War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy/Chapter 16
XVI
EVELYN'S SPOOL
I DIDN'T want to take the responsibility of watching for that spy, and, maybe, shooting him, myself, so I thought I had better work Jon into it with me, somehow, no matter if I had promised not to tell him. They had no business to ask such a thing.
"Jon," I says, "things are getting so bad around here that we got to arm and look out for the place. When they get to cutting down trees and breaking windows so they can look in it's about time."
"Yes," nods old Jon, "I've been thinking about that myself."
"Then Evelyn turning Union—"
"What!" says he, like an explosion, "what's that?"
"Evelyn's turned Union."
"Who told you?"
"She."
"Yes," says Jon, "that makes her doubly precious."
Well, I didn't mean that.
"Why?" asks I. "No one cares whether she's Union or rebel. No one but us knows what she is. I don't suppose that makes her any more precious, does it, Jonthy?"
"Yes, it does, daddy," says Jon. "She's nearer to us all! What did you mean, daddy?"
"Well," I says, "I kind of thought that having a rebel in the house would keep us on good terms with the Confederates, and keeping loyal ourselves would keep us straight with the Unions. There wasn't much sense in it, because no one knows of her sentiments. Just a kind of a brauch. But I felt that way."
"I suppose it is the very worst way to feel," laughs Jon. "You know what always happens to people who carry water on both shoulders! I don't think that that has had the least thing to do with keeping the secessionists from bothering us. For, as you say, none of them know her politics."
"Anyhow," I goes on, "she'd better stop her long walks alone—and going to town so often."
"Daddy," answers Jon, "who do you think would harm a woman—a girl, in fact!"
"Well," I adds, "I don't want to scare you. But what happened to Annie Shuster—"
"That's so," nods Jon, "that's so, daddy!"
Annie was on an errand to Crider's and some Union soldiers took her for a suspect they had been watching—trying to escape in woman's clothes. I hate to say what they done to her. But they treated her like she was a man. Anyhow, she looked a good deal like a man. That made Jon change his mind.
"Yes," he says. "There's hardly any possibility of Evelyn being taken for a man, she's too feminine. But, yes, we'd better look out a little more. There's no use in taking chances. We'll watch—you and me—night and night. I'll fix up the old flint-lock. It will hold a pint of buckshot."
I was mighty glad for Jon to tumble in like that, thinking it all his own plan.
"Yes," I says. "I'll go to town and get a carbine."
I thought, in that way, to account for the one I had.
Jon kept on planning while we walks toward the kitchen. When we got near, Evelyn poked her head out from the stairway, with a candle in her hand, like she expected to find us all there. But, when she halted and saw that no one was there but Dave, asleep, a cunning kind of look came on her face and she, quick, blew out the candle. In a minute we saw her come out the door on tiptoes and watch about for us. Then she hurried to that place where the spool had dropped and hunted for it in the grass. Some one came along the road. Maybe she thought it was us. She runs on her tiptoes back and through the kitchen, up to her room.
"Jon," I asks, "what do you make of that?"
"She needed her spool," says Jon.
"It was empty," says I.
"Well," laughs Jon, "can't you imagine some use for an empty spool?"
"Not since you made dog-wagons with them," says I, "and, anyhow, there are dozens of them right where she came from."
"But not one of them the right size, I suppose, just as I used to find out when I made the aforesaid dog-wagons of at least three different sizes of spools, sometimes four."