Prelude to Glory, Vol. 1

by Ron Carter

  Margaret blustered. “You’re going to expose half the congregation in this smuggling scheme? You’ve lost your mind!”

  Brigitte rushed to Margaret and seized her arm. “Mother, it will work! You know it will.” Her face was pleading, begging. “If Silas tells that British patrol the women are holding a quilting social next week, and they’re coming with the quilting frames this afternoon, and then a dozen of us come with those frames wrapped in quilts like always, there’s no possible way it can fail. They’ll let us in. I know it!”

  Margaret opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, and Brigitte exclaimed, “Mother, you’ll have to help. We can’t do this without you. Think of it! Right under their noses! Even telling them before we come!” Brigitte was exultant with the thought, eyes wide, shining. “The men can’t do it, but we can!”

  Margaret huffed, “That’s what you’re after! Shaming the men! A great adventure just to prove you can do it while they can’t.”

  “No,” Brigitte exclaimed. “A chance to do something to help the colonies! To fight tyranny.”

  John fought a smile at the high rhetoric. He looked at Matthew. “What do you think?”

  Matthew shook his head. “Brilliant and scary. Only Brigitte could dream it up. But it might work. Probably would.”

  Brigitte beamed!

  John spoke quietly to Margaret. “It will never work without you leading.”

  Margaret’s jaw dropped for a split second. “You want me to lead this insanity?”

  John said nothing as all three of them stared at Margaret.

  She turned her eyes, staring back at each of them individually, her eyes growing wide. “No. Absolutely not.” She set her chin stubbornly and again surveyed the three of them. They neither moved nor spoke.

  She swallowed and took half a step backwards. “Absolutely not. Why, there’s no chance, no faint possibility we could get this all organized today, and if we did try, someone would say something and the British would know all about it before we ever got the muskets wrapped in the quilting frames.”

  Brigitte threw her arms wildly about Margaret. “Then you agree? You’ll help?”

  “Not without answers to a lot of questions,” Margaret said defensively.

  “What questions?” Brigitte exclaimed.

  “The children. They’ll be coming home from school by the time all this business with quilts and muskets is ready. What do we do about them?”

  “Take them with us!” Brigitte answered. “No British patrol would stop six or eight women with quilting frames and a dozen children along.”

  John interrupted. “It will work.”

  Margaret drew and released a determined breath. “How do we know a musket won’t make the bundle too big?”

  “Let’s try it,” Brigitte said, and ran into the bedroom for the set of quilting frames while John cleared back the chairs from the table. They spread a quilt on the table and stacked the four long oak frames with the bolts, nuts, and washers, and laid a musket with them, and John and Matthew carefully folded one edge of the quilt over the pile and rolled it over and over inside the quilt.

  “Here,” Margaret said, and handed them four lengths of heavy hemp cord. They tied each end, and twice between, and stepped back to peer at it. The long oaken frames protruded from both ends; the musket did not show, and John picked it up gingerly.

  “Look too big?” he asked tentatively.

  “No,” Brigitte exclaimed. “You’d never know.”

  “I wouldn’t know the difference,” Matthew added.

  Margaret took it from John and held it. “It’s heavier, but no one would know.” She laid it thumping on the table. “Matthew, you better go see Dorothy Weems and then down to Phoebe while Brigitte and I finish the wash. Tell them to be here with their frames and their children after school’s out. John, go tell Silas and be sure he tells the British patrol we’re coming for a quilting bee.”

  Brigitte was beside herself! Danger! Adventure! Smuggling! Contraband! Women doing what men couldn’t! Soldiers! She beamed, clapped her hands, hugged Margaret, and turned to Matthew. “Hurry! And don’t tell another soul.” She spun towards John. “Tell Silas we’ll be there around four o’clock, and he’s not to breathe a word to another living person.” Her eyes were alive, her face flushed, and she could not stand still.

  Margaret shook her head. “Come on, Brigitte. We’ve got wash to finish, and we better get at it before you explode.”

  For forty minutes Margaret scrubbed clothes while Brigitte chattered and went through the motions of rinsing, and they hung the last of the wash.

  “Let’s change,” Margaret said as she walked to the kitchen door. “We have to go find out if Sarah Willums and Mercy Hobson want to get hung for smuggling.”

  Brigitte giggled and Margaret looked at her and chuckled.

  At five minutes past two Margaret and Brigitte walked in from the bright afternoon sunshine, and Matthew and John rose from the table, waiting.

  Margaret untied her bonnet and dropped it on the table. “Sarah and Mercy will be coming after school. What did Dorothy and Phoebe say?”

  “They’ll be here,” Matthew said. “Kathleen’s coming to help.”

  Margaret nodded. “We have a problem. We have five sets of quilting frames and seven muskets. We’ve got to find out if two muskets will make the bundle too big.”

  Ten minutes later they stared at their own quilting frame bundle and John shook his head. “That looks pretty bulky.”

  “Would a British soldier know that?” Margaret asked.

  “I doubt it,” Matthew answered.

  “Of course not,” Brigitte scoffed. “You could wrap a horse inside there and a soldier wouldn’t know it.”

  Margaret pursed her mouth for a moment. “There’re a few more things. It seems to me there’s a chance they might open one of these bundles to look. If they do, I expect it will be the first one. So we’ll not put a musket in the first one, then put two muskets in the next three bundles, and one musket in the last one.”

  “Of course!” Brigitte exclaimed. “That’s exactly how we’ll do it.”

  “What else?” John inquired.

  “Before we leave, Matthew goes up and finds a place across the street from the church where he can watch us. If they do find the muskets and arrest us, he raises the alarm.”

  Matthew nodded and Margaret spoke again. “We’re not going to tell the children a word about muskets. As far as they know, we’re taking our quilting frames for a quilting bee. We’re going to let them carry the small bags with the needles and thread and thimbles. That ought to persuade the soldiers the whole thing is just what it appears.”

  “That’s good sense,” John said, and Margaret gave him a look that said, Of course it is! What did you expect? She looked at each of them, waiting for any response, and there was none.

  At three-twenty p.m. a rap came at the door and Phoebe entered with Kathleen and nine-year-old Faith, the last to arrive. John took their quilting frames, and three minutes later laid the wrapped bundle on the table with the others. He glanced at the faces of the five mothers, and in their eyes he saw the fear of the terrible risk they were taking, knowing that one wrong word, one wrong move, would tear them from their families and land them in a British jail. But deeper than that, he saw the resolve and the determination and the willingness to risk it all if it would help lift the galling yoke of British tyranny. He cast his eyes at the floor and struggled with the lump in his throat.

  Margaret stepped forward and smiled and casually dropped her arm about Priscilla’s shoulder. “My, my, with all your children we look like an army!” She laughed, and the women laughed, and the children laughed because their mothers had.

  Margaret spoke to the children. “We’re going to have a quilting bee Thursday night at the church and maybe a potluck supper. So we’re going to take the quilting frames down this afternoon, and we need you to help carry the sewing bags. There are soldiers, so we thought we’d go to
gether so they won’t bother us. Can you do that?”

  The children stared at each other for a moment, then burst into excited chatter. “Yes. Oh yes.”

  The women handed small carrying bags to each child. “Now, carry them carefully.”

  Margaret straightened and smiled. “And if it’s all right with everyone here, I think it would be nice if we would all bow our heads for a moment in silent prayer.”

  The room fell silent as all heads bowed for a time, and then Margaret raised hers and said, “Thank you. Now, Brigitte, you and I will take our frame first, and—”

  “Wait,” Kathleen interrupted. “Brigitte and I agreed we would take the first one. Please. You and Mother can take the second one.”

  “What on earth for, child?”

  “We just want to carry the first one.”

  Margaret glanced at Phoebe, who nodded, and Margaret saw the bright look of defiance in Kathleen’s eyes and the open rebellion in Brigitte, and caught a glimmer of the need in the two girls to be first in the daring plan to smuggle muskets into the church in broad daylight, under the noses of the British army.

