The Road to Bunker Hill
9781465665393
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
“Nothing ever happens in this town,” said Eben Poore, dangling his long legs over the edge of the wharf, and looking down river to the open sea. The sky was pale, almost white above the long sand bar of Plum Island, he noticed, but the streets were growing dark behind him, and twilight had begun to gather round the warehouses and tall-masted ships by the waterside. “No,” agreed Dick Moody, “nothing ever happens in Newburyport. Wish we could have a ‘tea party’ like they had in Boston a spell back. I’d sure enough be glad to rig up like an Indian and heave a chest of bohea overside.” “I guess all the merchants know better than to bring it in,” said Johnny Pettengall. “Nobody’d drink the stuff. We got no name o’ being a Tory town.” Johnny was older than the other boys, seventeen past. He had his own gun and drilled with the militia on muster days. “But something has happened in Newburyport,” he went on, “though I don’t suppose it would mean very much to either o’ you.” “What did happen?” asked Dick lazily. “Somebody’s cat kitten, or Indian Joe take too much rum and do a war dance in Queen Street again?” Johnny shook his head and smiled. “Sally Rose Townsend’s back,” he said. The other boys sat up, and their faces brightened. “I don’t care much for girls,” said Eben, picking a piece of long brown seaweed from the dock’s end and shredding it in his fingers. “But Sally Rose is different. Maybe it’s her hair.” “Having gold-colored hair never hurt a girl none,” declared Johnny, with the air of a man who knew about such things, a man grown. “But with Sally Rose—well, it’s the way she smiles, I think.” “I like Kitty better,” said Dick stoutly. “Sally Rose is always grinning—at everybody. When Kitty smiles, there’s some sense to it—when she’s pleased, or you tell her a joke.” “What’s Sally Rose doing in Newburyport this time o’ year?” asked Eben. “She comes in the summer to visit Granny Greenleaf and her cousin Kitty, but it’s still early spring—April nineteenth, for I took me a look at the almanac this morning. See, there’s the first log raft from New Hampshire just tied up today.” The other boys looked where he pointed. Through the gathering darkness they saw that a drift of shaggy logs covered the whole surface of a little cove nearby. Lanterns flashed here and there, and a dim shouting echoed among the narrow lanes and small brick houses beside the river. The lumbermen who had brought the raft down from the great forests farther up the Merrimack, were moving about it now, making everything fast for the night.
