DON FINDS A NEW FRIEND
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.