The ball was in full fling when they got to the Armory. Tom came rushing in just in time for the Grand March. Gwen pleaded her delicate condition, so he snatched up Mary and marched her off with the selectmen and their wives at the head of the line. Johnny McPhale's Orchestra brayed 'Off We Go into the Wild Blue Yonder,' the electric lights shone through the transparent red-white-and-blue bunting, and hundreds of pairs of feet shuffled rhythmically around the big room. The Captain of the National Guard with huge pointing gestures aimed the column left and right and soon had people marching four, then eight, then sixteen abreast. Mary found her arm hooked into that of the Chief of the Concord Police, Jimmy Flower. He was a small gnomelike man with a bald head who looked like one of the Seven Dwarfs. She beamed down on his five feet one-quarter inch and said hello to his wife Isabelle.
'Jimmy,' she said, 'when is Isabelle going to give you a divorce so you can marry me?'
It was a joke they had. Jimmy craned his neck up at her. 'What's the matter, Mary? Haven't you got a boyfriend yet? When in heck are you going to get married anyhow?'
'When you get down on your knees, that's when. I'm just waiting around, withering on the vine. What's the matter, aren't I pretty enough for you?'
'It isn't that. I'm just scared I couldn't carry you across the threshold, that's all.'
'Well, what if I carry you?'
'Say, that's a good idea. How about it, Isabelle?'
'Sure,' said Isabelle. 'But only if you promise to take Frankie and Roggie and Linda and Sharon and the baby. Especially the baby. Then I'll kick up my heels and be fancy free. Who knows? I might find me another beau.'
'Oh?' said Jimmy darkly. 'Like
'I don't now. Some nice tall fella. Say, Mary, you know who I think is cute? That Homer Kelly. Boy, he's my type! You know, the Abraham Lincoln type? Say, Mary, he must be six feet six, how about him for you? He's cute.'
Mary lost interest in the conversation. It had taken a bad turn. He was not either cute. 'Well, he's not my type.'
The bandleader spoke hugely into the microphone. 'Ladeez and gentlemeeeeen, if you willlll, the Graaaand Waaaaltzzzz!' Tom obediently gave Mary a big dancing-school shove and propelled her strongly around the floor.
Isabelle Flower looked across her husband's head at Mary. 'She's stuck on him,' she said.
'Mary? Stuck on Tom Hand?'
'No, stupid. Stuck on Homer Kelly.'
'But she just said...'
'Take my word for it,' said Isabelle. 'She's nuts about him.'
'Oh, go on. You women. You know who Homer Kelly is, don't you?'
'Some kind of a writer, isn't he?'
'No, I mean besides that.' He told her.
'No kidding?' said Isabelle. 'Well, I'll be darned.'
*10*
The Governor of Massachusetts turned off his alarm clock, groaned, rolled over and sat up. It was April 19th, Patriot's Day. There was that ceremony out in Concord. For Chris'sake, he hadn't written his speech yet. He punched his pillow, lay down again and shut his eyes, seeking inspiration from on high. Of course he could always gas away about the forefathers. He could do that at the drop of a hat. But perhaps something more was called for here. Some quotation, some noble scrap of poetry. The Governor lay flat on his back, absentmindedly stroking the stiff hairs of his grey mustache. Then inspiration came to him, and he opened his eyes gratefully. There was that old poem, why, he practically knew it by heart already. How did it go?
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere...
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*
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
