War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy/Chapter 1
WAR
I
WHEN DAVID AND JONATHAN FISHED
MY oldest boy's name was Jonathan, and the youngest David—though they weren't called that anywhere but in the family Bible—just Jon and Dave. Except when people got the Bible and the boys mixed up and called them David and Jonathan—sometimes David and Goliath!
Jon was the oldest and Dave the youngest and there was four years between. Jon didn't seem to care much for anybody else after Dave was born, and Dave never inquired if he had any parents as long as Jon took charge of him. Well—I have to acknowledge that Jon made a better daddy to Dave than I did. Dave's mother died when he was born and I took it hard. Didn't notice, like I ought, what was going on. But Jonathan took entire charge of Dave. He'd carry the little chap, before he yet could walk, a couple of miles on his back and fix him fast in the fork of a tree while he fished. And when they got home he'd swear that Dave had caught all the fish. And they'd all have to be cooked—minnies just an inch long, sometimes!—which always made a fuss between Jon and Betsy, the cook.
Yes, Jon was a good fisherman, and a good boss. He always got his way. But it was by gentleness. He used to preach to me, his own daddy, when he got older, about gentleness being stronger than anger, because, I suppose, I used to break glass when I got mad.
Only one ever got away with Jon's gentleness by kicking, and that was little Dave. Why, when he grew old enough to fish himself, he never caught a thing and he ruined Jon's reputation as a fisherman. He couldn't keep quiet a minute! He'd sing songs and tumble summersets and scare the fish away and get tangled in the lines—sometimes come home crying with the hooks in him. Jon used to call him the King. But I called him Parliament. I expect he was both.
Always, on the farm, one went to college to learn and the rest stayed at home to work—if there was more than one son in the family, as there always was. So it was since seventeen hundred and ten—when we first got the farm—so it was with my brother Henry, Evelyn's stepfather and me, and so it had to be with my sons Jonathan and David. Germans like to obey the ways of their ancestors from generation to generation.
It was decided by lot, and begun way back when they used to leave everything to the Lord. Mostly, they'd put a hoe and a Bible on the floor and let us boy-babies crawl for 'em. If we took the hoe we were to be farmers. If we took the Bible we were to be students. The Bible was nice red morocco and gold, and the hoe was kept bright and shiny, and both had come straight down from the ancestor who got the farm in seventeen-ten.
The first born had always the first choice, and so, when it was between my brother Henry and me, I crawled and took the hoe—which, I seem to remember, looked so nice and shiny. I'm fond of shiny things now, yet. Of course, Henry had to take the red Bible, there wasn't anything else. That's how it come that I stayed at home, which was literary, I expect, and Henry went to Virginia, to college, which never liked four walls about him. Anyhow, he learned nothing the first year except
"Ich liebe,
Du liebst,
Wir lieben—"
and the second year was married to Evelyn's mother already, a widow with a child! which he met when his class went on its annual tramp from Virginia to Tennessee. He never even came home—he was so in love with Evelyn's mother—but went and lived in Tennessee, because she wanted him to, with niggers and a plantation, and spent more money breeding funny horses than my daddy and me could squeeze out of the old farm to keep him—including chickens, butter, eggs, and milk.
My Jon and his Uncle Henry were both born in the Unter Gehenda, that is the undergoing of the moon, which is a bad time to be born, and sad and gloomy and unlucky. But Dave and me was born in the Über Gehenda, the over-going of the moon, which is happy and joyous. So, you can see how the signs fool us sometimes.
When it came to deciding which was to go to college of my two boys, Jon, of course, being the oldest, crawled first and took the shiny hoe, like me, because it was shiny, I expect, and Dave was not only satisfied with the red Bible, but chewed the edges till he got colic. But the signs were no more right with Jon and Dave than they had been with Henry and me. Dave didn't care anything about college when he grew up, and Jon took all the learning he could gether up—mostly by himself in fence corners—and wanted more.
Even when he minded the cows I used to see him sit under the trees and books come out of his pocket and his nose go into 'em forgetful.
That's how we came to lose Shalom—she was a cow. While Jon's nose was in a book Shalom's nose was fooling with a blast Swartz's men had set in the quarry, which went off before she stopped. Jon was sorry for Shalom and got the pieces and gave them decent burial and put up a wooden tombstone. She was the only cow living which ever came to misfortune through Jon. And it always worried him. He was crazy about not killing things. He used to say that only One could take life: Him that gave it. He wouldn't kill a fly. And that used to aggravate me. For they were mighty plenty on the old farm. Sometimes he'd catch a handful and put 'em out of doors—but the rest stayed with us—on account of Jonthy.
Of course, when he grew up more, he minded his farming business more. But it wasn't as easy as sleeping in church. He had to keep a memorandum-book with the hour for each part of the day's work. Though he had a good eye and a good hand when he got at it! No one in the township could drive a straighter furrow! And he could cradle a ten-acre field of wheat without dropping a dozen heads—and so the stubbles looked like yellow plush afterward—so nice and even! He never neglected anything—after the death of Shalom—by the help of the memorandum-book.
To think about Dave having a memorandum-book, or bothering with "duty" makes me laugh now!
Maybe his chewing that red Bible had something to do with it. For he always liked red things—color—warmth—snap. It was all joy with Dave. Fishing—swimming—fighting black-head bumble-bees—making uncomfortable "harness" for the dog Wasser—and so on. Why, he drove the poor old dog away from home, pestering him with his wagons and harnesses. Jon was scared stiff. He thought now Dave had a death on his conscience, like he had, about Shalom. He had an idea that no one could live without Dave, and that, therefore, Wasser had committed suicide—maybe, by drowning. He looks all over for the dog for three days, and Dave doesn't bother his head about him.
Then, when Jon was half crazy, Dave goes off and finds Wasser in five minutes—hiding in the haymow where he could see Dave without danger. I don't know how Dave knew it, or Wasser got there, but he went straight to the spot.
Then he brings Wasser home on his shoulder, both as pleased as a bride and groom, and licking each other!
And, that's Dave for you! Never bothering till some one was about crazy, and then bothering a lot—and fixing things all in a minute. Honest, he fooled the bumble-bees that way. They stopped coming on the farm—Dave worried 'em so and that's bad luck for a farm—till Dave stole some wild honey one night, in the dark of the moon, and built a nest for them in the clover. Then they came back and Dave forgot it.
Till one stung him one day—one that rembered him, I expect—and he caught him and took his stinger away and put him back in the nest. That bee must have told the others. For none of them ever bothered any of us after that, and they and Dave were like brothers. And old Wasser, after that love feast, he used to get in Dave's way just to get pushed out.
People called him a shustle—yet they always had to laugh when they said it, because Dave had a kind of way that made them like him—and Germans think they have no business to like shustles! Everything was fun—yes. But everybody likes fun. And it was mighty nice on the old farm to have little Dave always so gay and happy. And he wasn't selfish about it—not a bit of it! He d give up about any kind of fun to be with Jon—running and tumbling after him in the furrow behind the plow. Never working, of course. No one expected that of Dave. He was to go to college.
Maybe you think that Jon crammed his head so full of knowledge just to have it on hand! Not at all. It was just to get Dave ready for college. Well, Dave passed all his entering examinations like a breeze. Nobody on earth but Jon would have been able to get enough into Dave to pass 'em.