War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy/Chapter 31
XXXI
THE COST—WHO PAYS
AS I have said, I didn't really know what was going on outside. Just a word here and there. When my wits got to work right, afterward, and things happened, I knew it—as I have told it. But then I didn't. It was all a confused mass of words. So, I couldn't quite see why Dave should act so queer—except that we were all in a strained humor that night—nothing was natural.
He was sitting up straight, now, and looking through me. His face was like a ghost, with his eyes wide and burning in the midst of it. It seemed to me that I had never seen anything so awful as my own son just then. Him we thought of only lately as a baby. Little Dave! And as he looked, I felt myself becoming spellbound, as the brauchs do when they witchcraft one. I couldn't open my mouth, nor stir a hand or foot. What do you think of that? And yet it's true.
I think it must have been ten minutes before I shivered and the sweat poured out and the spell broke. But that was, maybe, because Dave had changed his thoughts. That is the way with a brauch.
"What have you heard?" asks Dave, pointing outward. And I hardly knew his voice.
"Just a word here and there," answers I. "I don't know whether it's quarreling or loving or hell. I got to put it together first."
"It's nothing," says Dave, "don't put it together and don't think of it again—nothing—nothing—nothing!"
But he shrieks the last word, and laughs like he's going crazy.
"Dave, what's up?" I asks him. "You sick? Shall I ride for the doctor?"
Still nothing but the white face and the flaming eyes and the hoarse laughter for another ten minutes. We could still hear the two voices outside. But I don't think either of us noticed much what was being said then.
Then Dave let out a long shivering sigh, still sitting up straight, the tears running down the white face. No laughing now. I was glad for the tears!
"Daddy," says he, "you ought have told me that Jon loved Evelyn before I came—you haven't played fair with me, daddy—not any of the three of you."
I tried to lie.
"It wasn't much between them, Davy," says I. "I don't think it amounted to anything—for sure."
"Ah, yes! If I had only stayed away with my habit of taking things that don't belong to me!"
He flung out his hands, in agony, toward the plum trees!
"Poor old Jonthy! Poor old Jonthy! I wouldn't have taken her from you for all the world! I didn't know, Jonthy, I didn't know! I would have cut my own heart out first! The one great thing in your dear life!"
"Kushy, Davy," says I to him, like when he was a baby. "Jon knew you didn't know. And he was glad—glad. She was so lovely that he—well, he wanted you to have her."
"Yes! And so did you—it has been with Evelyn like everything else since I was born. I was to have her. She was for me! No matter who else wanted her or was hurt! And she knew! Daddy, she knew and let me do this to Jon! I wish I could understand that! Do you, do you, daddy?"
"Davy," says I, "although she knew up here, at the head, like all women know when a man's foolish about her, especially when the man has told them, yet she didn't know it down here, at the heart. There was too little of it, especially after you came, when immediately she didn't know anything but you down below. That's it. And it was just as too late then as now. If she had told you, you would have gone away from her. And she loved you. Can you blame her? It was too late after the first minute!"
"But you knew, daddy, dear, and let it go on day by day! Ah, you have the same excuse. But Jon! What must Jon think of me! Of course he wouldn't tell!"
I shook Dave until he listened.
"How often must I tell you," I yells, "that we all knew that you didn't know!"
"And was I too worthless to be protected against myself, daddy?"
"I don't understand that," I said.
"Ah, well," says Dave, "no matter that. It is the smallest part—me. But the cost! That must be looked after. Who pays? The cost—the cost! Am I to take her and let Jon pay the price?"
We just stared at each other for a long while.
"Daddy," yells Dave, "answer. Am I to take the woman and let Jon pay her price; do what she demands?" He points out to them.
"I don't know what you mean, Davy," says I, as kind as possible. "Of course, you got the woman and you've got to pay—whatever there is to pay. I don't know what it is."
"Yes!" says Dave, "I have got to pay! I took the goods—no matter that I got them like a thief in the night—I have got to pay for the stolen goods! By the Lord, I will!"
Then, after a good while, he changed back to the old way.
"Daddy," he says, very soft, "I've not been a good son to you. No, no, no! There is no use in saying that I have been. I see it all in this moment of revelation. I have been pleasant to you—gay—laughing—happy. But, ah, that is far from making a good son of any one. In fact, when I look back, I am obliged to confess that I have been no good to any one. I have just crowded every one else aside so that I might go laughing and happy through the world myself. Well, there always comes a day of reckoning for such. Mine is here. I think God means me to even up with the rest of my life. Well, He shall. I am willing. I must be."
"Why, Davy," says I, "what talk! You have kept my old heart bright and happy ever since you were born. Ain't that something? And Jon wouldn't be anything without you. Honest! Jon's like the Siamese twins with you. Yes, Davy, I begun to have fun with you before you were a week old. You was such a comical little chap. And you were, really, all I had to have fun with. Your mother was dead, and Jon was too solemn. Why, Jon was nearly as old then as he is now. Davy, I wouldn't have you changed one jot or tittle. You were a sunbeam in a dark place. You have always been. I know you always will be."
"A sunbeam, daddy!" says Dave, with the glad light in his eyes once more.
"Yes, a sunbeam! I am not afraid to repeat it. A sunbeam! More than one! Don't you be so worked up about—ahem—us going to war. There's not much danger if you don't fool with the guns more than you have to. We'll get back all right. And, about Evelyn—Dave, you marry her. She loves you—that's as plain as a haystack. You love her—that's as plain as a red barn"—trying to be funny.
Dave got almost gay again, he thought me so funny.
"'If I love her
As she loves me,
No knife can cut our love in three!'"
he sings—erroneously.
"That sounds better," says I. "You marry her. She needs it—to be tamed. No woman is tamed till she's married. Look at your mother! Why, she often thanked me for making her meek. And you got a way of taming horses that'll go well with Evelyn. First the spur, then the bit, and, when she's up in the air, the whip—hard. That tells 'em who is master!"
Just to cheer him up a little more. But it is not much use. Down into the dumps he goes.
He was quiet again, for a while, and the voices outside died down. Then, all changed, he says:
"That was nice of you—to call me a sunbeam, daddy—very nice. I'll never forget it. Don't you. A sunbeam in a dark place, you said. A dark place! I might have been worse, I expect. Do you think it's too late to begin to be better now?"
"You suit me," I answers, "just as you are—and everybody else, I expect. It would spoil you to be better. The world needs just such gay fellows as you, Davy, to counterbalance such as Jon and me."
"Ah, daddy," says Dave, "you're a flatterer—an arrant flatterer! I'm afraid you love me. And those we love—we never see their faults. We just—love 'em! And, I suppose, that is why love is blind. So that the faults mayn't outweigh the rest."
He turns a bit toward the voices, which are only a murmur now, as if everything was settled, and then he repeats:
"No, we never see the faults of those we love. We just love 'em! Like a sunbeam in a dark place! Well, daddy, sunbeams are welcome after bad weather. But how soon we forget that they are all about us when the bad weather is over! And so, daddy, dear, for fear that you'll forget that I was a sunbeam once, I am going to do just one good thing—the only good thing I have ever done—the best thing I have ever done, the first best thing, a thing you won't forget! Did you ever think that I could make a sacrifice, daddy? Me, Dave?"
"Well, Davy," says I, "you've had about everything you asked for, and you haven't paid heavy for it. I suppose it's our fault—the way we brought you up. But, I like it that way and I'm willing to go on."
"I never did yet! I've never given anything up! Maybe I can't. It's a fearful thing to learn!" he sort of whispers to himself. "But it must—it must be rain with sunshine! Tears with smiles. Things won't grow else!"
"What does tears make grow, I'd like to know?" I asks.
"Ah, daddy! What do tears make grow? Ask me when you see me again and I can tell you that—to the last terrible item! And then—oh, daddy, dear, you'll like me better than ever! Oh, you'll see what tears make grow!"
It was all hard for me to put together, but I understand, dimly, that this boy, born for joy, was looking out upon sorrow—something he had never known and wasn't fitted for.
"Davy," I says, "stop the riddles and tell me what you are going to do. The times are out of joint. Don't make things worse."
"I know and you'll know—all in good time, daddy," says Dave, very thoughtful. "The poor rebels—poor Johnny rebs—sure to get licked—and nothing to eat—nothing to wear—and plenty of fighting—there's not much fun in that—you must—forgive—a—poor Johnny reb!"
"Not on your life!" says I, hard as iron. "I'll not forgive any rebel. This old roof won't harbor none. Every timber in it was cut on free soil with free white hands. Every nail in it means Union. And all of 'em together means 'E Pluribus Unum!' Any rebel's got to get from under mighty quick."
"But, suppose he was pressed in?" asks Dave. "Every day there are men pressed into the army from this neighborhood, some of them almost as good as we are. Suppose he couldn't help it?"
"Davy," says I, "you been away and you don't know the news. There's no one pressed in nowadays."
"Yes, there is, daddy," answers Dave, nice and soft.
