Children of Liberty

“And how, pray tell, do we do this?” The train had been moving for five minutes.

From his bag Ben produced two books and a dozen pamphlets. Harry groaned and grabbed for his hat. “Start reading,” Ben said. “I’m counting on you. We have to fake knowledge.”

“Now there’s a way to win a girl’s heart,” said Harry. “Deceive her.”

“All right, paragon of virtue, let’s begin.” Ben opened the book on the history of Lawrence and stuck it under Harry’s face. “And I suppose you’ve been straight with Alice and told her you have no intention of doing anything, ever, but reading books.”

“She hasn’t asked.” Harry busied himself with the introductory chapter. “We are going to impress a fifteen-year-old—sorry, a fourteen-year-old with arcane minutiae about a town she’s been in for five minutes? Well thought out, sir.”

Ben ignored him. “Look—are you studying? Lawrence was incorporated in 1853. Not even half a century ago.”

“If that doesn’t get her to fall in love with you, what will?”

Ben continued reading. “Smart businessmen saw that the Merrimack River was a plentiful source of electric power, so they dammed it with the Great Stone Dam above the city, past Andover, and then built textile mills on both north and south banks.”

“I know for a fact that the damming of rivers is enticing to young girls.”

“Ah! Did you know that in 1860 one of the mills collapsed and burned, killing over a hundred workers and injuring thousands? The Pemberton Mill.”

“You are deranged.”

“No, this is useful. We can wisely counsel her not to get a job there.”

“I thought you just said it burned down?”

“They rebuilt it, numbskull. Did you know that Lawrence has more immigrants per square mile, of which there are only six, than any other city in the world?”

“Six immigrants?”

“Six square miles.”

“Useful as evidence for committing you,” said Harry. “Are there any sanatoriums in Lawrence?”

“Immigrant girls from Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, Poland”—Ben smiled—“and of course, Italy …”

Harry slunk down on his seat. “I will not come visit you in the pokey,” he muttered. “Not even at Christmas.”

“That’s the difference between you and me, old boy,” Ben said. “Because I will come and visit you in the pokey.”

“Why would I be up the river? Do you see me being threatened with certain prison or risking death at the hands of an irate Italian male? I don’t think so.”

“Harry!” Ben stopped with the books for a moment, looking wistful, softened, dream-like. “Did you see her?”

“I could hardly avoid it.”

“You have to admit … her mother trying to hide her under those awful clothes …”

“Not hide her, save her.”

“Nothing could hide that girl. That hair, that mouth.”

Harry leaned back, his hat over his inscrutable face.

“Well?” Ben nudged him. “Thomas Paine, or a nubile beauty from Sicily?”

“Clearly Thomas Paine. I’d be asleep now in my bed.”

“Do you remember the name of the street they live on?”

“Let’s see … Crazy Street? Cuckoo Street? Commitment Street? Cranial Injury Inflicted by Enraged Sibling Street?”

“Canal Street! Thank you.”

“I’m going to stop speaking.”

“Harry, admit it, if you weren’t so utterly uninterested in all women save Alice, you would be sitting on this train yourself.”

“Ben Shaw, I hate to point out the startlingly obvious, but I am sitting on this train myself.”

“Exactly!”

“Ugh.”

“I’m surprised to learn that Lawrence is the world leader in the production of cotton and woven textiles. Are you?”

“Stunned.”

They spent the rest of the ride bickering like this and alighted in Lawrence nearly an hour and a half later. After buying a quick bun at a local mart on Broadway, they walked to Essex Street, found an acceptably busy corner on Essex and Appleton, took out their clipboards and pamphlets, and began approaching anyone who was willing to stop and talk to them for a minute or two. After forty-five minutes of being cut off on, “Please can we have your signature to reopen the study on the advantages of building the Panama Canal to help American trade and the American economy”, after being ignored, insulted, pushed past, shouted at and misunderstood, they had collected six signatures.

“How many more?” Harry asked.

“Four thousand nine hundred and ninety-four. If you sign, then four thousand nine hundred and ninety-three.”

Harry put down his clipboard. “I’ll sign right now. Can we go home?”

“Yes—when we get a thousand signatures.”

“Ben!”

“You’re not even trying!”

“Can you do math? Are there even a thousand people in Lawrence?”

“A hundred thousand.”

“How many?”

“I thought you’d read the pamphlet I gave you.”