Free April Morning by Howard Fast Page A

my name, my hand trembling, the letters all blurred and wiggly.
    â€œPowder and shot?” Hodley was asking me.
    â€œYes, sir.”
    Then I pushed my way out of the room, having no other desire than to be away from everyone else and for a while alone.
    I walked around the common and back toward our house. By now, the town had begun to accept the fact that there would be no sleep for anyone tonight. Bells were tolling faintly from the directions of Lincoln and Menotomy, and all over the village there were voices, sharpened and increased, the way voices sound by night. There wasn’t a house without lights in it, and in the kitchens you could see where the blaze had been built under porridge and coffee. It was a great holiday for the boys, and they were running back and forth, and shouting to each other and feeling just as important as fate. They shouted at me, but the fact of it was that I didn’t feel like a boy any more.
    I came up to our house by the back gate, which opens off the lane into the herb garden. About a year ago, Mother had gotten me to build a bench by the gate, maintaining that no gate was worth its salt or had any excuse for being if it didn’t offer a resting place for a tired traveler. It wasn’t much of a bench, because I was no great shakes as a carpenter, and I remember spending a whole day fitting the legs into the pegholes, but it was something to sit on and sturdy enough.
    Ruth was sitting there now, and when I asked her what on earth she was doing, sitting there so calm and sedate in the middle of the night, she replied:
    â€œWaiting for you, if you must know, Adam Cooper.”
    â€œWell, I made a promise to your father.”
    â€œDid you?”
    â€œI said I would take you home.”
    â€œReally? Well, just in case you don’t know, Adam Cooper, I know where my home is and I am capable of getting there.”
    â€œMy goodness, all I did was say that I would do something for Cousin Simmons because he was worried about you. That’s no reason to chop my head off.”
    â€œOh, sit down here by me,” she said, “and don’t make such a fuss.”
    â€œI can’t sit down here with you, Ruth, and just spend time sitting like it was midday. I got a lot of things to do.”
    â€œSuch as?”
    â€œWell—things to do. You know, things.” I sat down. I could see that she didn’t intend to be easily satisfied, and I might as well be resting. Suddenly, I realized that I was tired and sleepy, and that there was nothing in the world I’d enjoy better than to crawl back under the covers.
    â€œI saw you sign the muster book,” Ruth said.
    â€œOh?”
    â€œI’m frightened, Adam.”
    â€œOf what?”
    â€œDon’t you know? I know you have to pretend to be brave and manly, and not frightened one little bit.”
    â€œI’m not frightened, just sleepy.”
    â€œI get to feeling,” she said, “that we’re all asleep still, and this is just a dream.”
    â€œWell, I’ll tell you what I think. I think it’s all commotion and excitement and that’s all. It doesn’t make one bit of sense that the British are coming up with a real army. I mean, what for? I mean, why on earth would they want to start a war?”
    â€œYou always read about wars. But no one ever explains why a war starts. They just start. Suppose one starts tomorrow?”
    â€œWell, suppose it did.”
    â€œYou could be killed.”
    â€œI do not intend to be killed. Of all things, Ruth Simmons— I think you’re the one who ought to go back into bed and sleep. Let me just tell you—”
    She didn’t let me finish. She threw her arms around me and kissed me, and then held onto me as if she were drowning and I was a providential piece of wood. I was like to choke, but it did not seem proper to break away from her, and I waited until she let go and then suggested that I walk her