Scar by J. Albert Mann

tell from the look on Mr. Tyler’s face as he listens to the man that he respects this small fellow. For one, Mr. Tyler is usually the person doing all the talking, but now he stands motionless, letting the man speak. I’m curious, and start off toward them, but I’m distracted by the crowd … the glorious, beautiful crowd. Men I don’t know, horses everywhere, voices ringing out all around me, and Joshua. Joshua? What is he doing here?
    â€œJosh!” I call. But he can’t hear me over the mass of people and animals. Forgetting about Mr. Tyler, I head for Josh.
    Joshua is a hat maker from New Jersey who is not much older than me. We met a few years ago when he stopped in our settlement for the night on his way north to visit relatives. My father struck up a conversation with him out in front of Patterson’s Sawmill, and invited him home for dinner. Josh was a Patriot down to his stockings, and he and my father were friends almost immediately. He had a great sense of humor, and like my father, he knew how to tell a story. He never failed to make us laugh.
    The story I remember most was about a man who had come in for a hat and asked Josh for his very best. I try to remember the man’s name. It was a funny-sounding name—Meeker, that was it, Mr. Meeker. When Josh showedMr. Meeker a hat, it seemed to please Mr. Meeker in fit and style but surprised the gentleman by its low price of five pounds. Josh immediately understood that the man believed the hat inferior due to its low price, and took the five-pound hat back into his workshop, brushed it thoroughly, and then presented it to Mr. Meeker as a ten-pound hat. The gentleman quickly purchased it. What a great laugh we had at this poor man’s expense.
    After this, Josh regularly stopped at our house on his travels north. But it had been a long while since I’d seen him. He’d been busy, off fighting in the war.
    â€œJosh,” I call again. Before I can reach him, he sees me and bounds up the road. Grabbing ahold of me, he lifts me off the ground in a hug, shouting into my face, “How fares my old friend, Noah?” Laughing, he drops me, holding onto my shoulders to keep me steady. “How does your father? Is he here?” He spins around in his moccasins with a big grin on his face.
    What wouldn’t I give to turn and see my father walk out of the press of people around us. My heart, so light a moment ago, feels as heavy as a hogshead full of ale. “Josh …,” I say, searching for the best way to tell him—but there is only one way. “Josh, my father has passed on.”
    His smile vanishes. We say nothing to each other for a few moments, and then Josh claps me hard on my back. “We’ll get those Tory scum, Noah,” he growls.
    â€œIt wasn’t them, Josh. He died of illness over a year ago. I should have written. I’m sorry,” I tell him.
    â€œNo problem, old friend,” he says, steering me by the shoulders to a shady spot alongside the road. We sit on the grass. He opens up his jacket to pull out a handkerchief and slowly wipes his face. He is taking in my awful news as he looks off into the crowd. I follow his gaze.
    â€œWho is the man in the boots talking with the rough-looking fellow?” I ask, attempting to direct our thoughts away from my father.
    â€œYou mean Dr. Tusten? He’s from Goshen, New York, about twenty miles southeast of here. He’s in charge of this underdressed army today.”
    I look around at us all milling about in the hot sun. Every one of us looks like he’s just gotten in from plowing.
    â€œThey say that he’s a magician when it comes to healing people,” Josh says. “I met a boy who told me that Dr. Tusten stuck him with a needle full of pox to keep him from dying of the sickness. Doesn’t make sense to me, but I’m just a hat maker.” He looks over at me. “I’m real sorry about your