A natural. He vowed to do it all by heart, so help him, God. After all, it was an election year. Why not razzle-dazzle those folks out in Concord?
*11*
To me, away there in my bean-field at the other end of the town, the big guns sounded as if a puffball had burst; and when there was a military turnout... I have sometimes had a vague sense all the day of some sort of itching and disease in the horizon... —Henry Thoreau
Preliminary report of the Committee on Public Ceremonies and Celebrations...
19 April, 5:30 a.m.: Sunrise salute by the Concord Independent Battery and flag raising by Company D at North Bridge.
Mary, who had gone to sleep at one a.m., pulled herself out of bed at five, woke up John and Annie, poured out cornflakes for the three of them and drove them to the North Bridge. She parked in the parking lot across Monument Street, and the children got out and ran down to the bridge. They came right back, to report nothing doing yet. "Maybe this is them," said Annie, as another car rolled up beside them.
It was just Homer Kelly. He got out of his car, looking ten feet tall in a big fur hat. "There's nobody here yet but us," said Annie, jumping up and down and slapping her arms. It was cold.
"Oh, hello there," said Homer, looking in at Mary.
"They say sunrise, but they don't really mean it," said Mary.
"The crows are all ready to go," he said, looking up.
"They'll be after Tom's corn," said Mary. "He always plants some on April 19th, because that's what the Barretts were doing that morning in 1775 when the British came."
Homer went around the car and climbed in companionably on the other side, to keep warm. Before long some boys on bicycles came charging up and raced down the path to the Minuteman monument in the half-light. It was a full twenty minutes before a couple of jeeps came along, pulling the gun carriages and the two gleaming brass cannon. The jeeps were bristling with khaki-clad members of the Concord Independent Battery. Philip hopped out of the first jeep, waved at Mary and undid the chain across the broad path to the bridge. Ernest Goss was driving, his World War One campaign hat pulled down over his forehead, looking like an aging Boy Scout. The two cannon jiggled backward down the little slope. Mary and Homer started after them with Annie and John. Someone set off a firecracker, BANG. The Concord River was high, flooded around trees and bushy yellow willows. There was hardly any green yet on the trees. Some small oaks still wore untidy wastebasketfuls of rubbishy brown leaves. There were a few canoeists on the river, paddling in close. More onlookers came hurrying up, half-running. Among them was a clot of teenage girls insanely dressed in shorts and knee socks. The Honor Guard arrived, pulling on white gloves. The members of the Battery bustled around, setting up the two cannon side by side, facing away from Daniel Chester French's statue of the Minuteman, aiming out over the marshy edge of the river. The Battery flag with the crossed cannon was pushed into the ground between them, the ammunition box set up behind it. Captain Harvey Finn turned on the crowd in his white puttees. He started yelling politely, then more and more firmly to stand back. At last he was satisfied, and the gun crews went into action. The powder monkeys ran forward with their bright red bags of black powder, the rammers thrust the bags down the barrels with their long ramrods, then took up positions facing away from the muzzles, hanging on to the near wheels, bending over. The lanyard men stuck their long pricks in the touchholes to free loose powder from the powder bags inside, and then the thumbers twisted their firing mechanisms in place and stepped aside so that the lanyard men could insert the small yoke collars that prevented the firing pins from falling on the 32-caliber blank cartridges. Then the lanyard men picked up the strings that were attached to the yokes.
"Number one gun ready," said Philip Goss.
"Number two gun ready," said Jerry Toplady.
"By battery," roared Harvey Finn, "fire!" The lanyard men jerked their strings and there was a colossal double BABOOM. Smoke and flame poured out of the guns. The gun carriages rolled back and forth. The bridge trembled. Three crows rose cawing from the top of a snagged old elm. Homer smiled at Mary, and picked up John so that he could see. Annie's skinny body tensed against Mary, and she kept her fingers jammed in her ears. The smoke billowed up around the Minuteman's knees and around his plow. His own musket seemed to smoke. The rammers turned their ramrods around and dipped the fleecy pompons on the other end into the water buckets. Then they :shook off the excess water and swabbed out the barrels of their guns. The powder monkeys trotted back for more powder.
Getting into the spirit of the thing, Homer repeated Major Buttrick's famous words, "Fire, fellow-soldiers, for God's sake, fire!" And Mary, between booms, told him about the gigantic 150th anniversary celebration that had been broadcast to the entire nation, when a nervous descendant of Buttrick's had garbled his lines. "Come on you guys!" he had hollered, "for Christ's sake, shoot!"
BOOM. The two guns were firing in slow alternation. "Number one gun—fire!" BOOM. "Number two gun—fire!" BOOM ... BOOM ... BOOM. John was beside himself with joy. It was like a war, a real war.
What was the matter? The cannon had stopped firing, and the men were standing in one attitude, looking at someone. It was Philip they were looking at. Mary saw him turning his head stiffly from side to side, while the others stared at him. Ernest Goss stood in front of the Number One gun, his ramrod still halfway down the barrel. He, too, stared at Philip. Harvey Finn strode over to Philip and gripped him by the shirt. "What are you trying to do, kill somebody?"
Philip said nothing. Then Harvey let go and went back to his post. Ernest Goss, looking shaken, pulled his ramrod out of the cannon and stepped to the side. Philip looked at his father, and then hesitantly at Harvey. "Well, Philip," bawled Harvey, "you ready or not?"
Philip stuttered something inaudible, and Harvey yelled, "Number one gun—fire!" BOOM. "Number two gun—fire!" BOOM. The regular rhythm began again, and the salute ended with another double firing of both guns together ... BABOOM.
Then the Honor Guard stepped up stylishly and hoisted the flag. Annie, sagging down in Mary's arms, saluted patriotically with the Honor Guard. A clergyman came forward and called on God. His prayer was long, and the teenager's blue knees knocked together with the cold.
It was all over. Mary looked for Philip, but he avoided her and walked away across the field by the Old Manse, alone. Homer consulted his newspaper. "What's this about a Lions Club Pancake Breakfast?" he said.
The cornflakes were rattling around inside Annie and John. "Oh, yes," they shouted, "pancakes!"
"Well, just one apiece," said Mary. "We've got to go home so you children can get ready to march in the parade."
In Monument Hall the Lions were struggling heroically with a fantastic bottleneck in the shape of a tide of hungry people and one small grill. The line of would-be pancake eaters doubled across the hall, idly paddling the air with their paper plates, their insides clapping against their backbones. Apologetic Lions moved up and down the line, passing out cups of coffee. Annie chewed her fingernails. Homer told Mary about his Ugly Word Collection, which included pianola, bowlarama, oleomargarine and frenchified words like shaze lownge, bra-zeere and neglazhay.
"Your neckties must be an inspiration to you," said Mary, admiring the phosphorescent diatoms he was wearing.
Homer looked down at his necktie proudly. "It glows in the dark," he said.