“We’ve just lately taken this farm,” said the one called Josiah, “and we’ve counted on this season’s yield to help pay for it. We can’t go into the army.”
“If every one thought of his personal affairs,” said Ezra, “our tyrants would crush us into the earth.” The boy had absorbed the resonant talk of the times, and its use had become a habit upon the present mission. “Take, for instance, men like Mr. Hancock, Mr. Adams, Dr. Warren, and a score of others. They risk very large fortunes in the cause; they give every moment of their time to it. They have done so from the first.”
But there was one thing that the men were firm in—their indecision.
“We’d like to join; we’d like to do all we can. But things won’t let us.” The speaker shook his head nervously. “No, things won’t let us.”
“You think that by holding back you’ll save your property, your season’s crop and all that,” spoke Ezra Prentiss. “But I believe you are mistaken. Suppose most of the men and boys of the towns held back as you seem inclined to do? What then?”
“It might be a good thing,” answered Josiah, fearfully.
“It is sure to be a very bad thing for you and everybody else. If there is no army to oppose him, Gage will march his regiments out of the city, and he’ll seize, burn and destroy until he has the people of Massachusetts upon their knees.”
The fear that filled the eyes of the two brothers was almost pitiful to see.
“Do you think that will happen?” asked one.
“I sincerely do,” returned Ezra, who, to tell the truth, was rather disgusted at this exhibition of selfish cowardice.
The farmers consulted together in whispers. Then Josiah said:
“As my brother remarked, we’d like to do all we can. But we have doubts. It’s not altogether our property that holds us back.”
The man looked toward his brother, who nodded what was intended to be encouragement; but it was of a very timorous sort, indeed.
“Things hereabouts are not altogether right,” said Josiah, lowering his voice to a whisper and leaning over the fence that Ezra might hear. “They haven’t been just what you might call right for some time.”
“Nothing has been right in all the colony for some time,” said he. “So what you say is not surprising.”
The man coughed dryly and waved his hand.