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Rab
Dove is the oldest apprentice in Mr. Lapham’s shop. However, because he’s lazy and not particularly intelligent, he’s not very good at working silver—and Johnny is extremely cruel to both Dove and Dusty because of these perceived slights. Dove, wanting to punish Johnny for being so mean, purposefully gives Johnny a broken crucible in which to melt silver. When Johnny uses the crucible to attempt to finish Mr. Hancock’s sugar basin on a Sunday, he burns and severely disfigures his hand. Johnny vows to get revenge on Dove when he gets the chance. However, though Johnny never finds that he likes Dove, he does discover that he feels sorry for the boy. After Mr. Tweedie fires him, Dove begins working for Colonel Smith as a horse boy. Once again, Dove is terrible at his job and extremely lazy. The other grooms, who are from England, beat him up and are mean to him (despite Dove genuinely supporting the Tories), so Johnny begins protecting him. Rab encourages Johnny to stay on good terms with Dove, as Dove has no discretion and regularly passes along British military secrets (which he usually doesn’t realize are secrets). Dove also participates in the Boston Tea Party, though he greedily tries to steal tea, and Rab tosses him overboard for this infraction.
Dove Quotes in Johnny Tremain
The Johnny Tremain quotes below are all either spoken by Dove or refer to Dove. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 1
Quotes
Fetching water, sweeping, helping in the kitchen, tending the annealing furnace in the shop were the unskilled work the boys did. Already Johnny was so useful at the bench he could never be spared for such labor. It was over a year since he had carried charcoal or a bucket of water, touched a broom or helped Mrs. Lapham brew ale. His ability made him semi-sacred. He knew his power and reveled in it. He could have easily made friends with stupid Dove, for Dove was lonely and admired Johnny as well as envied him. Johnny preferred to bully him.
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Explanation and Analysis:
He sat at his own bench, before him the innumerable tools of his trade. The tools fitted into his strong, thin hands: his hands fitted the tools. Mr. Lapham was always telling him to give God thanks who had seen fit to make him so good an artisan—not to take it out in lording it over the other boys. That was one of the things Johnny ‘did not let bother him much.’
Chapter 2
Quotes
This was Johnny’s world, but now he walked through it an alien. They knew what had happened. They did not envy Johnny’s idleness. He saw one nudge another. They were whispering about him—daring to pity him. Dicer’s master, the herring-pickler, yelled some kind remark to him, but Johnny did not answer. Seemingly in one month he had become a stranger, an outcast on Hancock’s Wharf. He was maimed and they were whole.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7
Quotes
Even Mrs. Lapham now did not seem so bad. Poor woman, how she had struggled and worked for that good, plentiful food, the clean shirts her boys had worn, the scrubbed floors, polished brass! No, she had never been the ogress he had thought her a year ago. There never had been a single day when she had not been the first up in the morning. He, like a child, had thought this was because she liked to get up. Now he realized that there must have been many a day when she was as anxious to lie abed as Dove himself.
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Dove Quotes in Johnny Tremain
The Johnny Tremain quotes below are all either spoken by Dove or refer to Dove. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 1
Quotes
Fetching water, sweeping, helping in the kitchen, tending the annealing furnace in the shop were the unskilled work the boys did. Already Johnny was so useful at the bench he could never be spared for such labor. It was over a year since he had carried charcoal or a bucket of water, touched a broom or helped Mrs. Lapham brew ale. His ability made him semi-sacred. He knew his power and reveled in it. He could have easily made friends with stupid Dove, for Dove was lonely and admired Johnny as well as envied him. Johnny preferred to bully him.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
He sat at his own bench, before him the innumerable tools of his trade. The tools fitted into his strong, thin hands: his hands fitted the tools. Mr. Lapham was always telling him to give God thanks who had seen fit to make him so good an artisan—not to take it out in lording it over the other boys. That was one of the things Johnny ‘did not let bother him much.’
Chapter 2
Quotes
This was Johnny’s world, but now he walked through it an alien. They knew what had happened. They did not envy Johnny’s idleness. He saw one nudge another. They were whispering about him—daring to pity him. Dicer’s master, the herring-pickler, yelled some kind remark to him, but Johnny did not answer. Seemingly in one month he had become a stranger, an outcast on Hancock’s Wharf. He was maimed and they were whole.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7
Quotes
Even Mrs. Lapham now did not seem so bad. Poor woman, how she had struggled and worked for that good, plentiful food, the clean shirts her boys had worn, the scrubbed floors, polished brass! No, she had never been the ogress he had thought her a year ago. There never had been a single day when she had not been the first up in the morning. He, like a child, had thought this was because she liked to get up. Now he realized that there must have been many a day when she was as anxious to lie abed as Dove himself.
