American Challenge

by Susan Martins Miller

  “William!” Lydia shot out of her chair and hurled herself at her brother. “If you tell me absolutely everything now, I will forgive you for not talking to me in the street this morning.”

  Will backed away from his demanding little sister. “I’m filthy. Don’t touch me, or you’ll get dirt all over your frock.”

  “Lydia,” Papa said as he cracked an egg into a bowl of batter, “get your brother something to clean up with.”

  Lydia pouted, but she obeyed.

  “Are you all right, William?” Stephen asked quietly.

  Will mustered up the energy to smile at his brother with his big brown eyes. “I am just fine,” he said, “and grateful to be home.”

  “You must tell us what happened!” Lydia insisted as she handed him a damp towel.

  Will began wiping grit from his face and glanced at his father.

  Papa cracked another egg and stirred. “Yes, I suppose you must give us an account,” Papa said. Stephen thought his father sounded unsure whether he really wanted to know what had been going on all night. But Lydia would certainly not give up until she had heard every last detail, so William began.

  “I’m sure you all heard the fire alarm,” he said.

  “No fire!” declared Lydia.

  “That’s right. It was a false alarm. But it seemed to make folks edgy, and they stayed out in the streets. The moonlight was nice, I suppose. Some of the men went into the taverns. But for some reason, a group of men formed in front of the Customs House and started bothering the sentry on duty.”

  Stephen, remembering Lydia’s actions on the previous afternoon, glared at his sister. She stuck her tongue out at him.

  “Was it a mob?” Lydia asked. “A riot?”

  Will had moved on to cleaning his hands and arms. “No one is sure what happened. Someone said that some boys had been throwing snowballs at the soldier. Or it might be that the soldier threatened the boys. Someone else said that a man passing by had insulted the soldier and angered him. Then there was a story about a barber’s boy trying to collect payment for a haircut his master had given, and the soldier was refusing to pay. And someone else said that the soldier was defending his captain and whacked a boy with the butt of his musket for insulting the captain.”

  “This is exciting!” Lydia squealed.

  Stephen tilted his head to one side. “So you don’t really know what happened?”

  “Well, no, I don’t,” William answered. “How can we know what to believe?”

  “That’s a difficult question, Stephen. I don’t know the answer.”

  “Didn’t you see what happened?” Lydia asked.

  “I was not there when it all started. I was down at the docks. But I heard there was some commotion and went to see what it was all about.”

  “With the Sons of Liberty?” Lydia asked eagerly.

  William said simply, “I was with some friends. When we got to the Customs House, there were about a hundred men surrounding the poor soldier. Maybe there were even two hundred. It was hard to tell in the dark.”

  “Don’t tell me you feel sorry for that soldier,” Lydia said, hardly believing that her patriotic brother could stoop so low as to have sympathy for a British soldier.

  “That’s enough, Lydia.” Papa’s tone was sharp, and Lydia shrank back in her chair.

  Will continued, “By the time I got there, they were shouting, ‘Kill the soldier! Kill the coward!’ It is possible that his life truly was in danger. But I doubt that they would have harmed him. He should have known that.”

  “What did he do then?” Stephen asked.

  “He backed up the steps of the Customs House. They were throwing things at him—wood, chunks of ice, stones. So he was backing away. But he was priming his musket as he moved. He banged on the door of the building with the butt of his musket, but he couldn’t get in. At least I don’t think he could get in. I talked to Josiah Simpson, and he insists that he saw someone open the door and talk to the soldier. But he did not go in. Instead, he yelled for help. He shouted, ‘Turn out, Main Guard.’”

  Papa sighed and stopped stirring the batter. “This is far worse than I had imagined. You’re telling me it was one man against a hundred, perhaps two hundred? That’s hardly a fair fight.”

  Lydia opened her mouth to comment, but a warning look from her father silenced her.

  “When he called for help, seven more soldiers came running from the barracks across the square.”

