War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy/Chapter 5
V
ABOUT THE LOVE GAME
THEN Dave wrote, again, that he must join the army down there—or come home—or at least get out of Virginia. They were lynching Union men whenever they were not otherwise busy, which, thank heaven, was not often. All that saved him was that they didn't know whether he was Union or rebel—he didn't himself. He wanted to know that—strictly confidential. If he was Union, he'd skedaddle. If he wasn't, he'd join something down there. There was no school no more, anyhow. The president of the college was a colonel in the Fairfax Cavalry, and the chaplain was an independent guerrilla captain. He ended by asking who wrote our letter at the beginning and who else at the end, and who slopped water on it, and why did it smell like the flowers in the three-cornered pasture.
When I read that last I saw Evelyn catch her breath, and I asked her, very kind this time, to write back a large no. That his place was taken and his room was filled—with that perfume that he liked. There wasn't a hole or corner for him, except, maybe, the haymow, with Wasser, and so, he got to stay down there, and learn!—and let 'em guess whether he was Union or rebel.
Evelyn didn't want to write that, either, remembering my scolding, maybe, but cried a little again, though meek and humble now. Nothing about the murderer of her father; and she kissed me.
"Daddy, I'll go away and make room for Dave," she said. "I ought to, I am a rebel. I can't help it."
But I kissed her and said that we liked her as much as Dave, and that she couldn't go. That we loved her—loved her just for herself—which was good enough excuse for any one!—and not because we wanted to keep Dave down among the Johnny Rebs. He went there to learn and he must. And she might be as much of a rebel as she liked. There was plenty of 'em about, and nobody was getting hurt yet—much.
It was really so, that we loved her—and most as much as Dave. Personally, I don't remember ever seeing a prettier girl than Evelyn. I don't think any one around here ever did. Our girls are different: mostly fat and with taffy hair and blue eyes. But Evelyn had eyes like the shady twin-springs in the Poison Woods—where you can see mysterious things you don't understand and big and round—a good deal like a little cow-calf. Unshuldich, the Germans call 'em. And her hair was black—actually black—with no shine to it—and never would lay straight, just clung close about her face, careless, like pictures I've seen, but never on a real person. And her face it was kind of pale and glorious and high born, with red spots in the cheeks which spread all over her face, and sometimes her neck and breast, when she was surprised or happy. And it was serious, mostly, like she didn't understand a joke. But when she did smile and open her red lips on her white teeth—well, that was about the sweetest soprize I've ever seen—like the clouds had parted and the sun was shining through.
Her sadness, of course, was mostly about her mother and her father—as she always called Henry. She had an idea that the Unions at Sumter had deliberately murdered him, and when she thought of that, all the loveliness seemed to go out of her, and she became hard and could do unkind things. I always knew when she was thinking of this, by the way her eyes glittered, and then there was no red in her cheeks. When she began to think of her father's murder, as she called it, I always got out of the way. I don't like trouble. I'm always for peace. Anyhow, if she was left alone, she always repented and was extra nice to us.
But, mostly, she was kind and gentle, and—like her mother, she said. Tall and easy of motion. She had a picture of her mother and they was just about the same at her age, so I didn't blame Henry so much, no more, for his:
"Ich liebe,
Du liebst,
Wir lieben—"
and so on. I was old enough to have sense, but I use' to think that such a woman as Evelyn's mother looked like could have made me do something foolish—maybe.
Well, she soon had us that we'd have fallen down and worshiped her, I expect—when she was gentle—even the cattle in the barnyard. But Jon was the worst of all. Right from the start he was witchcrafted, hands and feet, like a nigger slave. I never saw anything so quick. Both of them were rather solemn and didn't talk much. But, Jon's blue eyes weren't so slow saying things to her dark ones, and his voice, when he read German to her, out of books, wasn't far behind hers. And when he sung to her, with the guitar, German songs, like Blau ist ein Blümelein, I just didn't know my son no more! It was a kind of language without words.
Jon, he was entirely different from the rest of the freundschaft, anyhow. I never could understand him myself—which was his daddy. Now, you could read Dave like a book, through and through. It was wonderful, the difference between those two brothers.
And, handsome—Jon! With long careless yellow hair that he use' to shake out of his eyes, and a couple, or so, of little whiskers hiding out on his face.
The first I knew what was actually up, was one day Evelyn brought the dinner to the field. We were reaping with sickles in the New-Bought-Field, me and Jon and the hireland, because the rye was too much lodged to take the machine in. Yet the rye was good, and we needed it for roasting to make coffee. Real coffee had gone up to a dollar a pound.
I didn't know Evelyn was about at all till Jon dropped his sickle and run 'way 'cross the field and got her off the fence where she was sticking fast, with the jug and the basket to manage, and scared of a couple of harmless cows a-watching what she was going to do about it.
Jonathan carried the jug and the basket to the old shellbark tree and looked like he was crazy to carry her, too. She had no umbrell' and he held his big straw hat over her head to keep the sun off. She looked like a glowing red flower. But I expect old Jonthy had no idea how fine he looked in his shining bare head, with the sun on it.
"Now, that's strange!" thinks I, to myself, "that Jon should notice once that a woman had a fence to climb. He used to laugh at them when cows got after them. And it has to be mighty funny when Jon laughs."
"Jonthy," says I, "how did you know? Was you expecting her?"
"I must have been, daddy," laughs Jonathan back at me.
"Was you expecting him—to rescue you from the fearful cows?" I also asked of Evelyn.
"I must have been, daddy," says she, exactly like Jon, and smiles that smile I have been telling you about—white teeth, red lips and love by the bushel!
"And neither didn't know the other was coming?"
They both said no.
"One of those—"
"Coincidences," says they both at once.
Evelyn was leaning up against the old shellbark tree and swinging Betsy's Sunday sunbonnet, which she'd borrowed of the cook, by the strings, right into Jon's face, and both was laughing. Now, what do you think of that for two such solemns! But it looked nice—very nice. Behind Evelyn was the big black tree, and behind that, yet, the yellow wheat pitching about, under the wind, like the waves of the ocean—at least I expect so, though I have never seen the ocean—and I don't suppose it's yellow—and for a background, the blue old sky with little sugar-loaf clouds like they might fall on us. It looked like that picture in the old red Bible, of Ruth reaping—if Evelyn had just had a sickle yet, and shorter clothes. But handsomer than Ruth, enough sight. One of Ruth's eyes wasn't printed right. And, anyhow, Evelyn's eyes couldn't be printed.
Old Jon, with his smile and yellow hair and whiskers just fitting into the color plan of the wheat, wasn't so very far out of the picture, neither. And, I expect, if some one else was telling this he might say that me and the hireland was somewhere near the frame.
"Daddy," says Evelyn, "if I can get work here I'll work!"
Just in fun. She couldn't work. Such hands as she had on the ends of her arms are for ornament, not work.
"Yes," says I, "you can. We're just one hand short. You can take Dave's place. Get his old rusty sickle and sharpen it up, and we'll throw him out of the family in exchange for you and let him join the rebels if he's so crazy to. To all intents and purposes, as aforesaid, as Squire Schwartz says, you are my son Dave, and my son Dave is disowned—" just in fun, as you can see. Dave never worked.
We all laughed a little, not hard, and Jon, he says, with a look at Evelyn:
"She can easy take Dave's sickle. He was never much of a hand with the sickle—but—"
"But not his place in your hearts!" breaks in Evelyn, turning rebel, "I've never crossed the door-sill of your affections. I'm an outsider. A poor relation! I'd be a servant—save that I don't work. I wish there were a place where I could earn my living. But I haven't been taught anything. How can I? Some day I'll offend you by my rebel sentiments and you'll turn me out. And if no one else does it, Dave will do it when he comes! I haven't been afraid of you and Jon, but I am afraid of him! The immaculate and wonderful Dave! Hah! And to think that I have his room! Sleep in his bed! My enemy! I hate him! Yes, before I have ever seen him I hate him! But I'll be as much of a rebel as I like though I die for it."
She pounded her breast till I was afraid she'd hurt herself, and I went and held her hands.
"Kushy! kushy!" says I, "be a rebel as much as you like. It's a free country. It won't make no other rebels around here; they're all made already; or set the Swamp Creek afire—it won't burn. But don't you hate Dave. That's a fight word. And you'll have old Wasser eating you up, the bees stinging you and the fish biting you if you do. Besides, what's the use in saying it? You can't. No one ever could. Dave was made to be loved and every one obeys nature and does it. Join in."
While I was speaking Jon came up and took one of her hands—in fact the whole arm, and says:
"Little sister, daddy is right. No one on earth ever hated Dave, or could hate him. Nor was anything on earth ever even afraid of him. Even the stinging bees on the farm love him. You will, too, the moment you see him. I prophesy that. You've taken nothing of little Dave's but what he'd give you—a hundred fold! If any one asked for his head—"
"Dave would cut it off and hand it over with a polite bow!" says I—just in fun, as you can see.
"Is he little, Jonthy?" asks Evelyn, suddenly forgetting to be a rebel and all about the hate and fear. "If he's small enough for me to take on my lap—"
I nearly exploded. And even Jon had to stuff his fist in his mouth.
"I'm afraid," says Jon, "you couldn't take him on your lap, handy. We used to call him little when he was a baby, and it's sort of stuck to him—I don't know why. He's about as big as I am, by now, I expect."
"Oh!" says Evelyn.
"Do you think you could take old Jonthy on your lap, handy?" says I—in fun, of course.
"Daddy!" says Jon.
"Excuse me!" says I. "I meant in several pieces."
"In one way I'm glad about that," says Evelyn. "I don't like little people. Maybe, if Dave's as tall and handsome as you, Jon, I won't exactly hate him. I may like him a little."
"The easiest job you ever undertook!" says Jon, blushing a little about that "handsome" business.
"No, it will not be easy," insists Evelyn. "It will take all my power of will. And who will explain me? He doesn't seem ever to have heard of me."
"You will explain yourself—just a look at you!" says Jon. "But, I will tell Dave a few things. Dave and me are very good friends."
"He can't be as dear and sweet as you, Jonthy!" she says, leaning up against old Jonathan.
And Jon, when she done that, the holiness came into his face. I might as well have been a thousand miles away. Jon was in a country where I couldn't follow.
But I don't let no one lose me that way. So I broke in:
"How did you get here, anyhow, Evelyn,—without being injured? You are afraid of cows, and you can't climb no fences. And the fields are full of man-eating rabbits! How did you get here whole?"
"With these," she answers, holding on to Jon more yet, and sticking out a foot that wasn't made for stubbles. "And I am not afraid of anything, and I can climb fences, when my good knight is near."
Meaning Jon!
"U-hu!" say I, "he looks like good morning, by the smile, ever since you came!"
"Then I'll bring the dinner every day! It's good to smile!"
"Then Jon will have a chronic open face before the summer is over," says I—just in fun—"and be no use with tools!"
She was different, that day, and better than I'd ever seen her. Bitter and sweet. Gentle and savage. Now she was glowing. A little while ago she was a thunder-storm. I don't know why men like that kind of women. Jon had no learning about them. But he fell the same as they who had. Like brother Henry—me, if I'd had the chance.
Apple-jack always makes me sleepy. So the hireland and me laid down behind the shellbark tree to take a nap. Jon he laid down on the grass at Evelyn's feet and read poetry to her out of a German book he had in his pocket.
It was about an old man in Germany who sold his soul to the Old Boy so's he could be made young and love a girl he knew. They talked a good deal about it—Evelyn contending there were no such men nowadays, old Goliath, as we sometimes called Jonthy, telling her that the world was just full of 'em. I expect Jonthy was trifling with the truth a little about that. Anyhow, I never heard about any of 'em being willing to give up their souls for a little while with a woman. Most of 'em won't even give up smoking and drinking for 'em. An' the way they bother 'em after they get 'em makes me think that Jon either didn't know all the news or was fooling Evelyn a little.
Jonathan just let himself go deeper and deeper—didn't try to beat the love game. Evelyn didn't seem to notice it, and Jon had no idea that it mightn't be all right with her. My, how it changed him! But, love does that to a fellow. It done it to me once. That's how I learned to wear a stovepipe hat! Jon, he wore paper collars on Sundays, and put smelly things on his hair, which Evelyn made him quit, and went to town once and got a shave. Evelyn was also disappointed in the shave. So Jon blushed and says he'll never do it again and he didn't.
"Fortunately, you didn t get your hair cut," says Evelyn. "All it needs, now and then, is a little trimming. And I'll do that—if you'll let me. I use' to do it for father."
Well, once a day wouldn't have been too often for Jonthy to have Evelyn get the scissors and her fingers in his hair, after she begun it! But she wouldn't do it more'n once a month—on the first—which she said was too often, but, on account of being forced, she would do it that much. Jon never let the day pass by! He'd bring her the scissors, the comb and a towel for her to pin around him—My, my! When she'd pin that towel her arms had to go round him! She was standing behind. Once he kissed her both hands when they was under his chin. Evelyn laughed. But Jon was white as the towel. Then he got red. He stayed that color.
Those hair-cuts! Jon's head looked like the places where Shalom used to eat grass, in the meadows. Shalom was a lazy and luxurious sort of a cow, so she'd eat in the shade of a tree—sometimes laying down. And, some places, where the grass was extra sweet, she'd eat till the ground stuck out. Others, where timothy grew instead of clover, she'd let alone, or just eat off the heads of the timothy. You know how stubbly that looks! Then she'd lay down on it all and go to sleep. Well—that's Jon's head. Real cow-licks!
But Jon wouldn't have had it different no sooner than old Shalom. I think he loved the spots best where Evelyn absent-mindedly cut down to the skin. And if she happened to take a piece of that—all the better for Jon, somehow. It's a wonderful game—love!