War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy/Chapter 2
II
WHAT THE TENTH SHELL AT SUMTER CAUSED
HENRY, my brother, was one of the men who was helping to worry Major Anderson and starve him out of Fort Sumter in 1861. He was a regular Southerner by that time. And when they found that Anderson wouldn't go, poor Henry was one of them that built the batteries on Sullivan's Island. I know just how that sort of work suited him! I bet he was always right out front. But after the tenth shell from Sumter, they sent Henry to his home in a pine box, and when it came there was no one to receive it but the girl Evelyn. Her mother had dropped dead with the despatch! She loved our Henry so much! Evelyn telegraphs the news of the death with her last money and that she has no parents nor money nor home now and what shall she do. I answers right away that I'm coming to get her, because she's ours now. But at Memphis they turned me back unless I'd take the oath of allegiance to a lot of foolish things, and if I waited long they'd, maybe, put me in jail, for safe-keeping, or improve my appearance with chicken feathers. Well, I helped to tar and feather a fellow once—Elick Schnatz. He didn't make much trouble, only asked several times to be excused. He was such a perfect gentleman about it that I tried to get him excused. But the boys said he was worthless and they hadn't had any fun for some time. However, they said, on account of me, they wouldn't put any tar in his hair. And Schnatz he thanked me for that.
"Because," he says, "I don't know as there's any kind of soap'll take tar out of hair without taking the hair out—and I'm fond of my hair. If you are ever tar-and-feathered, Vonner, I'll try and get your hair excused for you, anyhow," says he.
But Schnatz wasn't in Memphis at that time, and, anyhow, I don't think he could have even got my hair excused from the fellows I saw there. They hadn't had any fun, either, to judge from the way they enjoyed the war, for a long time, and they were bound to get all they could out of this one. They didn't like me calling it "var"; and tried to make me say "wah", and I didn't like their calling it "wah," and wouldn't say it. I didn't make friends by that, and so I got my notice one night to let the committee know who and what I was and what my business was by the next morning. Well, the walking was fair, and the night was dark. I didn't know the way, but I could see the north star.
I didn't wait. But I sent Jim Rasly, a nigger, who was as Union as I, but who had the right words and the right color and was able to say "wah" easy, and he brought Evelyn to the old place. My, but I was surprised to find that she wasn't a baby, but a tall young lady of seventeen, and looking more! You see, I'd forgot about time running one way while I was running the other! We gave her Dave's room because Dave had no use for it. He was at college in Virginia, where the red Bible had sent him.
Well, Evelyn gave us a good many soprizes, at least one a day—while they lasted. But, the first and, maybe, the biggest was her affection for our Henry—being only her stepdaddy. But, she'd never been acquainted with her real father, because he died before she was born, and she was always crazy, from a baby up, for a daddy "like other little girls." So, when Henry came along and said he'd be her daddy—well, though she was a pretty big girl by that time she was just as crazy for one—maybe more so—and you can believe that Henry didn't disappoint her! I expect they was a good bit like her and Dave. Just the best friends. Anyhow, we soon found out she's crazy about Henry, as a father, and mighty mad at the Unions for killing him. She used to get so worked up when she'd talk about it, that we kept on reminding her that he wasn't her real father, only her stepfather, until she turns the vials of her wrath on us all one day and asks us if she's the only one in this house who loves him! Of course we both answers that we adores him as much as she does. But she snaps out that we don't act like it and goes off to bed—coming to breakfast the next morning with red eyes, kissing us, and asking us to forgive her, and saying that, of course, we loved Henry as much as she did—more! For, no one could know him as long as we had known him without being willing to die for him! And to forgive her if we can.
Jon and I looks sheepish at each other, for, though we did love Henry all we could, which was a good deal, we had never thought about dying for him.
After breakfast Jon says:
"Remember she's from the South, daddy, and loves and hates harder than we do."