He set the broken bones of Pelham and, as Town Moderator, set the political discussion as well.

North looked around and asked, “So who’s to lead the uprisin’? You, Dan’l?”

“Not me.” Shays shook his head.

“We’ve asked him,” said Doc Hines “He’s been to debtor’s court himself, so he knows how humiliatin’ it is. And he went from private to captain in Washington’s army, so he knows how to lead—”

“I’ll back no rebellion till the state answers our petition,” said Shays.

He had always reminded Will of a bull—big-headed, brawny through the chest, with eyes that bespoke more stubbornness than brains. But if Daniel Shays kept to his present line of talk, Will would have to raise his opinion.

Doc Hines said, “We’re just back from the convention in Hatfield.”

“Aye,” added Shays. “Farmers from across the county. Wrote a petition to Boston. Told ’em we need paper money, debt relief, tax relief, and the closin’ of the Courts of Common pleas, so we can get out from under the lawyers—”

“You sound like my brother,” said North. “He wants to be one of them lawyers.”

Shays gave Will the once-over. “I’d say your brother’s a smart boy, then.”

“I’d say this”—North drained his mug and slammed it on the bar—”we tell the legislature we want no taxation without representation. Then we have an uprisin’.”

And that was what they did.

IN THE SMALL hours of August 29, the Pikes rose in the bedroom under the eaves in their father’s home, dressed, and headed down the hill.

At the meetinghouse, they joined with twenty or thirty more who had gathered under sputtering torches and lanterns.

“Fine day for an uprisin’,” North announced when he spied Daniel Shays.

“State rejects our petition,” said Shays, “we need to make ’em listen.”

With their torches and lanterns bobbing above them, they headed out the west road toward the Connecticut River. Some carried muskets, others had clubs or axes, and a few, like Daniel Shays and Will Pike, carried nothing at all.

Will had told his brother that he disapproved of mob action, but North had insisted he march, because a boy who dreamed of becoming a barrister should see what happened when lawyers and judges denied the people their rights.

By dawn, they had reached the Connecticut and joined other bands from other towns. A great coming together it was, of angry farmers crossing fields and forests to march with that column from Pelham and protest the injustices heaped upon them since the end of the Revolution.

At full daylight, they took formation behind fifes and drums and began to parade eight abreast, like a Continental regiment, with muskets in the van, clubs and shovels in support, unarmed men bringing up the rear.

Will admitted that there was something stirring in the sound of the fifes trilling out one marching tune after another—”Yankee Doodle,” “Banish Misfortune,” “The Road to Boston.” He could feel the drums beating in his belly, urging him on. And for a moment, he wished that he had brought his own musket after all.

The music must have moved Daniel Shays, too, because he snatched a post from a split-rail fence, shouldered it, and joined the men marching behind the muskets.

Will stayed at the rear and told himself that he was stronger than the momentary power of the music. A young man who hoped to become an officer of the Massachusetts court should not be seen laying siege to a Massachusetts courthouse.

The farmers had determined to close every courthouse in the state, so that no debt cases would be heard anywhere and no farmer could face foreclosure because he did not have the money to pay his taxes and his bills both.

When three justices arrived in Northampton to convene the Court of Common Pleas for Hampshire County, they were met by fifteen hundred men.

Will heard his brother say to Doc Hines, “Looks like the odds don’t favor the justices today, but I’d say they favor justice.”

And the justices agreed, at least in part, because they continued all cases and galloped back to Boston as fast as their mounts would carry them.

His brother’s uprising, thought Will, had begun

BUT WILL DID not march home with the Pelhamites. He might not have marched at all had they not been going to Northampton, because the House of Correction was there, too. It sat on a rise looking across the valley toward old Mount Tom.

Will took some comfort in that, for a well-sited jail might also be well-kept. But as he drew closer, the wind shifted, and the smell that rose off the roof and wafted from the windows was worse than a dungpile in July.

He should not have been surprised. The jails were packed in those days of foreclosure and debt crisis. So many farmers had been imprisoned at the behest of creditors who believed that they still could pay, or at the whim of a state that sought to make an example of them, that the practice of separating debtors from criminals had been suspended.

As for the man brought out to see his son, he looked as if he had aged a year in a fortnight. His hair hung around his face and snagged in the stubble on his chin. And his pallor was more than the prisoner’s shadow. Sickness and despair had turned him as gray as gravel.

“Don’t worry, lad.” George North Pike sat at a rough table, under the eye of the jailkeeper. “ ’Tis the thin gruel we get thrice a day that has me lookin’ like an old hag.”

“But Pa, you’ve lost another twenty pounds.”

“Don’t worry,” he said again, then asked, “Where’s your brother?”

“He said he couldn’t stand to see you like this.”

The old man nodded. “I can’t stand to see myself.”

Will reached into his sack and produced a loaf of bread, sausage, and three apples.

George Pike looked at the food. “Our apples?”

“Aye. One thing Nathan Liggett didn’t take.”

The prisoner ran his hand over the apples, as if to convince himself that they were real. Then he touched the bread, then the sausage. But he sampled nothing. “You should be sellin’ them apples. Not bringin’ them to me.”

Will ignored that and said, “Would you like a slice of sausage?”

The answer, from a man who looked like he was starving, was a shock to his son: “No, Willie. I … I reckon I’m not hungry.”

“Not hungry?”

George North Pike laughed.