The Transcendental Murder

by Jane Langton

  “My dear,” said his wife, beaming radiantly to right and left, “why in heaven’s name didn’t you write it out? I know you’re trying to work up a reputation for old-fashioned eloquence, but you’ll just make a fool of yourself, that’s all you’ll do.”

  The parade was over. The watching crowds closed in behind the last band and followed them down Monument Street. Gwen hurried back and picked up Freddy and started walking against the stream toward her car. Homer and Rowena caught up with Mary and old Mrs. Hand. “Those noisome grails of yours,” he said. “I’ve figured out what they’re for. Black Masses.”

  “What?” Well, at least he wasn’t not speaking.

  “Noisome grails. For witches to use at Black Masses.”

  Oh, that was good. Mary chuckled.

  “What happens now?” he said.

  “Now everybody gathers in the field beside the bridge, there next to the Old Manse, and there are speeches and so on.”

  “These military demonstrations, all this nationalistic flag-waving. Honestly,” said Rowena.

  “You got something against parades?” said Homer.

  He had changed his tie. This one was patriotic with red, white and blue ballerinas.

  Chapter 13

  What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot to-day?

  HENRY THOREAU

  Preliminary report of the Committee on Public Ceremonies and Celebrations …

  19 April, 10 A.M.

  Main ceremony at North Bridge. Prayer. Music by General Radio Glee Club. Address by His Excellency, the Governor.

  10:30 A.M.

  On appropriate bugle signal, Boy Scout contingent from Acton will march across the field to the west to the tune of “The White Cockade” played by the Acton High School Band. Arrival of Dr. Samuel Prescott, impersonated by Charles Goss. Laying of wreaths; “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Concord Band. Salute by Concord Independent Battery.

  The amplified voices of the General Radio Glee Club sounded tinny, singing Emerson’s hymn—

  By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

  Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

  Here once the embattled farmers stood

  And fired the shot heard round the world.

  It didn’t matter much that the Governor forgot half of his poem. The instant he said, “Listen my children,” everybody stopped listening, and smiled around and visited. Grandmaw couldn’t hear, but she guessed. “It’s not Longfellow again?”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Mary.

  It was pleasant to stop one’s ears and just watch. Around the speaker’s platform the parade-marchers in their contrasting uniforms stood in orderly radiating clusters. Beyond them the disorderly citizens came in all shapes and sizes and moved here and there at will, pushing baby carriages over the bumpy ground, carrying infants on their shoulders. There were boys in the trees, there was the smell of spring, there were grandmothers sitting on the trampled grass, and somebody’s dog that shouldn’t have been let out nosing around and barking. There were jets going over, and now and then, thin occasional fragments of the Governor’s proclamation. “Whereas … and … whereas … do hereby proclaim this Patriot’s Day …” Below the Governor the color and confusion of the massed marchers reminded Mary of two paintings rolled into one, some grandiose Napolepnic battle scene and a picnic in the grass. There were the fringed flags lying at every angle, the dazzle of sunshine on a sousaphone, the glittering splendor of the glockenspiel rising out of the high school band like the standard of a Roman legion, and under the crossed flags the reclining figure of the dying general replaced by the tired pimply second trombonist eating a sandwich.

  The Governor finished and sat down, to a splatter of applause. Then a long straggling line of Scouts from Acton arrived, with more flags, and there were mutual felicitations. At last it was time for Charley. Mary craned her neck. There he was, right on time, accompanied by a shout that gathered momentum along Monument Street and echoed around through the field, “Here he comes!” Charley’s outfit had been scrounged from here and there, but he looked reasonably like an eighteenth century general practitioner arousing the countryside. His hair was hidden under an orange wig that was tied back with a ribbon, and he wore a skimpy purple tricorn, with cheap gold braid around the edges. He urged Dolly as fast as was safe through the parted crowd, giving an impression of speed, leaning forward, waving one arm, crying, “The Regulars are out!” Then he reined in and tipped his hat to the Governor. “In case you don’t know it, Your Excellency,” he said, handing him a scroll, “the British are coming.”

