Читать книгу The Collected Prose Works of Stephen Vincent Benét - Stephen Vincent Benét - Страница 5

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Some say it all happened because of Hancock and Adams (said the old man, pulling at his pipe), and some put it back to the Stamp Act and before. Then there’s some hold out for Paul Revere and his little silver box. But the way I heard it, it broke loose because of Lige Butterwick and his tooth.

What’s that? Why, the American Revolution, of course. What else would I be talking about? Well, your story about the land down South that they had to plough with alligators reminded me.

No, this is a true story—or at least that’s how I heard it told. My great-aunt was a Butterwick and I heard it from her. And, every now and then, she’d write it out and want to get it put in the history books. But they’d always put her off with some trifling sort of excuse. Till, finally, she got her dander up and wrote direct to the President of the United States. Well, no, he didn’t answer himself exactly—the President’s apt to be a pretty busy man. But the letter said he’d received her interesting communication and thanked her for it, so that shows you. We’ve got it framed, in the trailer—the ink’s a little faded, but you can make out the man’s name who signed it. It’s either Bowers or Thorpe and he wrote a very nice hand.

You see, my great-aunt, she wasn’t very respectful to the kind of history that does get into the books. What she liked was the queer corners of it and the tales that get handed down in families. Take Paul Revere, for instance—all most folks think about, with him, is his riding a horse. But when she talked about Paul Revere—why, you could just see him in his shop, brewing the American Revolution in a silver teapot and waiting for it to settle. Oh yes, he was a silversmith by trade—but she claimed he was something more. She claimed there was a kind of magic in that quick, skillful hand of his—and that he was one of the kind of folks that can see just a little bit farther into a millstone than most. But it was when she got to Lige Butterwick that she really turned herself loose.

For she claimed that it took all sorts to make a country—and that meant the dumb ones, too. I don’t mean ijits or nincompoops—just the ordinary folks that live along from day to day. And that day may be a notable day in history—but it’s just Tuesday to them, till they read all about it in the papers. Oh, the heroes and the great men—they can plan and contrive and see ahead. But it isn’t till the Lige Butterwicks get stirred up that things really start to happen. Or so she claimed. And the way that they do get stirred up is often curious, as she’d tell this story to prove.

For, now you take Lige Butterwick—and, before his tooth started aching, he was just like you and me. He lived on a farm about eight miles from Lexington, Massachusetts, and he was a peaceable man. It was troubled times in the American colonies, what with British warships in Boston Harbor and British soldiers in Boston and Sons of Liberty hooting the British soldiers—not to speak of Boston tea parties and such. But Lige Butterwick, he worked his farm and didn’t pay much attention. There’s lots of people like that, even in troubled times.

When he went into town, to be sure, there was high talk at the tavern. But he bought his goods and came home again—he had ideas about politics, but he didn’t talk about them much. He had a good farm and it kept him busy—he had a wife and five children and they kept him humping. The young folks could argue about King George and Sam Adams—he wondered how the corn was going to stand that year. Now and then, if somebody said that this and that was a burning shame, he’d allow as how it might be, just to be neighborly. But, inside, he was wondering whether next year he mightn’t make an experiment and plant the west field in rye.

Well, everything went along for him the way that it does for most folks with good years and bad years, till one April morning, in 1775, he woke up with a toothache. Being the kind of man he was, he didn’t pay much attention to it at first. But he mentioned it that evening, at supper, and his wife got a bag of hot salt for him. He held it to his face and it seemed to ease him, but he couldn’t hold it there all night, and, next morning, the tooth hurt worse than ever.

Well, he stood it the next day and the next, but it didn’t improve any. He tried tansy tea and other remedies—he tried tying a string to it and having his wife slam the door. But, when it came to the pinch, he couldn’t quite do it. So, finally, he took the horse and rode into Lexington town to have it seen to. Mrs. Butterwick made him—she said it might be an expense, but anything was better than having him act as if he wanted to kick the cat across the room every time she put her feet down hard.

When he got into Lexington, he noticed that folks there seemed kind of excited. There was a lot of talk about muskets and powder and a couple of men called Hancock and Adams who were staying at Parson Clarke’s. But Lige Butterwick had his own business to attend to—and, besides, his tooth was jumping so he wasn’t in any mood for conversation. He set off for the local barber’s, as being the likeliest man he knew to pull a tooth.

The barber took one look at it and shook his head.

“I can pull her, Lige,” he said. “Oh, I can pull her, all right. But she’s got long roots and strong roots and she’s going to leave an awful gap when she’s gone. Now, what you really need,” he said, kind of excited, for he was one of those perky little men who’s always interested in the latest notion, “what you really need—though it’s taking away my business—is one of these-here artificial teeth to go in the hole.”

“Artificial teeth!” said Lige. “It’s flying in the face of Nature!”

The barber shook his head. “No, Lige,” he said, “that’s where you’re wrong. Artificial teeth is all the go these days, and Lexington ought to keep up with the times. It would do me good to see you with an artificial tooth—it would so.”

“Well, it might do you good,” said Lige, rather crossly, for his tooth was jumping, “but, supposing I did want one—how in tunket will I get one in Lexington?”

“Now you just leave that to me,” said the barber, all excited, and he started to rummage around. “You’ll have to go to Boston for it, but I know just the man.” He was one of those men who can always tell you where to go and it’s usually wrong. “See here,” he went on. “There’s a fellow called Revere in Boston that fixes them and they say he’s a boss workman. Just take a look at this prospectus”—and he started to read from a paper: “ ‘Whereas many persons are so unfortunate as to lose their foreteeth’—that’s you, Lige—‘to their great detriment, not only in looks but in speaking, both in public and private, this is to inform all such that they may have them replaced by artificial ones’—see?—‘that look as well as the natural and answer the end of speaking to all intents’—and then he’s got his name—Paul Revere, goldsmith, near the head of Dr. Clarke’s wharf, Boston.”

“Sounds well enough,” said Lige, “but what’s it going to cost?”

“Oh, I know Revere,” said the barber, swelling up like a robin. “Comes through here pretty often, as a matter of fact. And he’s a decent fellow, if he is a pretty big bug in the Sons of Liberty. You just mention my name.”

“Well, it’s something I hadn’t thought of,” said Lige, as his tooth gave another red-hot jounce, “but in for a penny, in for a pound. I’ve missed a day’s work already and that tooth’s got to come out before I go stark, staring mad. But what sort of man is this Revere, anyway?”

“Oh, he’s a regular wizard!” said the barber. “A regular wizard with his tools.”

“Wizard!” said Lige. “Well, I don’t know about wizards. But if he can fix my tooth I’ll call him one.”

“You’ll never regret it,” said the barber—and that’s the way folks always talk when they’re sending someone else to the dentist. So Lige Butterwick got on his horse again and started out for Boston. A couple of people shouted at him as he rode down the street, but he didn’t pay any attention. And, going by Parson Clarke’s, he caught a glimpse of two men talking in the Parson’s front room. One was a tallish, handsomish man in pretty fine clothes and the other was shorter and untidy, with a kind of bulldog face. But they were strangers to him and he didn’t really notice them—just rode ahead.