"Well, then," says I, a little angry, "I expect it's me that don't know the news. I haven't heard of it hereabouts. Anyhow, this house refused to shelter Tories in the Revolution, but opened all its doors and windows to General George Washington; and do you think I'll allow the same walls to hide a rebel?"
"General George Washington was a rebel himself," says Dave, solemn as an owl.
Which, when you come to think of it, is certainly true.
"Well," I says, a little confused, "that was different. A rebel who succeeds in his rebellion it not a rebel. These rebels won't. Washington fought for freedom. They are fighting for slavery. How do you expect 'em to win?"
"Anyhow, daddy, if you had to have a rebel," says Dave, "you'd rather have him in a butternut uniform than a blue one?"
"Why, of course," says I, "a rebel in a Union uniform is—well, you know what he is. We shoot 'em on sight."
"Don't they—if it's the other way with the uniform?" asks Dave.
"I expect they do," says I, "though we don't hear much of their doings."
For a while Dave just sits there and smiles. Then he says in that soft way he had:
"There is Evelyn under this Union roof!"
"Oh," says I, "she's a woman and don't count—except fool-talk that gets others crazy! Is that what you re thinking of?"
"But, daddy, the roof will always give her shelter?"
"Why, of course," says I. "And a spanking now and then!"
We smiled together, and then Dave's eyes fell out of mine.
After some silence he says:
"Daddy, you ought to have told me!"
"Told you what?" I asks.
"That Jon loved—"
"That again!"
He sees me flare up and comes and puts his hand over my mouth, getting on his feet like an old man.
"Sh! Sh! It's not too late to make things right—some of them. Daddy, I'm sleepy! Don't wake me. Let me lie as late as I want. And tired—yes, actually tired! I've done nothing but loaf all my life—yet I'm tired. I never was so tired since I was born. Now, what do you think of that! Well—good-by, daddy."
"Good-by? You mean good night, not?"
Dave laughs and says:
"I'm thinking of morning to-night."
"Yes, that's so," says I, with a feeling in my breast. "We got to go to-morrow! And early!"
He didn't seem to be thinking of that.
"It is good to sleep when you are tired—so very tired! Mother! I'm thinking of my mother to-night! I never knew her, did I, daddy?"
"No," says I, choking up. "But Jon did."
"Yet I know, too, what she was—I know all about her to-night for the first time. Now, isn't that queer? And I'm glad. There are only a few women of whom we can say that, daddy, dear. Well, it's hard, but good-by!"
He had reached the stairs, and standing on them, flung me a kiss, like girls do to each other, half gay, half sad. He looked sorrowfully down at me a long time, then flung another. I can see him now as I close my old eyes! Handsome as young David in the Bible, with things written in his face I had never seen there before. And a strange thought came into my head—for no especial reason—for, I have admitted my dullness—Evelyn. He had said to her that day he came home, that she might teach him what sorrow was. I wondered if it was beginning now. Whether she was concerned in my son's strange mood.
"Davy," I says, as pleading as I could, just as when he was three years old, "tell your anxious old daddy what's the matter—what are you going to do?" and held out my arms—so.
My Dave smiled, almost as of old, hesitated a little, then came down and we put our arms about each other and hugged, just like when he was a little boy. And we talked nearly as we used to talk then—baby talk!
"I love you, daddy," Dave said, and rubbed his soft cheek close against mine—impulsive like.
"I love you more, Davy," I said.
"You can't prove it," laughs Dave. "I can."
"Let's see your proof," says I.
"In the morning," says he. "And, then, tell Jon about to-night. For, we both love him more! I'll prove it in the morning."
We just held each other a while, and looked into each other's eyes. He had scared me.
"Davy," I says, "when you were little and we talked baby talk, you told me everything. Don't have a secret from me now. Why are you so strange? What are you going to do?"
He whispers in my ear:
"I'm going without Evelyn—leaving her to Jon!"
"Going where?"
"To—bed."
"Oh!" I says, thinking at last, I sees it all. "Well, that's nice of you, Davy. You'll have her all your life. This is Jon's last night with her. It might be their last night on earth together!"
"Stop it!" Dave shrieks, and closes my mouth. But then, soon, he smiles again. "Daddy, we both feel just like I was little again to-night. Let's kiss each other—like we used to then!"
And we did—holding each other's hands a long time. Then Dave starts up the stairs again. He stopped two or three steps up and sang me a little song—quite like the old Dave:
"''Tis many days since I left home,
To join the gallant army—
I thought but of my country's cause—
And the girl I left behind me!'"
He flung me another kiss, then two or three in a bunch, and went away, up the stair, like a man of eighty.
He had put but a few steps between us. But it seemed, even then, like an eternal parting.