  Mary felt the old movie music grinding. It was queer the way a real event was apt to become lost in the pageantry that grew up around it. But there had been a real Dr. Sam, and for a moment Mary reveled in knowing it. “Put on,” he had said to Paul Revere, there on the Battle Road where the British had stopped them, and his horse had jumped over a stone wall and carried him and his burden of news to Concord, and on to Acton and Carlisle. It was Prescott’s ride that had helped to bring not only a few hundred Minutemen to the bridge but three or four thousand to the stone walls and hill slopes by the end of the day, ambushing the British retreat, turning it into a rout. A hero he had been, for sure, and a martyr before the war was over, dying in a British prison, so that he never got to marry the girl he had gone to Lexington to see in the first place.

  The Governor was reading the scroll out loud. It began with a “Whereas,” and went on with a rather tedious statement of general approval of the whole thing by the mayor of Boston. Mentally the Governor resolved to suggest to the Mayor that next year he include a few appropriate lines from some traditional verse. Then he shook hands with Charley, calling him Paul Revere, and congratulated him on the successful completion of his famous ride. Suddenly he remembered some of the lines he had forgotten, and hanging onto Charley’s hand, he pumped it up and down and declaimed them into the microphone.

  Through all our history, to the last,

  In the hour of darkness and peril and need,

  The people will waken and listen to hear

  The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,

  And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

  He sat down smugly, feeling that he had positively outdone himself. The military units stared stonily ahead, there was a flutter of polite clapping, and one loyal Prescott supporter said Boo. “Not Revere, you ass,” hissed the Governor’s wife. “That’s not Paul Revere.”

  The Governor was thoroughly disgruntled. “Well, for Chris’sake, who in hell is it?” Then he nearly jumped out of his skin. KABOOM. The Concord Independent Battery was firing again. B-B-B-BOOM went the echoes running around. Babies set up a howl all over the field, and small galvanized hands let go of gas balloons. The Concord Band started to play “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the Governor and his wife left to open a supermarket in Needham, and everyone began trying to find lost members of his family. A few well-disciplined men and women veterans stood and saluted, or just stood at attention. Mary didn’t, but she felt vaguely guilty, walking to the car with Mrs. Hand. April 19th always curiously stirred her. She wanted to fire a musket or pitch a box of tea in the harbor or somehow shout her defiance of colonial power. Down with the King anyhow.

  Chapter 14

  Dying is a wild Night and a new Road.

  EMILY DICKINSON

  Preliminary report of the Committee on Public Ceremonies and Celebrations …

  19 April, 8:30 A.M.

  Acton Boy Scouts’ Flag raising ceremonies at Isaac Davis farmhouse preceding hike down the original trail to the North Bridge.

  10:30 A.M.

  On appropriate bugle signal the group will march down to and across the bridge to the tune of “The White Cockade.”

  Honor scout Arthur (Tubby) Furry puffed along the Isaac Davis trail in deep distress of mind. It was terrible, it was really terrible. Angry tears overflowed his eyes and ran down his cheeks. He brushed his sleeve, stiff with merit badges, acro
ss his runny nose. If nobody could see you it was okay to cry. He half-trotted, sobbing and puffing. He’d never catch up now. The ceremony would be all over, and the presentations. He looked at his watch, and sniffled in despair. Twelve forty-five! He was over two hours late! What would Mr. Palmer say? How could he possibly explain to Mr. Palmer? He couldn’t say he was just a natural-born heavy sleeper and had slept right through his alarm, and then his darned old mother had made him clean up his stupid room, could he? Just because he’d more or less forgotten to clean it up yesterday, for crumb’s sake. Here it was, the most important day in his life, and his mother had made him clean up his room. It was his duty to be there with the others. He’d tried to explain to his mother, but she wouldn’t listen. Here he was, Arthur Furry, the one who had the honor to present the flag to the Governor of Massachusetts, the Governor, for crumb’s sake. And then his mother had said something awful. I don’t care if it’s Almighty God, she had said, you’re going to clean up this ghastly mess right now, from top to bottom. That wasn’t even a nice thing to say, for crumb’s sake. Most of the time his mother was nice, but sometimes she could be awful, like now.