  “All with muskets, I assume,” Papa said.

  William nodded. “Yes, now there were eight muskets. The soldiers were shoving people in all directions. I think all that the Boston residents had were sticks and cobblestones they pried out of the street. They could hardly defend themselves if the soldiers should start firing. But they refused to break up. They just kept screaming insults at the soldiers.”

  “Such foolishness,” Papa said emphatically. “All for nothing. No one can even say for sure how it started. Where was the commander of the guard?”

  “Captain Preston? He showed up a few minutes later. He saw the state of the crowd and ordered his men to prime their muskets and load.”

  “He what!” Papa was stunned. “Did he not even try to determine what had happened up until then?”

  “The British are not as reasonable as you and I, Papa,” William said.

  “Weren’t the people afraid of the muskets, Will?” Stephen asked.

  “I guess not, Stephen,” William answered. “They didn’t stop. They just kept calling out: ‘Let’s see you fire! Lobsterback! Bloody-back! You won’t dare fire!’”

  “Dare I ask what you were doing during all of this?” Papa asked.

  “William’s no coward,” Lydia asserted. Papa shot her another warning look.

  “Papa, I tell you the truth, I was not mixed up in this. I had nothing to do with it. I was just there.”

  “Why didn’t you leave?” Stephen asked.

  William shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I thought I would be able to help somehow.” He hung his tired head in his hands. “I did try. I tried to pull some of the loudest men out of the crowd. They just pushed me down in the street.”

  “Go on,” Papa prodded.

  “One of the soldiers got hit by something—ice, perhaps—and he slipped and fell. He lost his grip on his musket. The mob started screaming, and I guess the other soldiers thought they heard an order to fire.”

  “They fired!”

  William nodded.

  “And?”

  “Four are dead. More are wounded, and one probably will not live.”

  No one in the room spoke for several minutes. Even Lydia was stunned by the drama of the story. Stephen felt a lump forming in his throat. While Aunt Dancy gave birth to a new cousin, four men lost their lives.

  Papa finally broke the silence. “Who?”

  “Crispus Attucks. Samuel Gray. James Caldwell. Samuel Maverick. And Patrick Carr is seriously hurt.”

  “Did the captain order them to fire?” Stephen asked quietly.

  “He says he did not, Stephen, but there were a dozen witnesses who said they heard him give the order.”

  “Who do you believe?”

  Will met Stephen’s questioning eyes. “The witnesses are not the sort of people who go around telling lies.”

  “Does Captain Preston tell lies?” Stephen asked.

  Will looked away and did not answer.

  “What happened next?” Papa prodded.

  Will sighed deeply and continued. “Preston called for reinforcements, and three companies of soldiers surrounded the crowd and dropped to a firing position. Then the bells started going off again.”

  Papa nodded. “Yes, I heard them.”

  “Those are the ones that woke us up in the middle of the night,” Lydia said.

  “There were hundreds of people in the square, people with clubs, knives, anything they had been able to grab. They lined up as if they were actually going to fight the British troops.”

/>   “That would be sheer madness. Surely they wouldn’t!” Papa furiously cracked another egg, causing Stephen to jump in his seat.

  “I believe they would have if Governor Hutchinson had not shown up just then. He came with Colonel Dalrymple, who is in charge of all the troops in Boston. They took charge. I was amazed that the people listened, but they did. Governor Hutchinson talked the crowd into disbanding by promising that justice would be served. He promised that Preston and his men will be tried in a court of law.”

  “For what crime?” Papa asked.

  “Murder, of course. What else could it be?”

  Again the room was silent.

  “By three o’clock,” Will said, “everything was over. Hutchinson sent everyone home. He said a terrible tragedy had occurred and asked everyone to go home quietly. He promised to do everything in his power to see that justice would be done.”

  Stephen said, “That’s when the baby was born. About three o’clock.”

  What kind of city has this precious new life come into? Stephen wondered.

