The Fanatics/Chapter 1
CHAPTER I
LOVE AND POLITICS
The warmth of the April sunshine had brought out the grass, and Mary Waters and Bob Van Doren trod it gleefully beneath their feet as they wended their way homeward from the outskirts of the town, where Mary had gone ostensibly to look for early spring blossoms and where Bob had followed her in quest of a pet setter that was not lost.
The little town was buzzing with excitement as the young people entered it, but they did not notice it, for a sweeter excitement was burning in their hearts.
Bob and Mary had been engaged for three months, a long time in those simple days in Ohio, where marriages were often affairs of a glance, a word and a parent's blessing. The parent's blessing in this case had been forthcoming too, for while the two widowed fathers could not agree politically, Stephen Van Doren being a staunch Democrat, and Bradford Waters as staunch a Republican, yet they had but one mind as to the welfare of their children.
They had loud and long discussions on the question of slavery and kindred subjects, but when it came to shaking hands over the union of Bob and Mary, they were as one. They had fallen out over the Missouri Compromise and quarrelled vigorously over the Fugitive Slave Law; but Stephen had told his son to go in and win, for there was not a better girl in the village than Mary, and Bradford had said "Yes" to Bob when he came.
On this day as the young people passed down Main street, oblivious of all save what was in their hearts, some people who stood on the outskirts of a crowd that was gathered about the courthouse snickered and nudged each other.
"Curious combination," old man Thorne said to his nearest neighbor, who was tiptoeing to get a glimpse into the middle of the circle.
"What's that?"
"Look a-there," and he pointed to the lovers who had passed on down the street.
"Geewhillikens," said the onlooker, "what a pity somebody didn't call their attention; wouldn't it 'a' been a contrast, though?"
"It would 'a' been worse than a contras'; it would 'a' been a broken engagement, an' perhaps a pair o' broken hearts. Well, of all fools, as the sayin' is, a ol fool is the worst."
"An' a Southern fool up North who has grown old in the South," said Johnson, who was somewhat of a curbstone politician.
"Oh, I don't know," said Thorne placidly, "different people has different ways o' thinkin'."
"But when you're in Rome, do as Rome does," returned Johnson.
"Most men carries their countries with them. The Dutchman comes over here, but he still eats his sauerkraut."
"Oh, plague take that. America for the Americans, I say, and Ohio for the Ohioans. Old Waters is right."
"How long you been here from York state?"
"Oh, that ain't in the question."
"Oh, certainly not. It's allus a matter o' whose ox is gored."
The matter within the circle which had awakened Mr. Johnson's sense of contrast was a hot debate which was just about terminating. Two old men, their hats off and their faces flushed, were holding forth in the midst of the crowd. One was Stephen Van Doren, and the other was Bradford Waters.
The former had come up from Virginia sometime in the forties, and his ideas were still the ideas of the old South. He was a placid, gentlemanly old man with a soldierly bearing and courtly manners, but his opinions were most decided, and he had made bitter enemies as well as strong friends in the Ohio town. The other was the typical Yankee pioneer, thin, wiry and excitable. He was shouting now into his opponent's face, "Go back down South, go back to Virginia, and preach those doctrines!"
"They've got sense enough to know them down there. It's only up here to gentlemen like you that they need to be preached."
"You talk about secession, you, you! I'd like to see you build a fence unless the rails would all stand together—one rail falling this way, and another pulling that."
The crowd laughed.
"I'd like you to show me a hand where one finger wasn't independent of another in an emergency."
"Build a fence," shouted Waters.
"Pick up a pin!" answered Van Doren.
"You're trying to ruin the whole country; you're trying to stamp on the opinions that the country has lived for and fought for and died for———"
"Seven states have seceded, and think in some of those seven were men who lived and fought and even died for their country. Yes, sir, I tell you, Yankee as you are, to your face, the South has done for this country what you buying and selling, making and trading Yankees have never done. You have made goods, but the South has produced men." The old man was warmed up.
"Men, men, we can equal any you bring."
"Calhoun!"
"Sumner!"
"Clay!"
"Webster!"
"We shall claim Douglass!"
"Lincoln!"
"I should have said the South produced gentlemen, not rail splitters. We don't make statesmen of them."
"We produce men, and we'd make soldiers of them if it was necessary."
"Well, it may be."
"Oh, no, it won't. Even the state that gave birth to men like you, Stephen Van Doren, wouldn't dare to raise its hand against the Union."
"Wait and see."
"Wait and see! I don't need to wait and see. I know."
"Bah, you're all alike, dreamers, dreamers, dreamers."
"Dreamers, maybe, but my God, don't wake us!"
The crowd began to break as it saw that the argument was over, and the bystanders whispered and laughed among themselves at the vehemence of the two men.
"Wind-bags."
"Time wasted listening."
"War—pshaw!"
Just then a newsboy tore into the square shouting, "Paper, paper!" and every heart stood still with ominous dread at the next words, "Fort Sumter fired on!" The crowd stood still, and then with one accord, formed around the old men.
A slow smile covered Stephen Van Doren's lips as he stood facing Bradford Waters.
"Well, they've done it," he said.
"Yes," replied the other, wavering from the shock, "now what are you going to do about it?"
The old man straightened himself with sudden fire. He took off his hat and his thin white hair blew hither and thither in the cool spring breeze.
"I'll tell you what I'm going to do about it. I'll tell you what I'm going to do, when the call comes, I'm going down there and I'll help whip them out of their boots—and if they won't take me, I'll send a son. Now what are you going to do?
"Likewise."
Bradford Waters was known as a religious man, but now he turned and raising his hand to heaven said,
"God grant that we or our sons may meet where the right will win, you damned copperhead, you!"
In an instant Van Doren's fist shot out, but some one caught his arm. Waters sprang towards him, but was intercepted, and the two were borne away by different crowds, who were thunderstruck at the awful calamity which had fallen upon the nation.
The two old men sweated to be loosed upon each other, but they were forcibly taken to their homes.
Over the gate of the Waters' cottage, Bob Van Doren leaned, and Mary's hand was in his.