The Fanatics/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
PREPARATION
There were many other men in Dorbury no less stirred than was Bradford Waters over the events of the night, and the news from Charleston harbor. The next day saw meetings of the loyal citizens in every corner of the little town, which at last melted into one convention at the courthouse. Those who had no southern sympathies had been stung into action by the unwarranted rashness of the rioters, which brought the passions of the time so close to themselves.
The one question was asked on all sides: How soon would the president call for troops to put down this insurrection, and even as they asked it, the men were organizing, recruiting, drilling and forming companies to go to the front. The Light Guards, the local organization, donned their uniforms and paraded the streets. Already drums were heard on all sides, and the shrill cry of the fifes. In that portion of the town where lived a number of wealthy Southerners, there was the quiet and desolation of the grave. Their doors were barred and their windows were shut. Even they could not have believed that it would come to this, but since it had come, it was too soon for them to readjust themselves to new conditions, too soon to go boldly over to the side of the South, or changing all their traditions, come out for the North and the Union, which in spite of all, they loved. So they kept silent, and the turmoil went on around them. The waves of excitement rolled to their very doors, receded and surged up again. Through their closed blinds, they heard the shouts of the men at the public meeting a few blocks away. They heard the tramping of feet as the forming companies moved up and down. The men knew that many of their employees were away, mingling with the crowds and that work was being neglected, but they kept to their rooms and to their meditations.
"Ah," said one, "it's a hard thing to make us choose between the old home and the old flag. We love both, which the better, God only knows."
The children came home from school and told how one of the teachers was preparing to go to war, and it brought the situation up to their very faces. Those were, indeed, terrible times when preceptors left their desks for the battlefield. But still their hearts cried within them, "What shall we do?"
In the afternoon of the day following the convention, Nannie Woods came over for a chat with Mary Waters. They were close friends, and as confidential as prospective sisters should be.
"Do you think they will fight?" asked Nannie.
"The South? Yes, they will fight, I am sure of it. They have already shown what is in them. Father and Tom think it will be easy to subdue them, but I feel, somehow, that it will be a long struggle."
"But we shall whip them," cried the other girl, her eyes flashing.
"I don't know, I don't know. I wish we didn't have to try."
"Why, Mary, are you afraid?"
"Oh, no, I'm not afraid, but there are those I love on both sides and in the coming contest, whichever wins, I shall have my share of sorrow."
"Whichever wins! Why you haven't a single friend in the South!"
"I have no friend in the South—now."
"Oh, you mean Rob Van Doren. Well, if he didn't think enough of me to be on my side, I'd send him about his business."
"A man who didn't have courage enough to hold to his own opinions wouldn't be the man I'd marry."
"A man who didn't have love enough to change his opinions to my side wouldn't be the man for me."
"Very well, Nannie, we can't agree."
"But we're not going to fall out, Mary," and Nannie threw her arms impulsively around her friend's neck. "But oh, I do long to see our boys march down there and show those rebels what we're made of. What do you think? Father says they claim that one of them can whip five Yankees, meaning us. Well, I'd like to see them try it."
"Spoken like a brave and loyal little woman," cried Tom, rushing in.
"Eavesdropping," said Nannie coquettishly, but Mary turned her sad eyes upon him.
"I am no less loyal than Nannie," she said, "and if the worst comes, I know where my allegiance lies, but— but— I wish it wasn't necessary, I wish it wasn't necessary to take sides."
"Never you mind, Mary, it's going to be ail right. We'll whip them in a month or two."
"We!" cried Nannie. "Oh, Tom, you're never going?"
"Why, what should I be doing when men are at war?"
"But will there be war?"
"There is war. The South has fallen out of step and we shall have to whip them back into line. But it won't be long, two or three months at most, and then all will be quiet again. It may not even mean bloodshed. I think a display of armed force will be sufficient to quell them."
"God grant it may be so."
Tom turned and looked at his sister in an amused way. "Oh, you needn't be afraid, Mary, Bob Van Doren won't go. Copperheads only talk, they never fight, ha, ha."
"Tom Waters, that's mean of you," Nannie exclaimed, "and it's very little of you, for a day or two ago Bob was your friend." She held Mary closer as she spoke, but Tom Waters was imbued with the madness that was in the air.
"What," he burst out, "Bob Van Doren my friend! I have no friend except the friends of the Union, I tell you, and mark my words, when the others of us march away, you will find him skulking with the rest of his breed in the grass, where all snakes lie."
"Bob Van Doren is no coward," said Mary intensely, "and when the time comes, he will be found where his convictions lead, either boldly on the side of the Union or fighting for the cause which his honor chooses, you———" She broke down and burst into tears.
"Oh, dry up, Mary," Tom said, with rough tenderness, "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Rob's a good enough fellow, but oh, I wish he was on our side. Don't cry, Mary, he's a first-rate fellow, and I— I'll be friends with him."
"Tom, you go away," cried Nannie, "you're just like all men, a great big, blundering—don't cry, Mary, don't cry. Mind your own business, Tom Waters, nobody wants you officiating around here, you've put your foot in it, and if you get smart, Mary and I will both turn rebel. Take your arm away."
"A pretty rebel you'd make."
"I'd make a better rebel than you would a soldier."
"All right, I'll show you," and the young man went out and slammed the door behind him.
"Now you've hurt his feelings," said Mary, suddenly drying her tears.
