Don and Jud said little, but their eyes and ears were alert. At last the music started, and some time later the curtain on the stage was hauled up. There were to be two plays that evening, the first of which was called “The Busy Body.” The boys watched the actors, all of whom were Redcoats, and thought the thing rather dull and stupid. But the audience seemed to enjoy it; there were frequent bursts of applause and a good deal of laughter.
“Huh,” said Jud as the curtain went down for the last time. “I guess you have to be a Redcoat or a Tory to like a thing like that.”
“Look,” whispered Don. “Bluster’s found his snuff-box.”
“Sure enough!”
It was all that the boys could do to keep from laughing as they watched the big sergeant-major. He had found his snuff-box indeed. In the uncertain light his face was ruddier than ever, and his little eyes seemed to be popping from his head as he turned first to one side, then to the other. He looked at the little box; he looked at his hat; he looked at his cuffs as if the thing might have been hidden there. Perhaps he thought he had suddenly become a magician. Then he looked at the ceiling, as if to find the person—or the bird—that had succeeded in dropping it so that it had landed on his hat beneath his chair. But even a magician or a bird could not have done that!
He was still looking at the ceiling when the lights were dimmed, and the curtain was hauled up again. “The Blockade of Boston,” which was to be played next, was a farce in which the character who represented General Washington was supposed to stride awkwardly upon the stage, wearing a long rusty sword and a wig that was many sizes too large for him; behind him walked his servant, an uncouth country boy with a rusty gun. But the audience was not to laugh at the antics of the two that night.
The curtain had been up only a few moments when the noise of firing sounded from a distance, and then a red-coated sergeant burst into the hall and exclaimed:
“The Yankees are attacking our works on Bunker’s Hill!”
Startling as the announcement was, it carried only a ripple of mild excitement; for no doubt many of the audience supposed that the sergeant’s words were part of the farce that was to be played. “A good beginning anyway,” a lieutenant who was sitting in front of the boys said to his neighbor and laughed heartily.
At that moment a general who was seated close to the stage sprang to his feet. “Look,” whispered Don. “There’s Howe himself. I didn’t notice him before.”