April Morning

by Howard Fast

  “I’m glad you feel that way,” Ruth said. “I can’t get used to thinking that we have to kill and fight now. I was upstairs at a window this morning when the redcoats fired. I saw one of them drive his bayonet into Jonas Parker’s back when he was trying to run away.”

  “You shouldn’t have watched that.”

  “But they could come back, couldn’t they, Adam, and then it could happen all over again?”

  I was silent for a while before I replied, “No. It couldn’t happen all over again.”

  “Why not?”

  I shook my head.

  “Why not, Adam?”

  “Because it isn’t the same any more,” I said finally. “We aren’t the same. This morning, we knew that we wouldn’t fight. But now we know that we must fight, and we’re learning how.”

  Crossing the common, we met the Reverend, and I told him how I was bringing the candles to the meetinghouse.

  “By all means, bring them there and let them be lighted, if that will please your mother, Adam. I have the place lit and intended to keep it so all night; but if it brings her comfort to have more light there—then let it be so. For myself, I am on my way to see your mother now. I have so many calls to make. We are a town of sorrow and tragedy—and it happened too quickly.”

  “She’ll be pleased to see you, sir.”

  “And Adam?”

  “Sir?”

  “Do you know about the muster?”

  “I know about it, Reverend. My Cousin Simmons told me.”

  “Well, Adam,” the Reverend said slowly, “I am not one of those who might regard you as a boy. You lived a man’s life today and you did a man’s work. But think about it, Adam. Think about it. Youth is too easily shamed into action. Pride is strong and potent, Adam—but let me only remind you that your first duty is to your mother. She needs you right now as she never needed you before. A week or a month from now, it might be different, but now she needs you, Adam.”

  I nodded. “I have been thinking about it.”

  “Good. And if I am not at your home when you return, Adam, God bless you and sleep well. And you too, Ruth.”

  He left us, and when he was out of earshot, Ruth asked me what he meant.

  “How do you mean?”

  “He spoke about the muster. What did my father tell you?”

  “I suppose you’ll know tomorrow anyway. The British army was driven back into Boston, and the Board of Safety made the decision to besiege Boston. So they called a muster of all the Committees and a general mobilization of the militia. Not only here, Ruth, but everywhere in New England the Committees will send their men to fight at Boston.”

  “And you’ll go? Oh, no, Adam—you wouldn’t!”

  “I didn’t say I’d go. Did I say I’d go?”

  “You didn’t say so—”

  “Then why make such a fuss? I’m certainly not going tomorrow or the next day. But I don’t know what’s going to come, Ruth. I wish I did, but I just don’t.”

  We walked on to the meetinghouse, Ruth saying never a word more until we were there. The meetinghouse was well lighted, and there were still a good many people inside. Ruth hung back. “I don’t want to go in there where the coffins are,” she whispered.

  “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. But there’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s my father there and his friends. Is that anything to be afraid of?”

  She went inside with me, then. It was very quiet inside the church now. The strangers had gone away, and those who remained were friends and relatives of the dead men. They sat here and there in the pews, mostly men and some boys, some of them with their Bibles open on their laps, but most of them sitting silently. I whispered a greeting to some of them and nodded at others, and then I lit our candles and put them in brackets, leaving half of them for later. Others must have had the same notion as Mother did, for there was a stack of unlit candles on the tract table—to which I added mine.

  “I think we should stay for a while,” I said softly to Ruth. She nodded. We sat down in our family pew, and after a few minutes, Ruth began to cry. I thought she was entitled to that. I felt that there was no woman in our town who was not entitled to weep her fill after today.

  Ruth dried her eyes. I could see that she was more relaxed and that she felt better. She was very tired now, and so was I.

  We walked back across the common to the Simmons house, and at the door, Ruth said to me, “Adam, do you love me?”

  I thought about it for a while before I answered. I had known Ruth Simmons all my life, and with a girl you know all your life, you are likely to take things for granted. About a year ago, we had been to Boston to visit some of Mother’s relatives, and I met a fourth or a fifth cousin or something of that sort—a girl of sixteen with blue eyes and long yellow hair. I thought at the time that she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in all my life, and I fell madly in love with her, even though I never saw her again. My passion for her lasted five or six weeks, and then it kind of dwindled. I had never fallen in love with Ruth in just that way, but then neither had the feeling I had for her dwindled. It remained on a kind of even keel, except for moments like this, when I felt closer to her than to anyone in the world. So after thinking about it, I nodded, and said, Yes, I thought I loved her about as much as I would ever love any girl.

  “I love you, Adam Cooper,” she told me. “I don’t change easily. Even if this war lasts a whole lifetime, it won’t change my feelings about you.”

  “A lifetime’s a long while.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Then I kissed her and bid her good night.