  The muster field was empty. He had just known it would be. Arthur struggled across it, climbed over the stone wall on one side of Liberty Street and then over the stone wall on the other side. It was all downhill now. This was the battleground, and there was the bridge, and the field where the speeches were supposed to be. Arthur’s heart sank. He couldn’t see a single soul. The whole darn thing must be all over and everybody gone home. Oh well, he’d do his duty and go right there where he was supposed to go, and at least Mr. Palmer would have to give him credit for trying. That was what he was always telling them, try, go ahead, try, do your best at all times. Well, this was the very best he could do because of his darned old mother. Arthur put the ends of his neckerchief in his mouth and sucked them. Then he used them to mop his cheeks, which must be streaky from crying.

  He was nearly there. The little hillock where the Minuteman stood was nearly an island. The flooded river had left only a narrow causeway at the bottom of the field. Arthur picked his way carefully. The ground was mushy in places.

  Well, say! Maybe he was wrong! Maybe everything wasn’t over! That was a shot! Maybe the Governor and everybody were still there! His mother had told him parades were always late! Arthur’s sodden face plumped out in a hopeful smile. He began to climb up the hill below the Minuteman. Then he scrambled back and fell into the straggly cotoneaster bushes to avoid a huge shape that came crashing at him. It was a horse, of all things—an enormous brown horse, jumping over the iron fence, and there was somebody falling off it. The man landed in a scraping thump in the muddy part of the trail. It was that Paul Revere fellow, that Dr. Sam somebody, all dressed up in his outfit. Should Arthur run to help him? But the man was on his feet almost instantly. Keeping his back to Arthur, he limped after his horse and struggled back on. His tricorn hat lay where it had fallen. The man wobbled his heels into the sides of the horse and it started to canter up the hill.

  Arthur watched it disappear through a gap in the stone wall. Well, gee, this was swell. He must be almost on time after all, because the horseman was supposed to ride up about the same time the Scouts from Acton were supposed to present their flags. Hopefully Arthur climbed the hill and heaved himself over the iron fence. There was a place there, he remembered from last year, where the prongs had been bent aside. Then he hurried around the bushes and came out behind the Minuteman. Oh, for crumb’s sake, there was no one here after all, except somebody making a funny noise somewhere. Deeply disappointed, Arthur wheezed across the wooden bridge. Maybe the ceremonies were still going on in the field over there on the other side. Maybe he’d find the crowd of fellow Scouts and Mr. Palmer all lined up in front of the Governor, and if he marched up smartly to the Color Guard, Tommy Wiley would hand over the flag so he could present it to the Governor, and maybe Mr. Palmer would say Good for you, Tub.

  But there was no sign of anything going on up there in the field. Where was everybody? In the end Arthur almost tripped over the man who lay by the wall. If the man hadn’t attempted to get up on one elbow, if he hadn’t thrown his head back and looked at Arthur, Arthur might have walked right past him. Arthur stopped stock-still and stared back at him.

  The man lay on his side within the chained-off space where the British soldiers were buried. He was wearing a Concord Independent Battery uniform. His campaign hat lay by his side. One leg hung over the chain. Under him was a stiff spray of red gladiolas, red and white carnations and a blue ribbon with words written on it in glitter. Arthur could read the words. They said “British War Veterans.” Some of the white carnations weren’t white any more. One of the man’s hands was across his stomach, purplish-red stuff all over it. His face was ashen. He tried to speak, but a gout of blood came up out of his mouth, and he fell back, the blood running down the side of his face and falling in beaded drops on the ground.

