Fellowship & Fairydust

By Marie Jeanette

Word Count: 987

Rating: G (suitable for all audiences)

Summary: A short story about the Boston Tea Party

It was December 16, 1773, just after suppertime. It was cold, and you had been standing outside for a while. The most recent meeting at the Old South Meeting House obviously hadn’t produced many results, and the clock was ticking. Boston was on fire with passion—the fire was making the tea kettle of revolution begin to boil uncontrollably. You shivered occasionally, but it was more from excitement than the chill.

You had furtively gathered with a few other friends at that tavern…which was it again? You can’t remember. It wasn’t the Green Dragon—that would have been too obvious. Regardless, you had met at that tavern to suit up, as Mr. Loring had put it. Loring’s son Matthew had cajoled you into doing it; he reasoned that seventeen was definitely not too young to be involved with an illegal protest. You were mostly a man, after all. It was different for him—he was twenty-two, and his father was actively sympathetic with the revolution. You figured your parents wouldn’t let you participate, so you didn’t tell them your destination and intent when you left the house at five o’clock. You shared with them that you were supping with the Lorings. Which was true. It just wasn’t the end of the story.

“Suiting up” entailed donning ridiculous leather Mohawk warrior costumes. Matthew Loring had recently procured a job as a leatherworker, but that did not mean he could design dignifying costumes. When you saw what the leatherworker had made, you laughed, but it wasn’t a joke. This was serious. It was real. Your highly illegal protest was going to happen. You remember smearing grease and dirt on your face, putting feathers in your hair. You were armed with a hatchet and your older brother’s pistol, which he left at home while visiting France. Covering your shoulders, a woolen blanket was your only protection from the winter wind. You tried to remember what they had told you at that meeting last week, about the disguise. You are American. Why shouldn’t you dress like a real one? As you ducked down the bitter alleyways towards the harbor, you glanced at your reflection in a dark window. If your mother knew about this…

You took pains to make sure she never did. You also took pains to avoid looking at your companions lest they discovered your prevalent emotion—anxiety. There were a myriad of things that could go wrong, the least of which being that your nose threatened to freeze off its perch on your face. You made it to the harbor uneventfully, however. It was about six o’clock, and your small party joined to another, larger party. The three ships carrying that offending substance—such delicious tea—floated so harmlessly in the black water. Your instructions were clear: no stealing tea, no stealing anything else on the ship, keep quiet, follow orders. Just hack open the chests of tea, and dump the tea in the harbor or on the dock so it could be raked into the water. Simple enough.

Then you noticed the other British ships in the harbor, how they were armed, how exposed you were, how there were a lot of them (and so few “Indians”!).

You chose not to think much. It was too stressful.

The next thing you remember is the hacking of the boxes themselves. It was so systematic, but hard work. You were sweating within a quarter of an hour, despite the icy evening. For a while they let you stop hacking and take a turn raking tea leaves into the water. You liked this job a lot less, however—it was easier to see all the people staring at you, feel their eyes on you as you worked.

Chip. Crack. Chop. Chuff. The sounds were like clockwork after a while, and the minutes they measured seemed to stretch like days. You forced yourself to remember why you chose to do this: you are American. England went too far. The jig was up.

A headache, a backache, an earache, an arm ache; your whole body was on fire as the stars came out over the scene at the dock. You can barely recall what happened when the dumping was over. Someone called you to the deck of the ship, and you tidied it all up. “Nice and pretty now,” the man had said.

As you were walking back to the Loring’s house in silence, your heart wouldn’t stop thumping. You didn’t get arrested and you didn’t die, and you helped make a point: Americans stand up for themselves. Your grandfather always said, “Injustice is an opportunity for action.” Those words never really sank in till that night at the harbor.

Tea Party, they call it. You call it foolishness, even now, years later. You sit on your porch every night, smoke your pipe, and think. You think about the wars you’ve fought, about their causes, about what happened, and what might’ve been different. Your wife often remarks on your silence, but there’s no proper way to discuss it. Nobody understands. Sometimes, you think, what’s necessary isn’t always nice. It’s never simple.

God, you pray, what’s to become of it all? Was throwing tea in the harbor the answer? Your rocking chair creaks as the same December stars wink and blink the way they did when you cracked and chuffed the boxes and tea leaves. You sigh.

What happened, happened. Nothing you could do now. It was a good thing in the end, for your country is free. You pray it remains that way.

Injustice is an opportunity for action, after all, and from what you can see, Americans are a people of action. At least you hope. Your days for action are over.

Your granddaughter calls you from inside and you suck in your gut, heaving yourself out of the chair. Once again, you have to leave your thoughts on the porch.