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Gran’ Hopper
Pumpkin is a British private whom Johnny tries to help desert. Pumpkin is sympathetic to the Patriot cause and wants only to raise cows, so he’s thrilled when Johnny offers to help him sneak out of Boston in disguise in exchange for his musket. However, the British catch Pumpkin and execute him for desertion two weeks later. Johnny thinks it’s awful that the British execute Pumpkin simply for wanting to lead a simple life as a farmer.
Pumpkin Quotes in Johnny Tremain
The Johnny Tremain quotes below are all either spoken by Pumpkin or refer to Pumpkin. 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 9
Quotes
He took one of [the smocks] from his sea chest in the attic. It was a fine light blue. He had never noticed before how beautiful was the stitching, and it hurt him to think he had been too proud to wear them, for now he was old enough to appreciate the love that had gone into their making. How little his mother had known of the working world to make smocks for a boy who she knew was to become a silversmith! She hadn’t known anything, really, of day labor, the life of apprentices. She had been frail, cast off, sick, and yet she had fought up to the very end for something. That something was himself, and he felt humbled and ashamed.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Johnny put his hands to his face. It was wet and his hands were shaking. He thought of that blue smock his mother had made him, now torn by bullets. Pumpkin had wanted so little out of life. A farm. Cows. True, Rab had got the musket he craved, but Pumpkin wasn’t going to get his farm. Nothing more than a few feet by a few feet at the foot of Boston Common. That much Yankee land he’d hold to Judgement Day.
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Pumpkin Quotes in Johnny Tremain
The Johnny Tremain quotes below are all either spoken by Pumpkin or refer to Pumpkin. 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 9
Quotes
He took one of [the smocks] from his sea chest in the attic. It was a fine light blue. He had never noticed before how beautiful was the stitching, and it hurt him to think he had been too proud to wear them, for now he was old enough to appreciate the love that had gone into their making. How little his mother had known of the working world to make smocks for a boy who she knew was to become a silversmith! She hadn’t known anything, really, of day labor, the life of apprentices. She had been frail, cast off, sick, and yet she had fought up to the very end for something. That something was himself, and he felt humbled and ashamed.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Johnny put his hands to his face. It was wet and his hands were shaking. He thought of that blue smock his mother had made him, now torn by bullets. Pumpkin had wanted so little out of life. A farm. Cows. True, Rab had got the musket he craved, but Pumpkin wasn’t going to get his farm. Nothing more than a few feet by a few feet at the foot of Boston Common. That much Yankee land he’d hold to Judgement Day.