  Only the Simmons women still remained with Mother and Granny when I came home, and a short while after I arrived, they left. Levi was sound asleep. Like myself and so many others, he had missed the sleep of the night before. Mother and Granny were both of them exhausted, and I suggested that we all go to bed.

  “I won’t sleep,” Mother said.

  “You will, Mother, because you must.”

  “No, I won’t sleep,” she said.

  Granny took her upstairs. There were things that had to be done at night that Father usually did. I did them, and then I drew water from the well for the morning. Granny was back in the kitchen when I returned.

  “Is Mother sleeping?”

  “Sound asleep when her head touched the pillow,” Granny said.

  “And you, Granny?”

  “I need little sleep, Adam.”

  “Then I’ll be going along.”

  “Yes—”

  At the door, I paused and said to her, “Granny, I had Father only a while. Sometimes, I feel that I had him, the way you have a father and love him, only last night. You had him a long time.”

  “He was your father but my child,” Granny said softly.

  “I love you, Granny. You have me and you have Levi.”

  “Do I, Adam?”

  “Yes,”

  “Do I, Adam? Do you think the news of the muster isn’t all over the town? When will you be going away, Adam Cooper?”

  “No one said I was going.”

  “You may lie to others, Adam. But don’t lie to me.”

  “I’m not lying, Granny,” I protested. “I just haven’t made up my mind about anything. I’m too tired to think about it anyway.”

  “But you thought about it?”

  “I suppose so, Granny.”

  “Time will come, you’ll go.”

  “I guess you’re right, Granny. A time will come and I’ll go. There’s no way out of it. But let’s not talk about it tonight. Come upstairs with me, Granny.”

  “No. Go ahead, Adam. I’ll sit here a while and think. Plenty to think about, you know.”

  I went over to her and kissed her and said good night.

  In my bed, with the covers drawn up close around me, I closed my eyes and whispered a prayer. Not the same prayer as all the other nights. I said, “Thank you, God, that today is over.” Then, falling asleep, I said far
ewell to a childhood, a world, a secure and sun-warmed existence and past that was over and done with and gone away for all time.

  Biography

  Howard Fast (1914-2003), one of the most prolific American writers of the twentieth century, was a bestselling author of more than eighty works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays. Fast's commitment to championing social justice in his writing was rivaled only by his deftness as a storyteller and his lively cinematic style.

  Born on November 11, 1914, in New York City, Fast was the son of two immigrants. His mother, Ida, came from a Jewish family in Britain, while his father, Barney, emigrated from the Ukraine, changing his last name to Fast on arrival at Ellis Island. Fast's mother passed away when he was only eight, and when his father lost steady work in the garment industry, Fast began to take odd jobs to help support the family. One such job was at the New York Public Library, where Fast, surrounded by books, was able to read widely. Among the books that made a mark on him was Jack London's The Iron Heel, containing prescient warnings against fascism that set his course both as a writer and as an advocate for human rights.

  Fast began his writing career early, leaving high school to finish his first novel, Two Valleys (1933). His next novels, including Conceived in Liberty (1939) and Citizen Tom Paine (1943), explored the American Revolution and the progressive values that Fast saw as essential to the American experiment. In 1943 Fast joined the American Communist Party, an alliance that came to define—and often encumber—much of his career. His novels during this period advocated freedom against tyranny, bigotry, and oppression by exploring essential moments in American history, as in The American (1946). During this time Fast also started a family of his own. He married Bette Cohen in 1937 and the couple had two children.

  Congressional action against the Communist Party began in 1948, and in 1950, Fast, an outspoken opponent of McCarthyism, was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Because he refused to provide the names of other members of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, Fast was issued a three-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress. While in prison, he was inspired to write Spartacus (1951), his iconic retelling of a slave revolt during the Roman Empire, and did much of his research for the book during his incarceration. Fast's appearance before Congress also earned him a blacklisting by all major publishers, so he started his own press, Blue Heron, in order to release Spartacus. Other novels published by Blue Heron, including Silas Timberman (1954), directly addressed the persecution of Communists and others during the ongoing Red Scare. Fast continued to associate with the Communist Party until the horrors of Stalin's purges of dissidents and political enemies came to light in the mid-1950s. He left the Party in 1956.

  Fast's career changed course in 1960, when he began publishing suspense-mysteries under the pseudonym E. V. Cunningham. He published nineteen books as Cunningham, including the seven-book Masao Masuto mystery series. Also, Spartacus was made into a major film in 1960, breaking the Hollywood blacklist once and for all. The success of Spartacus inspired large publishers to pay renewed attention to Fast's books, and in 1961 he published April Morning, a novel about the battle of Lexington and Concord during the American Revolution. The book became a national bestseller and remains a staple of many literature classes. From 1960 onward Fast produced books at an astonishing pace—almost one book per year—while also contributing to screen adaptations of many of his books. His later works included the autobiography Being Red (1990) and the New York Times bestseller The Immigrants (1977).