  CHAPTER 6

  Argument in the Print Shop

  Stephen welcomed the sleep that his father insisted on. After filling his stomach with his father’s lumpy pancakes, he had tumbled into bed gratefully.

  School would be canceled for several days. The leaders of Boston needed time to decide how to handle the turmoil in the city. As merchants passed each other in the streets, they exchanged whatever information they had about the events of the previous night. Horses clip-clopped on the cobblestones as Boston came to life for a new day. Before long, anyone who had not already heard the news would learn of the tragedy, and Boston would rally against the British once again.

  Stephen, however, had no strength left. He slept deeply. William was sound asleep next to him. Lydia was in the next room pretending that she was not tired, but in only a few minutes, the sounds of her thrashing stopped. They slept for several hours.

  Stephen dreamed of mewing cats and the red tongues of angry wolves anxious for their prey. He awoke when he heard Will moving about their room. The cabinet door creaked as Will opened it to rummage for clean breeches. Stephen rolled over and rubbed his eyes, blinking at his older brother.

  “Where are you going?” Stephen asked sleepily. He put his hand over his mouth to cover a yawn.

  “To the print shop.” Will’s voice was almost a whisper. “I didn’t mean to wake you. But I promised Papa I would not miss work because of my … activities.”

  “You mean, because you’ve been with the Sons of Liberty.”

  William grinned sheepishly. “I should stop treating you like an infant. You know as well as anyone else in the family what I’m involved in, don’t you?”

  Stephen sat up and smiled. “You’re the only one who doesn’t treat me like a baby.”

  “Well, you are the youngest in the family.” Will stepped into his breeches.

  “Lydia is only two years older than I am, but she acts like she’s a grown-up and I’m a child.”

  Will chuckled. “Lydia certainly has a mind of her own. You are far more patient with her than I would be.”

  “She just doesn’t think about things before she says them.” Stephen swung his legs over the side of the bed. His toes scrunched up when they hit the cold wooden planks of the floor.

  Will snatched a shirt off a hook and pulled it over his head.

  “Can I come with you?” Stephen asked.

  “To the shop? I thought you didn’t like the shop. You always seem to head for Uncle Cuyler’s clinic.”

  Stephen shrugged. “There’s no school. I don’t feel like staying in the house all day when so much is happening.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go back to sleep?”

  Stephen shook his head. “I’m not sleepy anymore.” He did not mention the wolves in his dream. He was afraid that if he tried to go back to sleep, the wolves would howl through the darkness behind his eyes.

  “You know, of course, that we’ll have to wake Lydia and take her with us,” Will said.

  Stephen grimaced. “I know. Papa won’t want her to be home alone. She won’t want to stay put anyway, once she wakes up. She would make me go somewhere with her.”

  “She’s good at getting her way, of that I am certain.”

  “Mostly, she wants to be like you.”

  William stopped and looked thoughtfully at Stephen. “Do you really think so?”

  Stephen nodded. “All she ever talks about is what William thinks and what William is doing.”

  “She should stick to working on her posture.”

  Stephen laughed.

  William threw a shirt at Stephen. “Get dressed, young man. We leave in ten minutes.”

  When the trio reached the print shop, their father was hard at work at his great walnut desk. To Stephen’s delight, Uncle Cuyler and his daughter Anna were in the shop. Anna was busy spinning a top on the wooden counter. Stephen joined her. Lydia perched on a stool and pretended to be bored, while William struck up a conversation with their father.

  “What are you working on, Papa?”

  “I’m finishing up a story about the events of last night.”

  “I could have done that for you,” William offered. “I was there. I saw as much as anyone did.”

  Papa shook his head and sighed. “It seems that even the eyewitnesses cannot agree on what they saw.” He gestured at the pile of papers on his desk, his notes from several interviews. “You yourself said that people had many different ideas about what started the riot in King Street.”