  Margaret took a deep breath. “All right. Let’s get started.”

  Brigitte released held breath and her eyes danced as she looked at Kathleen.

  Talking casually for the sake of the children, each pair accepted the seven-foot bundles from John and Matthew and walked out the front door, the youngsters beside them, wide-eyed, skipping, chattering with delight at their unexpected departure from chores and studies.

  John followed them to the gate and scarcely breathed as they reached the corner where a four-man British patrol stood watching the afternoon foot traffic. The women gossiped and laughed and gestured as they walked, crossed the cobblestone street, and paraded past the soldiers, each in turn nodding her respects as the regulars studied them in puzzled surprise.

  John returned to the house and stood by the front window, watching the street for long moments. Bobby Thorpe trotted past, heading towards the church. John ran a nervous hand over his hair and began to pace. He stopped, took hold of himself, and walked to his workbench. He reached for a work tray at the back of the bench, with a mantel clock in it and his work card clipped to it. “Quincy,” it read. “Losing time. Due April 25.”

  He used a small, fine-tipped screwdriver to loosen the back plate, then removed the face and the hands and carefully slid the clockworks out into his hand. He paused and glanced at his clock above his workbench. Twelve minutes past four o’clock. They should be back by five o’clock. They can walk five blocks and return in forty minutes, can’t they? Five o’clock.

  He clamped the wire frame over his head, swung the clockmaker’s lens down before his eye, and studied the delicate gears of the broken clockworks that meshed with the spindle to turn it. There. The balance gear. Two teeth missing. Two out of ten. Twenty percent. It’s losing twelve minutes each hour. I can replace it in two hours.

  At four-thirty he laid down the screwdriver, walked to the window, and peered towards the church, while Enid Ferguson hurried the other direction, across the street, her basket again filled with fresh hot bread. Her head was down, preoccupied as she walked on. John grasped the door handle to open and call to her to ask if she had seen the women and children, and he stopped before he opened the door, and returned to stare out the window.

  Five blocks north, Brigitte slowed as she came into view of the church. The late-afternoon sun caught the white steeple, and the big brass bell shined. The green grass was a checkerboard as the budding trees filtered sunlight and shadow.

  Hope leaped in her heart. There were no soldiers! The churchyard was vacant, silent. She nearly trotted across the street, while the other women quickened their pace to follow. She reached the first great oak in the churchyard before the crimson-red coats rounded the corner of the building and the soldiers slowed to study the column of approaching women and children, suspicion and surprise in their faces.

  In the next few minutes the women were going to pass through the crucible, and each of them knew it.

  Brigitte resumed a normal pace, turned her head, and said, “There they are,” and laughed, and Kathleen laughed and said, “I see them,” and turned her head to call back over her shoulder, “Be careful,” and laughed again. The warning was passed to the end of the line with light banter and laughter. Brigitte walked briskly across the lawn, onto the path to the main door, and did not stop until she was facing the soldiers. The women were in a line on the path behind her, the children standing near their mothers, awed by the sight of the red coats and the tall pointed hats and muskets.

  “Good afternoon,” Brigitte said boldly. “We’ve come with our quilting frames for the quilting bee. I do hope the reverend told you to expect us.”

  “So ’e did, m’um, so ’e did.” The corporal leaned on his musket. “And wot ’ave we got in those bundles, m’um?” He was condescending, domineering, a small man with a big musket and authority to tease and toy as he wished.

  “Quilting frames. See?” Brigitte held up her end of the bundle, from which protruded more than a foot of the wooden frames, with grooves and bolts connecting them.

  “And what else, m’um? A cannon?” The soldier threw back his head and roared at his humor, and Brigitte laughed with him. Kathleen smiled, and Margaret ducked her head to hide her disgust.

  “Yes, Captain,” Brigitte exclaimed. “A cannon on wheels and a horse to pull it.”

  The corporal doubled over in laughter, and the private next to him reached to steady his musket.

  “Well, m’um, we’ll just ’ave to take a look at yer cannon and horse.”

