On the walk outside Aunt Esther's Beacon Hill brownstone, Billy squinted in the bright but weak April sunshine. He stifled his annoyance that he'd just wasted the better part of this glorious spring morning inside his aunt's ballroom. He decided, instead, to enjoy that much-delayed walk on the Common. Dodging between horses and carriages, Billy jumped muddy ruts and puddles filled with brown liquid to reach the green fringe of the Common. After all that exercise, his patched great coat, a hand-me-down from his father, felt unnecessary in the warm spring air and so he opened the collar as he strode forward. Inhaling deeply of the intoxicating scent of spring -- fresh grass and budding flowers -- Billy began whistling tunelessly, and out of idle curiosity, went in search of the brown mutt and his small master, but they had disappeared.
As Billy walked deeper into Common, he noticed a mixed crowd of men gathered around what appeared to be a speaker haranguing them with all the zeal of a Fourth of July orator. Wondering, Billy let his carefree whistle trail off as he approached the group and noted the odd mixture of humanity: businessmen in solemn black frock coats and shove pipe hats stood next to bareheaded workingmen in vests and shirt sleeves, and the usual cloud of dogs and boys lurked around the edges of the assembly. From various points within the crowd, American flags sprouted, like flowers. Occasionally, as a cheer went up from the assembly, the flags would wave hysterically, as if a sudden wind had come up in the stillness of the day to stir them. As Billy stepped up beside a bewhiskered man in a brown frock coat, he tried to catch something of the speaker's oration.
"Are we not in the shadow of that very monument?" asked the orator, pointing off to his right. Billy strained his eyes toward where the man pointed but saw nothing except the roofs of brownstone townhouses identical to his aunt's.
"Excuse me, sir." Billy asked the man in the brown frock coat, who puffed idly at a cigar. "What's he talking about?"
"The Bunker Hill monument," the man, obviously annoyed by Billy's question, grunted, blowing smoke in Billy's face.
"And what of the blood-soaked cobbles just paces away from this very spot where patriots died and bled, massacred by Red Coat tyrants?" the speaker continued to bellow. "And can you not smell the harbor, even here? The harbor, I remind you, where other patriots threw tea overboard just as they threw off the chains of oppression, the shackles placed upon them by an unjust king? How can we, their sons and heirs, now stand idly by while a pack of brigands sunders the sacred Union that our ancestors suffered, bled, and died to create?"
Billy scratched his head. Determined to figure out the cause of this patriotic outpouring, he turned to the man on his left, a stout fellow with the sleeves of his dirty white shirt rolled up and a soiled green vest. "What's he going on about? Is there some election on?"
"Naw," the man looked at Billy as if he'd crawled out of some cave.
"Well then, what is it?" Billy demanded.
"You haven't heard?" The barrel-chested man lisped, incredulous.
"No." Billy shook his head earnestly.
"Why, them South Carolina scoundrels have gone and fired on Fort Sumter. They've insulted the flag!" The man hissed his "s's" oddly, but the men around him ignored this, instead nodded and grumbled in agreement.
"Bastards," one man growled.
"Dirty butchers," another snapped.
Billy scowled. "Just this morning my father dismissed the whole Fort Sumter affair as a lot of politicians blowing smoke. Do you mean all that secession nonsense down there has actually come to blows?"
"Damned right!" The man in the green vest spat into the ground. "And it's high time some of us went down there and taught those Carolina cowards a lesson."
"Here, here!" More nods and mutters of agreement greeted this pronouncement.
"That's all right," said the man in the brown frock coat, finally drawn into the conversation. He pulled confidently on his cigar and then exhaled his opinion along with his smoke. "Lincoln will call for troops soon. He has to."
"Troops?" Billy coughed.
The man nodded. "Ninety-day troops, I'd wager. That will be more than enough time to put down the scum for good."
"You mean militia?" Billy's breath caught in his throat. "That means war!"
Billy's head spun, as visions of martial glory, vague images of waving flags and applauding crowds swam through his head. He saw himself leading a victory parade, with friends, relatives, and neighbors looking on, including Felicity, Maggie, Nathan, even Ethan. Ethan -- wouldn't he eat crow if he confronted Billy the war hero instead of Billy, his poor old cousin?
The man in the frock coat laughed. "It won't be much of a war, I'd wager. All it would take is one disciplined volley from our troops, and the rebel rabble will break and run." Dismissively, he waved a hand, smoldering cigar pinched between index and middle finger, shooing away imaginary rebels as easily as one would shoo a persistent fly. "The whole thing will be over by June at the latest."
The burly man in shirtsleeves nudged Billy. "So, if you want to get in on the fun, you'd better be quick about it. Join the militia as soon as you can, before the whole thing's over," he hissed with his usual sibilance.
Billy beamed. "Me? Join the militia?" He blushed as he heard himself voice aloud the thought he'd been nurturing in the silence of his heart.
"Why sure! Those recruiters would snap up a strapping young feller like you with a full set of choppers in a heartbeat," the workingman assured Billy airily. "Not like me," he sighed.
"Really, why not?" Billy asked, as he looked the hefty man over. Next to his bulk, Billy felt not like a strapping yellow fellow but a green shoot of a reed.
The workingman grinned sheepishly and pointed to a prominent gap in his upper front teeth, the source, evidently, of the hissing sound when he spoke. "Missin' tooth. Won't take you unless you can bite open a paper cartridge wid your front teeth."
"Huh," muttered Billy. "If that's all you need, then maybe they would take me."
The businessman turned to Billy and regarded him narrowly, as if really seeing him for the first time. "I don't know." He chewed in the end of his cigar thoughtfully. "I wouldn't be too sure of that. How old are you, son?"
Billy, smarting from being called "son" by this stranger, straightened up to his full height and cleared his throat to sound as mature as possible. "Seventeen -- and three-quarters." He added this last as an afterthought.
The businessman shook his head. "I believe the minimum age without parental consent is eighteen years. Would that father of yours -- he's the one who called Fort Sumter just a lot of hot air, right? Would he really agree to let you join the militia?"
Abruptly, the marital pageant in Billy's head vanished. Now that he considered it, he wasn't at all sure his father would approve. Still, I don't want to miss my only chance, Billy thought, feeling a scowl crease his brow. If I don't ask, I'll never know, and if this will all be over by June, I'd better start for home now.
"Well, good day, gentleman," Billy said to the two men as he tugged at the broad brim of his black hat. "And thank you for the information."
"Don't mention it," the workingman smiled, revealing again the missing front tooth that gaped cavernously in his mouth.
The stogy-smoker merely grunted in reply, once again absorbed in the speaker's litany. Billy headed off across the Common, squelching as he went, wondering how he would convince his father to give him permission to join the militia.
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony W. Artuso
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