Johnny stood on the Green and looked about him. He heard a woman calling, 'Chick, chick, chick.' From a near-by shed he heard milk spurting into a pail. A tap of metal on metal: his trained ear told him a gunsmith was at work.
He could smell turned earth and gummy buds. And sweet wood somewhere burning. His nostrils trembled. Almost could they recapture the gunpowder of yesterday. So fair a day now drawing to its close. Green with spring, dreaming of the future yet wet with blood.
This was his land and these his people.
The cow who lowed, the man who milked, the chickens that came running and the woman who called them, the fragrance steaming from the plowed land and the plowman. These he possessed. The skillful hands of the unseen gunsmith were his hands. The old woman throwing stones at crows who cawed and derided her was his old woman - and they his crows. The wood smoke rising fromt he home hearths rose from his heart.
He felt nothing could hurt him on this day. Not Rab's death nor the surgeon's knife. He felt free, light, unreal, and utterly alone...Tomorrow-next day - it would be different, but today is today.
Then far away, but coming nearer and nearer down along Menotomy road, he heard the throb of a drum. Men coming back from Charlestown. He stood, turned his head to listen. The shuffle of feet. A fife began to toot. It was ill-played. Maybe a foolish tune, but Johnny was warmed to hear it. For once - once more - Yankee Doodle was going to town.
Everywhere else in the village was silence. The music, small as the chirping of a cricket, filled that silence. Down the road came twenty or thirty tired and ragged men. Some were bloodstained. No uniforms. A curious arsenal of weapons. The long horizontal light of the sinking sun struck into their faces and made them seem much alike. Thin-faced in the manner of Yankee men. High cheeck-boned. Unalterably determined. The tired men marched unevenly, but Johnny noticed the swing of the lithe, independant bodies. The set of chin and shoulders. Rab had been like that.
Please God, out of this New England soil such men would forever rise up ready to fight when need came. The one generation after the other.
Close on the heels of the marching men was an old chaise containing their commanding officier. For if you couldn't get to the fight on foot, you went on horseback - and if not on horseback, you went in a chaise.
It was Grandsire Silsbee, with his old gun across his knees.
Johhny started to run to him, started to shout, 'Grandsire, Grandsire, you haven't heard yet...Rab is dead.'
But he knew the old Major wouldn't stop. He had to get his men to Cambridge and the seige of Boston.
True, Rab had died. Hundreds would die, but not the thing they died for.
'A man can stand up...'
-Excerpt From: Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes