Fates and Traitors Read Online Free PDF Page A

though he called himself a dullard, he toiled determinedly, and once he learned something, he never forgot it.
    Though school frustrated John Wilkes, he was cheerful, exuberant, and confident everywhere else. Mary Ann’s heart softened just to look upon him, so beautiful he was with his dark, silky hair and smooth, fair skin, his ready smile and perfect features. Even for a boy his profile was strong and noble, resembling his father’s but refined, perfected, with his mother’s beauty. His ardent, impulsive nature was so like his father’s that Mary Ann could not help adoring him all the more for it. Like Junius, in a moment of passion or enthusiasm John Wilkes would grant any request or give away anything he possessed to please a friend or comfort a sibling. To Mary Ann’s knowledge, he had never once abandoned a friend or slighted an acquaintance, and when confronted with danger, he quickly and coolly assessed the situation, his poise and confidence commanding the other children’s respect.
    Naturally, the most harrowing of John’s escapades occurred well out of his mother’s sight, and Mary Ann learned about them only after all was said and done, dismay warring with pride and relief as she absorbed a reluctant confession. One summer evening, John Wilkes and Asia returned home from their play much later than expected, and when their worried mother questioned them, they admitted they had been delayed at the magistrate’s office. John Wilkes and his friends had been playing “telegraph” by sending fireworks sailing along a wire strung across the street, and had successfully sent crackling showers of sparks overhead from tree to lamppost several times when an unwitting gentleman had passed beneath the line just as John Wilkes had taken his turn to light the fuse. The careening firework had caught the gentleman’s hat, and as he shouted angrily at the boys and bellowed for the police, the other boys had scattered, but John Wilkes, hastily coiling up the wire, had felt a police officer’s hand clamp down on his shoulder. “Don’t frightenMother,” he had calmly called to his siblings as he had been led away. Asia, observing the scene from their front porch, had quickly darted after them, pausing only long enough to beg a kindly neighbor to accompany her. At the magistrate’s office, John Wilkes had refused to give up the names of his comrades, and Asia had ably mounted a defense, explaining the game and insisting that no harm had been intended. Satisfied, the magistrate had admonished John Wilkes not to obstruct the streets again, and, after imposing a fine, which the generous neighbor had promptly paid, he had smiled at the children and ordered them straight home.
    â€œYou could have set that poor gentleman on fire,” Mary Ann scolded, “or taken off a horse’s head with that wire.” Abashed, John Wilkes apologized and promised not to play the game again, but his sweet contrition and Asia’s loyalty melted Mary Ann’s indignation, and she struggled to keep her expression appropriately stern as she sent them to wash up for supper.
    John Wilkes was athletic, popular, and daring, a true and loyal friend and an intimidating adversary, proud of his strength and his fighting prowess. He was often obliged to employ them in defense of his elder brother Edwin, whose withdrawn, bookish nature and affectations—growing his hair long, donning a short Italian cape like a Shakespearean hero—provoked attacks from belligerent classmates.
    Junius delighted in reports of John’s scrapes and rewarded him with adventurous tales of his old friend Sam Houston, lately renowned as a hero of the Mexican War. He was far less pleased when he learned that Edwin’s favorite pastime was to gather his friends together and put on theatricals in a backyard tent. “Don’t encourage him,” Junius growled by letter to Mary Ann after she had