*16*
Crisis is a Hair
Toward which forces creep
Past which forces retrograde —Emily Dickinson
One of the tourists from Texas had longer legs than Patrolman Vine. He brushed past him and bounded down the path. "I'm a doctor," he hollered over his shoulder. Ralph Chope was the representative of a floor machinery company in Houston, but he had been a medical corpsman in the Korean War, and if there was one thing he knew how to do in the medical line, it was tell if a poor devil was dead or not. By the time Patrolman Vine came pounding up, Chope had administered his tests on the body, and had rolled it over and was groping with his fingers in the wound.
"Is he dead?"
"He sure is. Jeez, look at that. The ball went all the way through him and out the other side, almost." The Texan held up something between two fingers. "Looky here. That's a regular old-fashioned musket ball. Say, this sure is some show you're puttin' on here."
Patrolman Vine didn't think that was funny. He took the musket ball and looked at it, then wrapped it up in a clean handkerchief and put it in his pocket. He stared at the corpse, then wheeled and looked sharply at a growing audience of Texas tourists, the bus driver and the woman with the baby carriage. "Okay," he said loudly. "Get back, now. Don't anybody touch anything."
*17*
The village appeared to me a great news room ... These are the coarsest mills, in which all gossip is first rudely digested or cracked up before it is emptied into finer and more delicate hoppers... —Henry Thoreau
Letitia Jellicoe, acting as a substitute guide for the holiday in the Old Manse, had arrived with a young couple at the upstairs room which both Emerson and Hawthorne had used as a study. She pointed to the window that looked down toward the bridge and started her spiel. "You will see written on the glass with Mrs. Hawthorne's diamond the words 'Man's accidents are GOD'S purposes.' " The young couple drifted toward the window, but Mrs. Jellicoe, suddenly sharpening and lengthening her focus, pounced at the window and got there first. Wasn't that a policeman running down toward the bridge? Was he chasing that man? "Thief, thief!" twittered Mrs. Jellicoe, and abandoning her charges she ran downstairs and across the field, crying, "Stop, thief!" at the top of her lungs. Broadcasting exotic and shocking pieces of information was meat and potatoes to Mrs. Jellicoe. Coming up against a crowd of people she elbowed her way to the front, and sucked in the whole frightful scene.
"That's Ernest Goss, isn't it?" she said sharply. "Did somebody...?"
Arthur Furry spoke up then, with the information that was trembling on his lips. "It was Paul Revere. I mean, you know, not Paul Revere but that other one, that rides up in the parade. I heard a shot as I was coming up back there behind the Minuteman, and this man on a horse with a costume on, you know, and a wig, he rode almost on top of me, jumping over the fence..."
Everybody stared at Arthur. "And he-he said 'musket,' I heard him myself..."
"Who?" said Patrolman Vine. "Who said 'musket'?"
Arthur pointed to the dead man. "Him. He did."
Patrolman Vine squinted at Arthur. Then he put his big hand on Arthur's arm and pulled him forward. Arthur, staring up at him respectfully, began to be aware for the first time of the glory that was to be his. But then the policeman looked away from Arthur and spoke to Mrs. Jellicoe. "You've got a phone in there at the Old Manse? Would you get the station on the line and ask them to send some more men down here and the District Medical Examiner? Tell them there's been an accident, it looks like someone's been shot. You know the number? Okay."
Mrs. Jellicoe was off like a hare. She ran all the way back to the house and breathlessly did as she was told. Then she hung up the phone and rolled her codfish eyes up at the ceiling. The officer hadn't told her she was not to telephone anybody else. Why shouldn't she notify poor Mrs. Goss? After all, someone should tell the poor woman, and she, Letitia Jellicoe, might as well have the painful task. Mrs. Jellicoe stared at the telephone. She loved its rubbery black feel. In her grasp it was an instrument of steel. Quickly she called up Elizabeth Goss, informed her tactfully that her son had murdered her husband with a musket ball at the North Bridge, reduced her to hysterics, and hung up gently, clicking her tongue sympathetically against the top of her dentures. Now, should she run back to see what was happening? Or perhaps she should take the time to make one or two more calls. She mustn't be selfish, after all...
The crowd beside the grave of the British soldiers was increasing. Patrolman Vine had all he could do to keep them from pressing forward and trampling the ground around the body. Arthur Furry, standing patiently to one side, looked modestly at the ground. He, Arthur Furry, had practically witnessed a murder, a real murder. There would be pictures and headlines. BOY SCOUT DICSOVERS BODY! Arthur's eyes widened. Whatever happened, he mustn't forget to do his very best at all times. He mustn't forget that he would be representing Troop 296 of Acton, in fact the whole entire Boy Scout movement. It sure was lucky he'd been so late. It was funny, but yesterday when he was supposed to be cleaning up his room, it was almost like something had told him he shouldn't do it, he should watch TV instead. It was almost like a voice. Arthur glanced gratefully at the body of the man he had seen in the agony of death. But that was uncomfortable. His eyes slid up to the inscription set into the wall above the body. The inscription lamented with condescending sympathy the two British redcoats who had fallen at the bridge.
THEY CAME THREE THOUSAND MILES, AND DIED,
TO KEEP THE PAST UPON ITS THRONE;
UNHEARD, BEYOND THE OCEAN TIDE,
THEIR ENGLISH MOTHER MADE HER MOAN.
*18*
Baptismal waters from the Head above
These babes I foster daily are to me;