Read Online April Morning by Howard Fast - Free Book Online

our mustering point. Mr. Buckman agreed nervously. Everyone could see that his mind was oppressed with the question of whether each man would pay for food and drink consumed or whether it would be billed to the Committee. Things billed to the Committee had a way of being written off with a noble gesture, and there’s nothing can be as destructive and disturbing to a small business man as a noble gesture.
    My father, on the other hand, resisted a militia muster. It was incumbent upon him to take an antimilitarist position, and he bolstered his argument by suggesting the dangers of arming every sleepy citizen in the vicinity. Someone was bound to get hurt. Instead, he pressed for a Committee meeting in the church. If a redcoat army really was moving up the Menotomy Road, it couldn’t move at much better than a snail’s pace in the darkness, and we had plenty of time and there was no reason to lose our heads and jump to any wild conclusions.
    The Reverend’s position was that before we did anything, we should check the facts. I had half-suspected that he might put in a bid for a long prayer meeting, but all he desired was a practical approach to the problem. A number of citizens were pushing for an immediate ringing of the bells, just on the chance that someone in the neighborhood might still be enjoying his night’s sleep, and the Reverend said:
    â€œWhen the time comes for ringing the bells, we’ll ring them, brothers. But let’s just see where we stand before we go off half-cocked.”
    Sam Hodley stated the fourth position, that it was much ado about nothing, and not for a minute did he believe a wild tale about a British army marching up from Boston. It made no sense, he said. Anybody who knew the British knew that they didn’t march at night. Why should they?
    â€œTo take us by surprise at Concord,” someone said.
    â€œWhat kind of surprise, when it’s got to be dawn before they’re halfway there?”
    â€œThe point I want to make,” the Reverend said, “is this. Just for the sake of argument, suppose there is an army of a thousand men bound this way. Now that puts the question up to us, doesn’t it? The muster roll of the Committee adds up to seventy-nine men—providing nobody’s sick or absent. Now it’s all very well to talk about our rights, but just what are we going to do with seventy-nine men facing a thousand? Good heavens, brothers, it’s not like we had experience in this line of work. We are not soldiers. The only man in my congregation shot another is poor Israel Smith, when he put a load of bird shot into his brother Joash’s sitting place, and I see Joash standing there, and he’ll tell you it’s not a rewarding experience, not for him who gives or for him who receives.”
    â€œI say amen to that,” Joash Smith agreed.
    If he had only put it a little differently, the Reverend would have had my father on his side. There was nothing my father loved better than an appeal to reason, and a nice point of logic just melted in his mouth. But somewhere in the Reverend’s words, there was an implication of incompetence and even of cowardice. My father was just unreasonable enough to talk down the militia and defend the Committee in the same breath, and though militia and Committee were composed of exactly the same seventy-nine men, my father made a sharp distinction between them. The one, he held, was a quasi-military body, and nothing, he felt, adds to man’s foolishness as much as playing soldier. The Committee, on the other hand, was a tribunal dedicated to unity, justice, and the rights of man—to use my father’s own words—the finest form yet known in man’s response to the call of his destiny. I admit this description is flowery, and a bit strong for anyone who had met our Committee face to face, but my father loved the Committee and cherished it.
    But when the Reverend came straight