How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #4
He spent his time exercising his horse, unless he got an order to ride express for the Afric Queen, in learning to write with his left hand, and an orgy of reading. Mr. Lorne had a fine library. It was as if Johnny had been starved before and never known it. He read anything—everything. […] It was a world of which he had never guessed while living with the Laphams, and now he remembered with gratitude how his mother had struggled to teach him so that this world might not be forever closed to him. How she had made him read to her, when he would rather have been playing. Poor woman! Her books had been few and mostly dull. (5.2.33)
Johnny is a pretty smart dude. What are some reasons he might have been unaware of the joys of reading when he lived with the Laphams? Why has he only now begun to care about reading?
Quote #5
On Sundays the boys might relax a little, breakfast when they pleased, only they must turn up clean and shining in time to go to church with Aunt and Uncle and listen to the inflammatory Reverend Sam Cooper. Doctor Cooper was putting more politics than gospel into his sermons that fall and more fear of "taxation without representation" than God into his congregation. (6.1.1)
This is one of only a few points in the book where speeches are directly addressed. We don't hear much directly about religious life in the novel, but we do get the sense that certain churches have different political views than other churches, and that comes out in the sermons. How might the sermons at Mr. Lapham's church differ from those at the Lornes's church?
Quote #6
"Look you, Johnny. I know it's Lord's Day, but there's a placard I must have printed and posted secretly tonight. The Sons of Liberty will take care of the posting, but Mr. Lorne must see to the printing. Could you run across and ask him to step over? And Rab—where's he?"
[…]
When Johnny got back with Mr. Lorne, Rab had Mr. Adams's text in his hands, reading it as a printer reads, thinking first of spacing and capitals, not of the meaning.
"I can set that in no time. Two hundred copies? They'll be fairly dry by nightfall."
"Ah, Mr. Lorne," said Adams, shaking hands, "without you printers the cause of liberty would be lost forever." (6.1.8, 16-18)
Interesting thought: Sam Adams shows up on Sunday and asks the people at the Boston Observer to Sabbath break and nobody bats an eye. How does this differ from Johnny's earlier experience with Sabbath breaking the day of his accident? Why does Adams give so much credit to printers?