Citizen Tom Paine Read Free Page A

Kearsley wasn’t a brute, but a man tired of poverty and ignorance, all of which Paine could understand and even sympathize with now; Kearsley had cured him and given him back his life, and ten pounds wasn’t such a stone around a man’s neck. Less tired now, somewhat uncertain but finding his feet strong enough to hold him, Paine left his bed and went to the window. This was the America he had come to, and he was looking at it for the first time, a church steeple in the distance, some roofs flaked with white, some people walking on the cobbled street, the city of brotherly love, America, the land, the dream, the empire, that and much more that he had thought of once, the sum of it coming back to him as his will to live and be Tom Paine returned to him. There was a sweet quality in this winter evening, almost a nostalgia; the church bells began to toll faintly, and it seemed to Paine that the people in the streets were moving more quickly now.
    Now life was a sweet thing, like an old song. He began to tremble with eagerness, and then he went back to his bed, but he couldn’t sleep that night.
    If the place had a prophet, it was Benjamin Franklin; the letter he had given Paine was mildewed, creased and worn, but Bache, Franklin’s son-in-law, spread it out, read it carefully, and said, yes, he would do something for Paine. Nothing big or special, but this America was a good place, Pennsylvania a good country, and Philadelphia a good city, God bless King George. Nobody had to starve, not if a man had any guts in him. He wasn’t one to say anything about the old country, but in some ways this place was better than the old country.
    â€œI think so,” Paine nodded.
    Could Paine do anything? Was he a journeyman?
    â€œIn stays,” Paine admitted. But rather than make corsets, he could cobble a little, weave a little, good work even if it wasn’t journeyman work. But he had been sick, and—his face reddening—if he could use his brain instead of his hands for a time it might be a good thing. Not presumptuously, because he hadn’t anything in the way of scholarship. But he could spell and sum and he had a little Greek and a little Latin. Bache’s face remained noncommittal, and desperately, Paine quoted,
    â€œFaber est quisque suae fortunae.”
    Bache, fat, prosperous, Paine’s age, but a world above him in assurance, nodded, patted Paine’s shoulder, and said, “Good enough, I’ll find you some sort of place.”
    With his first few shillings, after two days of near starvation, he went to a coffee house and had rolls and butter and a whole pot of viscous black fluid. Successful men, men like Bache, sat around him, and whereas in London the state of his clothes alone would have prevented him from going into any respectable eating place, here hardly a second glance was thrown at him. Hardly a glance—why, in the corner was a buckskin wildman from the backlands, with leather leggings and a fur cap, and his rifle between his knees as he ate with his hands, just as if he hadn’t seen a fork or knife before. So what if his work was teaching the two Dolan children that one and one made two, that c-a-t spelled cat, and Mrs. Dolan came in midday and said, “Won’t you have a cup of tea, mister?” and that tomorrow it would be the Smith children, two little girls and a boy.
    Two months ago, he would have raged and burned, but this was America and he had been given back his life, and teaching was better than to be a journeyman staymaker. Or maybe inside of himself something had burned out, that he was content not even to look for tomorrow, but only to drift along, satisfying himself with the knowledge that he was Tom Paine, and no more.
    A man changes; he wasn’t old and he wasn’t young, but even Kearsley, who was blunt and hard and could be neatly cruel, had a streak of pity for Paine, not the man, but the wreck. As shown so well when