ENOCH'S HOME.
"Enoch," said his mother, rising from her chair after a moment's pause
and leading the way toward the kitchen, "breakfast is ready and waiting.
While you are eating it I shall be pleased to hear something more about
this fight. It looks to me now as though we had got to do battle with
the King."
"That is the way it looks to me, too," said the boy.
The Crosby house would have been an object worth seeing if it had stood
in this century. It was a double house built of logs, the places where
they met being chinked with clay and the roof was thatched with long
grass or rye straw. The windows consisted of small lead frames set with
diamond plates of glass hung so that they opened inward instead of
outward. As the building stood facing the south the "sun shone squarely
in at noon," and gave warning that the dinner hour was approaching.
There were two rooms in which Mrs. Crosby took delight--her "best room"
and her kitchen. The best room was used only on state occasions, that
is, when the minister came to see them or some old-time friends dropped
in for an hour or two. The andirons were of brass and shone so brightly
that one could see his face in them, and in summer time the fireplace
was always kept garnished with asparagus and hollyhocks. On the rude
mantelpiece stood the high candlesticks made of the same material, and
close beside them lay the tray and the snuffers. Here also was the
library, small, it is true, for reading in those days was undertaken for
improvement and not for pleasure. Books were scarce and cost money; but
among them could be found the family Bible, Watts' Poems, Young's Night
Thoughts, and Milton's Paradise Lost.
The best room for the family was in the kitchen, and that was where
Enoch always liked to be. Sometimes in winter when he did not have to go
to sea he read one of the well-thumbed volumes by the aid of a tallow
dip. The blaze in the fireplace was always piled high, but even this was
but little if any shelter from the cold. The places where the chinking
did not fit were numerous, and the way the cold wind poured into the
room made the words of an old writer perfectly apparent: "While one side
of the inmate was toasting the other was freezing." To make matters
still worse "the smoke escaping into the room by no means favored study
or any other employment requiring the use of the eyes."
When Enoch followed his mother into the kitchen he saw there a
well-filled table which had often made him hungry when he did not want
anything to eat; but it had little effect upon him now. There was hot
salt pork, vegetables, and bannocks,[3] which were all their simple
tastes required. In the place of tea they had milk; for those one
hundred and forty men had long ago thrown the tea overboard in Boston
harbor, and all that Mrs. Crosby had left was some tied up in a paper
and stowed away in one of her bureau drawers. Before they seated
themselves at the table they took their stand behind their chairs with
bowed and reverent heads, while his mother offered up thanks to the
Giver of all good for the provisions set before them. This was a plan
always followed in Enoch's home. When his mother was away, at a quilting
bee or sitting up with a sick person, Enoch never forgot the custom, but
offered up prayers himself.
[Footnote 3: Bannocks are something like the present "hoecakes" of the
South--merely flat cakes of Indian meal or rye, wet with water and baked
over the hot coals on the hearth.]
"Now, boy, I should like to hear something about that fight," said Mrs.
Crosby, seating herself in her chair. "Have we got to fight the King,
sure enough?"
"The things indicate that fact," said Enoch, helping his mother to a
piece of the pork and to a potato which had been baked in the ashes on
the hearth. "King George has not acted right with us anyway. When young
Snyder was killed in Boston because he happened to be near a mob who
were throwing stones at Richardson, the King went and pardoned out
Richardson, who had been put into prison for it, after he had been there
for two years. That does not look as though he felt very kindly toward
us, does it?"
"And then the tea," said his mother, who came as near being angry as she
could whenever she thought of that. Like all old ladies she loved the
"cup which cheers but does not inebriate," and she could not bear to
have it taken away from her. "The King ought not to have taxed us for
that."
"He might if he would allow us to be represented in Parliament," said
Enoch, "but he would not do it. If we have got to be taxed to help carry
on the government of Great Britain, we want some men of our own over
there to see about it."
"Now tell me about the fight. You said we killed almost three hundred of
them."
"Why, mother, you say 'we' as though you were there and helped shoot at
those redcoats," said Enoch.
"Of course I do, my son. If your father were here now, he would have
taken that old flint-lock down and had it put in running order before
this time," said his mother, pointing to the weapon which occupied its
usual position over the fireplace. "We are Americans, and whenever we
are shot at, we must shoot in return."
Enoch was delighted to hear his mother talk in this way. It showed that
she was not loyal enough to King George to fight against her own
countrymen at any rate. The boy began and told the history of the fight
as he had heard it from the messenger, and, as he talked and told how
the minute-men had concealed themselves behind every rock and tree that
they came to, his mother's eyes sparkled, and she said that she almost
wished that she had been a man and lived in Lexington so that she could
have been there too.
"I really wish I had been there," said Enoch, glancing affectionately at
the old flint-lock as he said this. "Of course I could not shoot with
those who hunt squirrels every day, but I could have made a noise. And
to talk about those British soldiers being invulnerable! I tell you they
could not stand before the minute-men."
"And to think that we should be called '_rebels_,'" said his mother, who
could scarcely restrain herself.