  Arthur Furry, Honor Scout, had a badge on his sleeve awarded him for his knowledge of First Aid. He knew how to give artificial respiration, he knew where the pressure points were, he knew how to make and apply a tourniquet and how to care for a broken leg. But the Boy Scout manual didn’t say anything about people with blood coming out of their stomach or their mouth. The pictures just showed a well-built handsome man in a white shirt with his sleeves rolled up lying down in a sort of neat way, with a very calm Boy Scout kneeling neatly beside him, winding bandages around his arms or legs or putting on a splint. The man in the pictures didn’t look up at the Boy Scout with horrible eyes and bubble blood at him. Panic-stricken, Arthur knelt down like the Scout in the picture and wondered what to do. Should he turn the man so that his head was higher or lower than his feet? Which, higher or lower? Or apply a tourniquet? But where? You couldn’t put a tourniquet on a person if their stomach was bleeding, could you?

  “Musket …” gurgled the man at him. He tried to say something else.

  “I beg your pardon?” said Arthur, politely bowing closer. The man struggled to speak, with the blood coming up in gushes. He choked, and went into a sort of spasm. Arthur, horrified, could think of nothing to do but unknot his kerchief and use it to wipe at the man’s mouth, so that he could speak better. But the man’s strugglings ceased. He rolled his head to one side and lay still. Arthur got to his feet and ran. There was a house at the left of the walk to the bridge. He ran and pounded at the door and rang the bell. He started yelling, “Help, get a doctor, help!” There were people walking on Monument Street, a woman pushing a baby carriage. There was a bus unloading passengers over in the parking lot. A bunch of men in ten-gallon hats and cowboy boots were getting out. A policeman was talking to the driver. Arthur jumped off the porch of the house and ran across the road. “Help!” he said. “There’s a man dying back there, get a doctor!”

  Everyone turned to look at him. The policeman started to run toward him. “Where, sonny?” he said.

  Chapter 15

  I find letters from God dropt in the street—and every one is sign’d by God’s name …

  WALT WHITMAN

  There was an old woman walking along Liberty Street, carrying a basket with a pink balloon tied to it. It was the Gosses’ housekeeper-cook, Mrs. Bewley, ambling home from the celebration. She had swiped the balloon nimbly from the balloon-man, but all the rest she had scavenged perfectly honestly: the half-pack of cigarettes, the three popsicle sticks, the wing from the plastic airplane, the nickel, the button, and, of course, innumerable messages from Jesus. She didn’t know what Jesus said, since she could neither read nor write, but sooner or later she would get someone to shout it in her ear. Those yellow ones probably said Juicy Fruit. It had something to do with the Garden of Eden.

  It would be such fun to add all these new things to her collection! It had been a grand morning. Mrs. Bewley looked down proudly at her dress and smiled. The dress was over thirty years old, but it was brand new to Mrs. Bewley. It had started i
ts long and useful life as a second-hand article in 1932 when it was displayed for the first time in the Girl Scout Rummage Sale. Over the next ten years it had been handed down and sold and resold at the same sale, and then it had taken a new lease on life during a Clothe the Naked campaign conducted by the Evangelical Free Church. Sent to the remotest reaches of the Himalayas the dress that now belonged to Mrs. Bewley had become a part of the ceremonial wardrobe of a succession of tribal chieftains—until around 1950, when a resourceful chieftain with a large wardrobe and a flat tire traded it for a bicycle pump and a yak’s hair fetish to the native lady’s maid of a missionary’s wife. Years later it went along with the lady’s maid and the missionary’s wife and the missionary all the way back to Boston for an Evangelical Congress, and then it found its way back at last to the Concord Girl Scout Rummage Sale (the lady’s maid had discovered Filene’s Basement). At the Rummage Sale it was clawed off the rack by an eager Mrs. Bewley, who couldn’t fail to notice how much the buttons down the front resembled the beady brown eyes of her squirrel neckpiece. There were squirrels, definitely, running around inside Mrs. Bewley’s head. But her eyes were as sharp and scavenging as ever. They saw something lying on the ground across the field, something that looked out of place. Out of place, hopeful and lost, as if it didn’t belong to a solitary human soul. Of course if anybody should happen to come to Mrs. Bewley and ask for it she would be very glad indeed to give it right back. Mrs. Bewley scrambled over the stone wall and scuttled down the sloping field …