War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy/Chapter 17
XVII
C. S. A.
SO Jonathan fixed the old flint that she'd go off the first time instead of the tenth, and loaded her with about a pint of buckshot, and one night Jon he watched, the next I did. And the funny thing about it was that no one else in the house knew a thing about it. Except they pestered me about being so sleepy.
Once in a while I came near ending the life of one of the neighbors, but they always took me for what I took them, suspicious, and made sufficient explanations. We use' to pull our hats down so's no one would know us, and talk in a changed voice. Even wore handkerchiefs over the lower part of our faces.
We would go to bed in the usual way, then the one who was to stand watch would sneak up. That was the hard part of it—getting up after going to bed and fooling the sleep with the notion that it was all fixed till morning. Mostly, Jon had to wake me, or there would have been no watch. And often I have to admit Jon was good to me and watched two nights in succession—when he came and heard me snoring so in earnest. I admit I have a big snore.
I had never been about much at night. And snooping now in the light of the moon made honest things look queer, and made me acquainted with many queer things which had looked honest.
The way the lights used to perform in Ben Crider's garret window was a caution. Sometimes it was a regular dance. And there were whistles and horns blowing now and then, and all sorts of creepy shadows and things, and rapid riders.
The fact of the matter is, though I don't like to admit it, I was afraid to be out alone at night. It got me so nervous that I was ready to fire at the bunnies I wakened out of their naps. And if I trod on a twig and it broke, I flew around with my carbine cocked, ready to murder the twig. I began to wish the watching was done with. But these very things showed us the necessity for it.
But the worst of it was that I discovered—and Jon, too, for that matter—that we weren't the only ones out at night with guns, watching. There was a regular ring about the place we couldn't break through. Every now and then some one would challenge us and turn us back. I don't know whether or not they knew us, but we never knew them, and they didn't seem like neighbors. Jon says they know us and are keeping us under watch. He says that one night some one pulled his hat up to see who he was, and seemed disappointed.
"Of course, they all know you, daddy," he laughs.
"Why so?" asks I.
"Because of your language," laughs he again.
"But I never talk."
"Yes," he says, "you talk to yourself."
"Only when there's nobody about," says I.
"Only when you think there's nobody about," laughs Jon. "But, if you want to make sure of that, you got to search all the bushes and things which might hide a man laying down, or up in a tree, within twenty yards of you."
"Now, you don't tell me it's as bad as that, Jonthy?" I says.
Then Jon took the back track—thinking he'd scared me.
"No, no! All we got to do is to be straight Union as we are—all of us!"
"Jonthy," says I, though, "it's a creepy business—watching and being watched like this. Is there anything to stop it?"
Jon hesitates a little, then he says, as if he didn't like to:
"Yes, daddy—enlisting."
"Then, according to that, you don't think it's our neighbors we meet—doing just as we are doing?"
Jonathan hesitates a minute, then he says:
"Yes, yes, daddy, of course. That's all it is. Forget it—and be careful."
Evelyn cried a good deal now, and lost her color. But how she did love Dave! When they met she would just fly at him! And she'd tell him that it would soon be over now—soon be over. Only, instead of feeling almost like a bride, she'd always burst into tears when she said that. At last Jon figured it all out on a grand scale. Dave and Evelyn were both fooling us. What was going on was preparations for a wedding. Evelyn was making her own trousseau.
"Then, some day, all of a sudden, we'll be up against a wedding and the joke will be expected to be on you and me. Be ready to laugh."
"Jon," says I, touching his head, "some one's getting queer. Is it you?"
"Well, daddy," laughs he, happier than any of them about that wedding, "do you expect a girl to work day after day on her trousseau without tears?"
"Of joy, I expect," says I, for a joke.
"For joy," nods Jon, serious. "Why, daddy, a young girl's wedding is the most wonderful thing in her whole life!"
"Mine wasn't. But I suppose you're thinking about the time you were a young girl. And how many times you were married!" says I, for another joke on Jon.
But he laughs and understands, this time, and hugs me so that I thought my ribs were cracked.
"You see, daddy," Jon goes on, "I have known this for a long time, and if you'll come with me I'll show you and prove my faith in my own prophecy."
He drags me behind the barn, where he has a nice little hotbed with some funny flowers in it.
"Well, that's nice and unexpected," says I, "but go on and prove it. These are flowers; that's a wedding. What's the answer? Please tell me."
"There's the answer," laughs old Jon. "Those orchids. They're some of the frailest and rarest flowers in the world and I am raising them for Evelyn's wedding! Orchids. Nothing less would be appropriate. You're not to tell. If they think they are going to surprise us, this will tell them that they haven't succeeded."
We stood there a minute, and the smile faded from old Jonthy's face. Maybe he was thinking of the time before Dave came home.
"Jonthy," says I, "it would be a sin not to believe it. I'll try. Also I'll remember the name: orchids."
And I takes him away from there.
On my watch one night I saw Evelyn about midnight open the window for air. I could see her holding up some sort of garment with gold braid on it. I snooped as near as I could to try and see what it was and then have fun with her about it. No use. But, as I went on my toes, I struck something with my foot and picked it up. It was a brass button. I put it into my pocket.
I had forgotten about it the next day, and pulls it out accidental when Jon and me is together.
"Why, daddy, where did you get that?" yells Jon, taking it from me. "No wonder we're under suspicion!"
It was a brass button with C. S. A. stamped on it.
"Well," says I, "there have been plenty of Confederate soldiers at about the place where I found it, more than once."
"Or," says Jon, "some Union soldier may have sewed it on his coat in place of one with U. S. A. on it. Or, one of them might even have been wearing a Confederate coat. They do such things."
I was looking at it then.
"It's bran' new, Jonthy," says I.
"No," says Jonathan, "not new."
"That's rust—from the wet grass."
"Well," laughs Jonathan, "Old Suspicious, what's the answer?"
"You don't think Evelyn might have dropped it—thrown it away? It was about the time she turned Union. Or, maybe—That's not the spool?"
"No," laughs Jon.
But, then, as usual, it came to him.
"Why, yes, she might have dropped it, poor girl! It may be a souvenir—possibly, only think, daddy, cut from her 'father's coat', and sent to her. She might have thrown it away so as not to hurt our feelings—and be loyal to us!—then repented. Think what a sacrifice! For us and the Union! Of course, she'd be shy of letting us know about repenting the sacrifice, but that doesn't lessen its greatness. And that would explain the other night. Shall we give it to her?"
"Sure!" says I, handing it out to him.
Then, again, after a while, it came right.
"No. Then she'd know we knew her dear little secret. To-night I'll put it back where it was—but so plain in sight she can't miss it. Maybe she's still hunting for it. To-night's my watch."
And nice old Jon told me the next day that she had come down in her nightie and looked for it, and had found it.
"Poor little girl! She was so happy! I'm glad she didn't know we knew. She cried. Her very heart seemed broken."
"But why should her heart seem broke? I asks.
Well—Jon didn't know.