Johnny Tremain

Johnny Tremain Summary | Plot Summary

Fourteen-year-old orphan Johnny Tremain is smart, cocky, and the best apprentice silversmith in Mr. Lapham's workshop. Unfortunately he knows it and while his skill and efficiency have made him the household's primary breadwinner he bosses the slower apprentices until the pious Mr. Lapham has to lecture him on the sin of pride. The two youngest Lapham daughters usually tease him but on one occasion Johnny does confess his great secret to Cilla the daughter closest to his age. He shows her a silver cup engraved with the crest of the Lytes, rich Boston merchants, and tells her that his dying mother told him that although he is connected to them he should seek them out only in the most extreme emergency.

An order for an ornate sugar bowl from John Hancock the richest man in the colonies could be the making of the workshop but the work falls almost entirely upon Johnny. He seeks advice from the best silversmith in Boston, Paul Revere but Mr. Lapham seems more interested in reading his bible than in meeting the deadline. Running out of time and aided by Mrs. Lapham, Johnny takes the risk of illegally working on Sunday but one of his disgruntled fellow apprentices deliberately gives him a cracked crucible and the spilled silver horribly burns Johnny's hand.

When the bandages are removed Johnny's burned hand is deformed and useless. His status in the shop drops to that of errand boy and the Laphams suggest he find a new trade but his hostile attitude and useless hand combine to keep him from finding work.

Stopping in the print shop of The Boston Observer a newspaper advocating resistance to British rule Johnny becomes friends with Rab Silsbee the printer's assistant and nephew. When Johnny appeals to merchant Lyte for aid and presents his cup as proof of kinship he is accused of having stolen it some weeks earlier and is thrown into jail. Rab helps him finding a lawyer and bringing Cilla as witness and Johnny is freed and hired to deliver the Observer. He finds himself in the thick of Boston politics with the most important conspirators, The Observers meeting in the very attic where he and Rab sleep.

As tensions mount in Boston Johnny first finds himself taking part in the Boston Tea Party then becoming part of Sam Adams's information network. He learns that his mother was Mr. Lyte's niece but he no longer admires their life and possessions. When the British army moves to capture the colonists' weapons Johnny is part of the network, which is able to send word ahead so that the Minutemen have time to assemble and successfully fight back. Rab is fatally wounded in the fighting and dies. As the book ends a young doctor is preparing to operate on Johnny's hand and Johnny having inherited Rab's gun is preparing to carry on in his place.