Citizen Tom Paine by Howard Fast Page A

if they could not hasten from the earth soon enough. There was a pen full of rooting black and whites, and the chickens ran loose and aimless. Out in the fields, a half mile or so away, two men were working a team, and a fat pile of smoke ran from the chimney to show that things were doing inside.
    When the girl had finished her butter, she lifted the board in her arms and said to Paine over her shoulder, “You may come in if you wish.” Her recollection of his presence was so casual and good-natured that he couldn’t help but follow her, and they went into a long, low-ceilinged kitchen where another woman, evidently the girl’s mother, was mixing a batter of dough.
    At one side of the kitchen, there was a great hearth, full eight feet long, with a Dutch oven on either end. The floor of the kitchen was red brick, swept so clean you could eat off it, and down die center was a long sawbuck table. Two handmade benches flanked the fireplace; there was a wide sideboard, loaded to the shaking point with pewter and crockery. Those and several straight chairs made up the furnishings of the room, but from the ceiling hung smokings of ham and bacon and jerked venison and beef. And from one of the benches four tow-headed children, three boys and a girl, regarded Paine with a wide-eyed but reticent curiosity.
    The girl said, “Mother, this here’s a writing man, walked up out of Philadelphia.”
    Paine bowed and said, “My name is Thomas Paine, madam. I was hot and thirsty, and your daughter was good enough to give me a glass of buttermilk.”
    â€œWe have plenty of that,” the woman smiled, not leaving her work. She was past middle age, but broad-shouldered and strong, her sleeves rolled up, her large arms white with powder past the elbows. Her face, lined with work, was pleasant in its big, regular features. “Our name’s Rumpel,” she said. “That’s Sarah.” She pointed to the boys and called off, “Ephraim, Gideon, Samuel.” The little girl was Rachel. Then she went on with her work, and Paine sat down in a cool corner.
    At noon, the long table was set. The farmer, Jacob Rumpel, clumped in with his hired man, shook hands with Paine, and sat down at the table. Without words, they had made it evident that he would stay and eat, and he had no desire to leave. Sarah set a place for him next to her father; when she looked at him there was a twinkle in her eyes, and now and again Paine had a feeling she was laughing at him. The children raced to the board, never taking their eyes off Paine, and the farmer, who had been turning the name over in his mind, said finally, “You be with that Pennsylvania Magazine.”
    Paine nodded, somewhat pleased that they should know him here.
    â€œI don’t hold with it!” Jacob snapped.
    â€œNeither do I.”
    â€œThen why are you not man enough to throw down your pen?”
    â€œFather,” Sarah said, “your food will be cold.”
    â€œI did.”
    â€œAh—”
    â€œThat’s why I can walk in the country,” Paine smiled.
    Turning to him suddenly, the farmer demanded, “Were you thrown out or did you quit them?”
    â€œSome of each.”
    â€œI know Aitken, a tight man with a rope around his soul. He waves this way and that but lacks the guts to fall. Paine, there’s good men in writing and bad. I read Ben Franklin and Jim Hall. I read MacCullough and Tom Jefferson. I like a man with gall. I like a man—”
    â€œPay no attention to father,” Sarah said quietly.
    â€œâ€”who can look at a thing and say right or wrong. Right is right and wrong is wrong. I don’t hold with in-between. I reckon I side with the Boston men, what’s mine is mine so long as I got powder for my gun—” He Was a tall, lean, brown-faced man, with a bobbing apple in his throat and tiny blue eyes.
    â€œGo an’ eat, Jacob,” his wife said.
    For Paine, the