"But I say we are not rebels," said Enoch emphatically. "The people in
Boston told the King just what they wanted to do, and he turned around
and made them do something else. There was not any more loyal paper
gotten up than they sent to him."
A long talk on such matters as these occupied them while they were at
breakfast, and just as Enoch arose there came a sound like the rattling
of a stick between the pickets of the front fence. The boys had not
learned to whistle in those days to let a comrade know that there was
some one outside waiting for him. Whistling is easier, but the boys made
each other known in spite of it.
"That is Caleb Young," said Enoch. "I know him by the way he rattles his
stick. I hope we shall hear something more about that fight."
Enoch put on his hat and went out, and there he saw Caleb, dressed after
the fashion of a seafaring man as he was himself, leaning on the gate
and whistling softly to himself.
"Have you got anything more to tell about it?" said Enoch, coming up to
him.
"No more than what the courier has already told," said Caleb. "But say!
there is something in the wind."
"I gained an idea from something Zeke said that he was thinking of
something else," said Enoch, sinking his voice to a whisper because
Caleb did the same. "He would not tell us what it was because there were
too many Tories near."
"No, but he was thinking and talking about it since, and he has made up
his mind that we are going to do something to equal that battle of
Lexington in some way," said Caleb. "He has been talking to that Joseph
Wheaton, and he has been advising Zeke what to do. He says it is not
right for those Boston people to take all the hard knocks while we get
none of them."
"That is what I say. If we are going to hang, we will all hang
together."
"But we are not going to hang--none of us," said Caleb, striking the
nearest picket with his closed hand. "There are three vessels in the
harbor----"
"Yes; and I am going to keep away from them," said Enoch, pushing
himself away from the fence. "You don't make a pirate out of me. I have
made my living honestly and I intend to keep on doing it."
"That is me," said Caleb. "I have worked for every cent I have and I am
not ashamed to let everybody know it; but if we can capture that vessel
we will show the Boston people that they are not alone in this
business."
"What vessel do you mean?"
"I mean the Margaretta. She is here as convoy for those two sloops that
are loading with lumber, and she is in the service of the crown. If we
can get her we will have the sloops easy enough."
"Why, Caleb, that would be piracy," said Enoch, fairly aghast at the
proposition. "The Margaretta has not done anything to us."
"Of course she has not, but she is in the service of the King. Those men
who went out to destroy those stores were in the service of the King,
too; but they got neatly whipped for their pains. Zeke and Joseph
Wheaton would not have proposed that plan if they did not think we would
make something by it. You ought to have heard mother talk to me while we
were at breakfast. She said that if father was alive now he would have
taken his old flint-lock down and shot every Tory he could find."
"I guess I know about what your mother said, for mine talked to me in
the same way," said Enoch, with a laugh. "Are you one of those who are
going to capture that schooner?"
"I am! I am one of the fifteen men and boys who have agreed to be on
hand when they hear a cheer sounded. That is going to be our rallying
cry, and we must all go to where we hear it. What are you going to do?
You are not a Tory."
"Don't you call me that," said Enoch, opening the gate and coming out to
meet his friend. "When that cheer is sounded you will see me on hand.
When do you propose to take the schooner?"
"Why as to that we have not had a chance to talk it over," said Caleb.
"Zeke only spoke of it just a little while ago to see how many men we
could raise; and to-night--here come two of those Tories now," continued
Caleb, pushing his hat on the back of his head and shoving up his
sleeves. "Now let us see what they have got to say about that fight at
Lexington. I do not wish them any harm, but I would like to know that
they had been there and I kneeling a little way off with my father's
flint-lock in my hand."
"Then you would not have heard anything about that fight," said Enoch,
with a laugh. Caleb was noted for his sharp shooting, and if he had got
a bead on one of those fellows it would have been all over with him. "I
will bet you I would have shot pretty close to him," Caleb added.
"Now don't you go to picking a fuss with them," said Enoch in a lower
tone, "because I will not have it."
"Oh, I will pick no fuss with them at all," said Caleb, turning his back
to the approaching boys and resting his elbow on the fence. "But they
must not say anything against the minute-men. If they do somebody will
get licked."
The two boys came nearer, and presently drew up beside the fence beside
which Enoch and Caleb stood. They did not expect any greeting, for that
happened long ago to have gone out of style between the Tories and the
Provincials. Whenever they met on the street they looked straight ahead
as if there was nobody there. They did not want to speak to each other
for the chances were that there would be a game of fisticuffs before
they got through with it.
These boys were evidently better off in the world than Enoch and his
friend. They wore cocked hats, neat velvet coats, knee-breeches, silk
stockings, and low shoes with huge silver buckles. But their queues were
what they prided themselves upon. They were neatly combed and hung down
upon their coat collars. The arms of their coats were "slashed" in
several places to show the fine quality of their underwear. If they had
been boys in our day we should have been obliged to introduce them with
cigarettes in their hands.
These sprucely dressed young fellows were Tories of the worst
description, but they followed in the footsteps of their fathers. One
was a "passive" Tory and the other was an "aggressive" Tory. How these
two men differed in opinion and actions shall be told further on.