  “Very well, Captain,” Brigitte said, and set her end of the bundle on the ground and signalled to Kathleen. They quickly untied the cords and unrolled the quilt and extra batting.

  “Is it all right, Captain?” she asked, eyebrows raised fetchingly in question. “May we take them on in?” She and Kathleen hastily rewrapped and tied the quilt.

  “These other bundles, m’um,” the corporal said, not ready to relinquish his rare chance to exercise authority over someone else, “wot’s in them, if yuh don’t mind?”

  Brigitte shrugged. “Just more cannon and horses.”

  The corporal chuckled, and Brigitte laughed and opened both doors into the church. “May we go in now? These are getting rather heavy, Captain.”

  “Corporal, m’um. Not captain. And I’d appreciate it mightily if you wouldn’t confuse me with a bloody officer. Go on in.”

  Holding her breath, Brigitte walked from the bright sun into the dim coolness, praying in her heart the other women would crowd in behind her. If the corporal demanded to open any of the other bundles . . . Brigitte looked wildly at the pews and chairs in the chapel for something—anything—to distract them if it happened.

  The corporal’s voice froze her in her tracks. “’Old it there, m’um.”

  Brigitte glanced over her shoulder. His back was turned and he was speaking to Margaret. “I said the first one could go in. Got to ’ave a look at yer bundle before you go in.”

  For a split second Brigitte’s mind froze in stark terror, and then she looked at the row of hard straight-backed chairs three feet ahead of her that were lined up behind the back pew in the chapel and instantly raised her foot and kicked with all her strength. The chair smashed into the pew ahead of it, and Brigitte screamed and fell heavily against the next chair. It knocked the next two clattering, and she threw her end of the bundle slamming into the next chair and screamed once more in mortal pain. She and the chairs and her end of the bundle ended in a scramble on the hardwood floor, Brigitte clutching her leg, writhing, moaning, eyes clenched shut.

  Then, with all her strength, she shrieked, “Mother!”

  Without hesitating, Kathleen threw her weight against her end of the quilting frame and rammed it forward through the door onto the jumbled chairs, then stepped to one side to clear the doorway. The other women shoved the soldiers aside and jam
med their way into the chapel, casting their frames into the aisle and gathering around Brigitte, who was curled in a ball on the floor, knees drawn up, arms thrown about her right shin and foot.

  “Brigitte!” shrieked Margaret. “Is it broken? Did you break it?” She turned to Phoebe. “Fetch Doctor Soderquist.” Phoebe spun on her heel and lunged out the door.

  The children drew back, white-faced, and Priscilla began to whimper.

  Mercy Hobson stood bolt upright and fixed the corporal with lightning in her eyes. “The very idea! You’ve crippled this child! I’ll see you in irons, sir! In irons!”

  The stunned corporal staggered backwards a full step. “Me, m’um? I didn’t touch her, m’um. I—”

  Mercy shook her fist in his face. “Are you shameless? In irons, sir.”

  The corporal licked his lips and tried to speak but no sound would come.

  Kathleen gave quick, silent hand signals, and while gentle hands worked with Brigitte, other hands, unnoticed, moved the bundled frames down the main aisle in the church and laid them on benches, out of sight.

  The door behind the pulpit rattled open and Silas Olmsted bolted out into the chapel and stopped dead still. “In the name of heaven, what was that crash and scream?”

  “It was him,” exclaimed Mercy and thrust an accusing finger at the bewildered corporal. “He assaulted poor Brigitte and crippled her! Phoebe’s gone for the doctor. Someone ought to get the sheriff.”

  Kathleen dashed down the aisle to the reverend and grasped his arm to lead him back to the group around Brigitte. She spoke to him quietly as she turned. “The frames are on the benches. Look on the benches.” She walked him hastily back to the gathering, and as he passed the benches he counted the bundles without turning his head. He nodded faintly and Kathleen relaxed.

  “Let me help you, child,” the reverend said to Brigitte, and stooped to reach for her. Capable hands lifted her to her feet, and she stood for a moment, right foot off the ground.