They won’t return for perhaps a week or two.”

“Oh,” said Don, “did they go to see about the consignment of goods in the cellar?”

“They could see about that,” Aunt Martha replied slowly.

As a matter of fact, the two men had gone on a special trip to New York. For some time they, together with such men as Paul Revere, a silversmith in the North End, William Dawes and others had been meeting in secret at the Green Dragon Tavern; they were part of the Committee of Correspondence, and their object was to watch the British, learn all they could about them—where they kept their guns and powder, how many there were of them at various points—and to convey the information to the other Colonies. Uncle David had ceased work at the rope yard, and if Aunt Martha had known all the details of his doings at the Green Dragon she might have worried even more than she did. His mission now was, among other matters, to inform the Committee of Correspondence at New York of the arrival of a fresh regiment of Redcoats.