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...