  “I told you everything I know this morning,” William said. “I know I did not hear every word that was spoken, but I have given you an accurate account of what happened.”

  Papa glanced up at his brother-in-law. “Your uncle has a slightly different version.”

  William turned to his uncle, puzzled. “You were there? I didn’t see you.”

  “Nor I you. But I was there—at least until I stumbled upon Stephen searching for Mistress Payne.”

  “Then you left. You did not see everything.”

  “No,” Uncle Cuyler admitted. “I did not see everything. But I saw enough.”

  Something about Uncle Cuyler’s tone of voice made Stephen stop the top and glance at his cousin. This would not be the first time that William had argued with Uncle Cuyler about political events. Uncle Cuyler usually tried not to argue, but William could not help trying to convince people to agree with him. William could persuade many people of many things. But Uncle Cuyler was not so easy to convince.

  Uncle Cuyler was sympathetic to the British Parliament’s need for more income. As long as the colonies were receiving the protection of the British Empire, he felt it was reasonable for the colonies to contribute to the cost of running the empire. He certainly did not want the colonies to break off their relationship with England. Life would become far more difficult. The colonies simply were not able to manufacture everything they needed for themselves. Their lives would not be as organized and comfortable without the support and protection of England.

  In many ways, life in the colonies was no different than life in England—at least, it hadn’t been until people had started to boycott British goods. They were already finding out that life was harder and the products much less pleasing when they tried to make do with what they could manufacture themselves. When Anna needed a new dress, Aunt Abigail sewed one from coarse cloth that she had woven herself instead of the fine fabrics of Europe. It was difficult to buy fabric from Europe, and if Aunt Abigail had dared use European fabric, she would have been ridiculed in the streets. Many people had also learned to drink coffee rather than buy British tea and pay a tax for it.

  England provided many things that the colonies could not provide for themselves. Uncle Cuyler was firmly convinced that being part of the British Empire was the best thing for Massachusetts.

  William, on the other hand, thought that British goods were only an excuse for Parliament t
o interfere in the lives of the colonists at every opportunity. The reason the colonies could not manufacture the things they needed was because Parliament had forbidden it. The British troops were not in Boston to protect the city, but to control it. If Boston accepted the taxes that the king had signed into law, money that belonged in Massachusetts would go to fatten someone’s bank account in England. William had no doubt that it was time for the colonies to break free. Sooner or later, he was convinced, it would happen.

  “I’m telling you, Papa,” William said insistently. “I can write that story. You need no other witnesses.”

  “You said the shooting last night was murder,” Papa said slowly. “In Cuyler’s opinion, it was rightful self-defense—or maybe even an accident.”

  “Self-defense!” William slammed an open hand down on the counter. “No man in that crowd had a musket.”

  “A gun is not the only thing that can kill a man,” Uncle Cuyler retorted. “They were pressing in on the soldier in great numbers. They refused to disperse. If only one man had chosen to swing a club—and I saw many who would have done so gladly—the soldier could have been mortally wounded. Yes, it was self-defense.”

  “It was murder!” William insisted. “Even if one sentry was in danger, when the rest of the troop came, the crowd was clearly overpowered. Captain Preston had no right to order his men to fire.”

  “Are you sure that he did?” Uncle Cuyler asked. “Did you hear the words come out of his mouth?”

  “It was impossible to hear anything in the middle of a riot.”

  “That is exactly my point,” Uncle Cuyler said evenly. “How could you have known whether the captain gave the order?”

  “And how can you be sure he did not?” William retorted. “You were gone by then to birth Aunt Dancy’s baby.”

  Stephen listened to his brother and then his uncle, back and forth. He did not know what to believe. Neither William nor Uncle Cuyler was someone who would tell an outright lie. But they could not both be right, not in this situation.

  Lydia slid off her stool and kicked the side of Anna’s shoe. “Your father was not there,” she whispered ferociously. “Why doesn’t he stop trying to tell everyone what to think?”