The Glass Village

After Barnwell’s departure, the Judge and Johnny went back to their silent watch. They saw the villagers emerge from the Town Hall, straggle up Four Corners Road, stand about the intersection, disperse, regroup. They heard arrangements discussed for the milking and other farm activities that had to go on. Chores were to be taken care of on a communal basis, by women as well as men; cars and weapons were to be pooled. So-and-So was to tend the stock at the Pangman barn, this boy was to relieve Calvin Waters at the Isbel farm, that one was to run over to the Scotts’ while Drakeley was on duty in the village. They saw Ferriss Adams let into the Adams house by Burney Hackett, and old Merton Isbel being given a gun to patrol the Adams property. They saw Hube Hemus and Orville Pangman relieve Tommy and Dave Hemus on the church grounds, and the twins roar down Shinn Road past the Shinn porch in their father’s car, presumably to go home for a few hours’ sleep. Plans were made for regular four-hour watches, with each man and ablebodied boy of Shinn Corners assigned his place and time. Older children of the immediate vicinity, like Dickie Berry and Cynthia Hackett, ran here and there on mysterious errands. Kitchens were lit up until past midnight, as Millie Pangman and Prue Plummer and Emily Berry busied themselves making sandwiches and pots of coffee.

But at last the lights blinked out, the Corners emptied, the children disappeared, the town settled down. Except for the street lamp on Berry’s corner and the floodlight illuminating the church grounds, Shinn Corners was in darkness. The only sounds were the sounds of the insects, an occasional faint bark from the Scotts’ dog far down Four Corners Road, and the tread of the farmer sentries.

“Incredible,” said Johnny.

“What?” The Judge started.

“I said all this strikes me as unbelievable,” Johnny said. “For the first time I begin to grasp Lexington and Concord and the Boston Tea Party. How can people get so worked up over anything?”

“They believe in something,” said the Judge.

“To this extent?” Johnny laughed.

“It shows they’re alive, at any rate.”

“I’m alive,” argued Johnny. “But I’ve got more sense than to stick my neck out. For what? The old lady, God rest her soul, is dead; nothing’s going to bring her back. Why get into a hassle?”

Judge Shinn’s rocker creaked. “Are you referring to me, or to them, Johnny?”

“To both of you.”

“Let me tell you something about people like us,” said the Judge. “You have to go back a lot further than 1776. You have to go back more than three centuries to when the Puritan nature was molding itself to the rough shape of the new England. To Miles Standish, for instance, under orders by the Pilgrim Fathers to destroy the Mount Wollaston settlement and kick out Thomas Morton because of his uninhibited life and his success at Indian trading — moral issues and economics, you see, the Holy Book and the Pocketbook, in defense of either or both of which the good Puritan more or less cheerfully risked his life. Or to the John Endecott expedition against the Pequot Indians in reprisal for the murder of John Oldham, a simple exercise in revenge against the benighted heathen furriners — well, their skin color was different and they spoke English with an accent when they spoke it at all, which amounted to the same thing. As I recall it, they followed that up by wiping out the main Pequot settlement and massacring every big and little Pequot they could find. The Puritan is a mighty stubborn citizen when aroused.”

“In other words,” Johnny grinned in the darkness, “they were swine.”

“They were people. People with beliefs, some right and some wrong. More important — they did something, rightly or wrongly, about their beliefs.” The rocker stopped creaking. “Johnny, what do you believe in?”

In the darkness Johnny felt the old man’s eyes groping for him.

“Nothing, I guess.”

“A man has to believe in something, Johnny.”

“I’m not a man, I’m a vegetable,” laughed Johnny.

“So you’re vegetating.”

“It follows, doesn’t it?” Johnny suddenly felt too tired to talk. “I used to believe in a great deal.”

“Of course you did—”

“It was painful.”

“Yes,” said the Judge dryly.

“I even did something about my beliefs. I lapped up all the noble sludge, shipped out to be a hero. I knew what I was fighting for. You betcha. Democracy. Freedom. Down with the tyrants. One world. Man, those were the days. Remember?”

“I remember,” said the Judge.

“So do I,” said Johnny. “I wish I didn’t. Remembering is the worst pain of all. The trouble is, I’m not a successful vegetable. I’m not a successful anything. That bothers me a little. It would be nice just rooting in the sun, performing my little photosynthesis for the day, watching the animal life go by. But I’m like the rose in a story I read by Roald Dahl. When it was cut, it shrieked.”

“Go on,” said the Judge.