"I don't care, it was all your fault, Mary Waters." Then they wept in each other's arms because they were both so miserable.
Just then, the negro known as Nigger Ed, came running down the street. "Laws, have mussy on us, dey's hangin' Mistah V'landi'ham!"
The hearts of the two girls stood still with horror for the moment, and they clutched each other wildly, but the taint of Eve conquered, and they hurried to the door to get the news.
"Nigger Ed, Nigger Ed!" they called, and the colored man came breathlessly back to them.
"What did you say as you passed the house? They're hanging Mr. Vallandigham?"
"Yes'm, dey's hangin' him up by de co'thouse, a whole crowd o' men's a-hangin' him. Yo' fathah's 'mongst 'em, missy," he said turning to Mary.
"My father helping to hang Vallandigham! Oh, what are we coming to? Isn't it a terrible thing? Why, it's murder!"
Nannie called across to a friend who was passing on the other side of the street, "Oh, Mr. Smith, can it be true that they are hanging Vallandigham?"
The friend laughed. "Only in effigy," he said.
"Get along with you, Ed," said Nannie indignantly; "running around here scaring a body to death; they're only hanging him in effigy."
"Effigy, effigy, dat's whut dey said, but hit don't mek no diffunce how a man's hung, des so he's hung."
"Go along, you dunce, it's a stuffed Vallandigham they're hanging."
"Stuffed!" cried Ed, "I t'ought effigy meant his clothes. Lawd bless yo' soul, missy, an' me brekin' my naik runnin' f'om a stuffed co'pse. I reckon I 'larmed half de town," and Ed went on his way.
"And it's for those people our brothers and fathers are going to war?"
"Oh, no, not at all," said Nannie. "It's for the Union and against states' rights, and— and— everything like that."
"Those people are at the bottom of it all, I know it. I knew when that book by Mrs. Stowe came out. They're at the bottom of all this trouble. I wish they'd never been brought into this country."
"Why, how foolish you are, Mary, what on earth would the South have done without them? You don't suppose white people could work down in that hot country?"
"White people will work down in that hot country, and they will fight down there, and oh, my God, they will die down there!"
"Mary, you cry now at the least thing. I believe you're getting a touch of hysteria. If you say so, I'll burn some feathers under your nose."
"It isn't hysterics, Nannie, unless the whole spirit of the times is hysterical, but it is hard to see families that have known and loved each other for so long suddenly torn asunder by these dissensions."
"But the women folks needn't be separated. They can go on loving each other just the same."
"No, the women must and will follow their natural masters. It only remains for them to choose which shall be their masters, the men at home, or those whom they love outside."
"Well, with most of us that will be an easy matter, for our lovers and the folks at home agree—forgive me, Mary, I mean no reflection upon you, and I am so sorry."
"We are not all so fortunate, but however it comes, our women's hearts will bear the burdens. The men will get the glory and we shall have the grief."
"Hooray!" Tom's voice floated in from the street, and he swung in at the gate, singing gaily, his cap in his hand.
"Oh, what is it, Tom?" cried Nannie, "what's the news?"
"The bulletin says it is more than likely that the president will call for volunteers to-morrow, and I'm going to be the first lieutenant in the company, if the Light Guards go as a body."
"Oh, my poor brother!"
"Poor nothing, boom, boom, ta, ra, ra, boom, forward march!" And Tom tramped around the room in an excess of youthful enthusiasm. He was still parading, much to Nannie's pride and delight when his father entered and stood looking at him. His eyes were swollen and dark, and there were lines of pain about his mouth.
"Ah, Tom," he said presently, "there'll be something more than marching to do. I had expected to go along with you, but they tell me I'm too old, and so I must be denied the honor of going to the front; but if you go, my son, I want your eyes to be open to the fact that you are going down there for no child's play. It will be full grown men's work. There will be uniforms and shining equipments, but there will be shot and shell as well. You go down there to make yourself a target for rebel bullets, and a mark for Southern fevers. There will be the screaming of fifes, but there will also be the whistling of shot. The flag that we love will float above you, but over all will hover the dark wings of death."
"Oh, father, father," cried Mary.
"It is a terrible business, daughter."
Tom had stood silent in the middle of the floor while his father was speaking, and now he drew up his shoulders and answered, "Don't be afraid of me, father, I understand it all. If I go to the war, I shall expect to meet and endure all that the war will bring, hardships, maybe worse. I'm not going for fun, and I don't think you'll ever have reason to be ashamed of me."
Mary flung herself on her father's breast and clung to him as if fearful that he also might be taken from her. But Nannie, with burning face, ran across and placed her hand in Tom's.
"That's right, Tom, and I'm not afraid for you." The young man put his hand tenderly upon the girl's head, and smiled down into her face.
"You're a brave little woman, Nannie," he said. The deep menace of the approaching contest seemed to have subdued them all.
"I'm not afraid for my son's honor," said Bradford Waters proudly, but we must all remember that war brings more tears than smiles, and makes more widows than wives."
"We know that," said Nannie, "but we women will play our part at home, and be brave, won't we, Mary?"
The girl could not answer, but she raised her head from her father's shoulder and gripped her brother's hand tightly.
It was strange talk and a strange scene for these self-contained people who thought so little of their emotions; but their very fervor gave a melodramatic touch to all they did that at another time must have appeared ridiculous.