War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy/Chapter 18
XVIII
WHAT IS GREATER THAN PATRIOTISM?
JON and me were sitting on the front porch there, in our shirt-sleeves, one night, and Dave and Evelyn were out under the plum trees yonder, when the brass cornet band came along playing, "We Are Coming, Father Abraham, Three Hundred Thousand Strong." And there was a procession, with a banner telling that there was to be a meeting in town that night to raise a company of Union soldiers.
After the band had passed we sat still a long time. Jon was looking straight ahead and we could hear the voices of Dave and Evelyn. Mostly it was only the murmuring of two people in love. But now and then Dave's laugh would break out, and then Evelyn's—different, nicer—would join. At last we could hear Dave singing that:
"Du hast das Herze mein,
So ganz genommen ein—"
After a while Evelyn joined, like she was saying the same thing. Jon turned and looked that way, just once. It was the same song he had sung to her—but different. Dave made it gay. And Evelyn was joining in. I saw his face. He was trying to smile at their happiness, but his own suffering came through—and there it was: joy and sorrow in one smile. And on such a face as Jon's—which told everything!
Said I, to take him away from it:
"Now the coal-oil torches those boys carried for the band has spoiled the air. Suppose we go in, Jonthy?"
But Jon didn't move. I think he didn't hear me. Finally he said:
"They were right!"
"Who," says I, "who was right?"
"The Union soldiers. Everybody but us. One of us ought to go. One of us must. Then the others won't have to. It's hard, but necessary. There's not a family in Maryland with three men left in it. No wonder they suspect us. I don't see how we've escaped the draft."
"Not on your life!" says I, very savage. "I want my boys in one piece and all together in the same place—in case of fire in the chimley. You know I couldn't put it out myself, beause it's hard enough, sometimes, for all of us. And just think of Betsy as a fireman!"
"And," says Jon, never noticing how funny that was, "the right one has got to go."
"Who do you think is the right one?" asks I.
"I am," nods Jon.
Well, when Jon decided to do a thing, there was no use trying to stop him. The best was to go along and persuade him.
He got up and put on his coat.
"Well," I says, to humor him, "suppose we go and see what fools they make of themselves, enlisting to get shot. That's one way to not get a Union company up. Why don't they come around with a secret subscription paper! Nobody's going to enlist in a Union company right out in public."
"Come, then," says Jon, hurrying me, as if he had decided it and a load was off his mind.
"All right," says I. "If we can't enlist ourselves, we can whoop it up so's maybe the other fellows'll go. But you can't raise no whole Union company round here for a million dollars."
"Yes, that's necessary, too," says Jon. "Our presence there will do good. Come!"
"But I'll be on hand to discourage you—yes, and lam you, if it goes too far."
"Daddy," smiles Jon, "it will go as far as the front! You don't know the news about here. There's been a change."
"Shall we take the guns?" says I.
"No," says Jon, "we'll only make trouble with 'em and be tempted to shoot. The time is not yet—to shoot."
But we hadn't gone far before a man with a gun steps out in the road and says:
"Halt, Lucas Mallory!"
"There," says I to Jon, "it's war already; that's what comes of not taking our guns along. I could get him easy while he's bothering you."
Jon kind of laughs and points to another man with a gun who was coming to join the first one.
"Neither of us knows Lucas Mallory," says Jon, polite as a dancing master, instead of fighty, like me, "nor is either of us he. I am Mr. Jonathan Vonner. This is my father, Stephen Vonner. Now, may we pass?"
"Oh!" they says, disappointed, looking close. "Wrong one."
"Where are you going?" asks the first one.
"And where's your other reputed son?"
"You're further than usual from home tonight," says the second one, "in a southerly direction."
"None of your business," says I, still fighty. "I've lived here since seventeen-ten—and my ancestors, I'm not that old myself alone—and I don't think I'll ask anybody when I want to go away from my house a little, north, east, south or west, or prove that my sons are my sons. None of your business."
"Yes, daddy," says Jon, in that polite way, "it is some of their business. These men are here for our protection. If you will look closely you will see that they are in the uniform of the United States."
Well, that was so. And they seemed a little less fighty at Jon's great politeness. So I let him do the talking.
"We are going to town to enlist in the Union army," Jon goes on, with the oil all ready for the water, "and my brother Dave is at home. That accounts for all of us."
Well, that flabbergasts 'em still more.
"I should say that one of us is going to enlist," Goliath amends.
"Which one?" asks the first soldier.
"I," answers Jon. "There's a meeting in Excelsior to-night to organize a Union company."
Well, Jon's answers got 'em so that they didn't know what to do. They whispered together a little, then one of 'em says:
"On your word of honor, is that your errand?"
"On my word or honor," says Jon, holding up his right hand.
"We'll know if you don't enlist," says the other soldier.
"Certainly," says Jon.
"However," asks the second one, "your supposed brother Dave doesn't intend to enlist?"
"No," says Jon.
"Why?" asks the soldier.
Jon smiles and says:
"He's got better and more important business on hand."
"Oh!" says one. "He's at home now?"
"Pass," says the other. "Enough."
I heard one say to the other as we went on:
"We ought to know which of the three it is now!"
"Yes," says the other one.
"It must be a secret from these two. They're all right."
"Now, what do you think that means, Jonthy?" says I.
"That the sooner one of us enlists the better. That will take all this watching and threatening and suspicion away. Some of our kind secessionist neighbors are giving us entirely too much attention. And I suppose many things we do innocently add confirmation. Even the night-watching, for purely honest reasons, has probably been the worst thing we could have done. The Union pickets take it for something entirely different. And something disloyal, no doubt—such as protecting the work of the Knights and sympathizers.
As we passed old Jake Kimmelwasser's house, he was sitting on the porch all dressed up in the uniform he had worn in Mexico. He had got a wound in the head at Chapultepec and was crazy. Every time they raised a new company, Union or Confederate, he enlisted and then went home to bed and forgot it. Now he came running out, and, like we—Jon and me—was a whole regiment, he drilled us clear into the town—making us march and countermarch, wheel and oblique—till he fell backward in some mud and had to stop and clean his uniform—of which he was mighty proud.
To me it was foolish. I got mad. But to Jon it was a great lesson. He obeyed every order.
Says he:
"There is a crazy man. And what is it survives in him? Not love, not the recollection of his wife, his children; only the vast patriotism of that day is left. We have laughed because he enlists always. But he might laugh, if he knew, because we never enlist."
"Off in the clouds, Jonthy," says I. "I'm on the earth. Come back. Be merciful to me, a sinner."
"Ah, daddy," laughs Jon, "I am learning something! This enlisting brings it out."
"What? Quick—before it gets away!"
"That there is something greater even than love."
"Well, well! Who'd have thought it? And from sentimental Jon! But I'm glad to hear it. Now, I can sleep of nights once more. What is it?"
"Patriotism!" say Jon.
"Jonthy, it smells like whisky," says I, "when you get among it. You'll see when we reach town."
But after I thought of it, I was glad that Jon had found something to take the place of love—even if he only imagined it.