  Fast died in 2003 at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut.

  Fast on a farm in upstate New York during the summer of 1917. Growing up, Fast often spent the summers in the Catskill Mountains with his aunt and uncle from Hunter, New York. These vacations provided a much-needed escape from the poverty and squalor of the Lower East Side's Jewish ghetto, as well as the bigotry his family encountered after they eventually relocated to an Irish and Italian neighborhood in upper Manhattan. However, the beauty and tranquility Fast encountered upstate were often marred by the hostility shown toward him by his aunt and uncle. "They treated us the way Oliver Twist was treated in the orphanage," Fast later recalled. Nevertheless, he "fell in love with the area" and continued to go there until he was in his twenties.

  Fast (left) with his older brother, Jerome, in 1935. In his memoir Being Red, Fast wrote that he and his brother "had no childhood." As a result of their mother's death in 1923 and their father's absenteeism, both boys had to fend for themselves early on. At age eleven, alongside his thirteen-year-old brother, Fast began selling copies of a local newspaper called the Bronx Home News. Other odd jobs would follow to make ends meet in violent, Depression-era New York City. Although he resented the hardscrabble nature of his upbringing, Fast acknowledged that the experience helped form a lifelong attachment to his brother. "My brother was like a rock," he wrote, "and without him I surely would have perished."

  A copy of Fast's military identification from World War II. During the war Fast worked as a war correspondent in the China-Burma-India theater, writing articles for publications such as PM, Esquire, and Coronet. He also contributed scripts to Voice of America, a radio program developed by Elmer Davis that the United States broadcast throughout occupied Europe.

  Here Fast poses for a picture with a fellow inmate at Mill Point prison, where he was sent in 1950 for his refusal to disclose information about other members of the Communist Party. Mill Point was a progressive federal institution made up of a series of army bunkhouses. "Everyone worked at the prison," said Fast during a 1998 interview, "and while I hate prison, I hate the whole concept of prison, I must say this was the most intelligent and humane prison, probably that existed in America." Indeed, Fast felt that his three-month stint there served him well as a writer: "I think a writer should see a little bit of prison and a little bit of war. Neither of these things can be properly invented. So that was my prison."

  Fast with his wife Bette and their two children, Jonathan and Rachel, in 1952. The family has a long history of literary achievement. Bette's father founded the Hudson County News Company. Jonathan Fast would go on to become a successful popular novelist, as would his daughter, Molly, whose mother, Erica Jong, is the author of the groundbreaking feminist novel Fear of Flying. (Photo courtesy of Lotte Jacobi.)

  Fast at a bookstand during his campaign for Congress in 1952. He ran on the American Labor Party ticket for the twenty-third congressional district in the Bronx. Although Fast remained a committed leftist his entire life, he looked back on his foray into national politics with a bit of amusement. "I got a disease, which is called 'candidateitis,'" he told Donald Swaim in a 1990 radio interview. "And this disease takes hold of your mind, and it convinces you that your winning an election is important, very often the most important thing on earth. And it grips you to a point that you're ready to kill to win that election." He concluded: "I was soundly defeated, but it was a fascinating experience."

  In 1953, the Soviet Union awarded Fast the International Peace Prize. This photo from the ceremony shows the performer, publisher, and civil rights activist Paul Robeson delivering a speech before presenting Fast (seated, second from left) with the prestigious award. Robeson and Fast came to know each other through their participation in leftist political causes during the 1940s and were friends for many years. Like Fast, Robeson was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era and invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions. This led to Robeson's work being banned in the United States, a situation that Robeson, unlike Fast, never completely overcame. In a late interview Fast cited Robeson as one of the forgotten heroes of the twentieth century. "Paul," he said, "was an extraordinary man." Also shown (from left to right): Essie Robeson, Mrs. Mellisk, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, Rachel Fast, and Bette Fast. (Photo courtesy of Julius Lazarus and the author.)

  Howard and Bette Fast in California in 1976. The couple relocated to the West Coast after Fast grew
disgruntled over the poor reception of his novel The Hessian. While in California, Fast temporarily gave up writing novels to work as a screenwriter, but, like many novelists before him, found the business disheartening. "In L.A. you work like hell because there is nothing else to do, unless you are cheating on your wife," he told People after he had moved back East in the 1980s. Of course, Fast, an ardent nature-lover, did enjoy California's scenic beauty and eventually set many of his novels—including The Immigrant's Daughter and the bestselling Masao Masuto detective series—in the state.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1961 by Howard Fast

  Cover design by Jason Gabbert

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  This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media

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