War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy/Chapter 15
XV
WHAT WAS THE TAPESTRY OF PENELOPE?
I HIDES my carbine, and has some heavy thoughts before they all come home. I had gone too far. I was scared of myself. But it was always so when they got me talking Union and rebel. I had sworn to arrest a spy! And if he resisted, to fire on him! It made me shiver. I wished I hadn't done it. But, I believe that if I hadn't, they'd have taken me along. And think of the children coming home and finding me gone! And after being taken away—I'd never get a chance to let them know about it. I had heard that when you got taken to Fort Warren or Fortress Monroe, you were buried. Besides, I had promised that I wouldn't tell any one. Now, look at that! I'd never had a secret from the boys!
Evelyn came first. And she had a big bundle which she hadn't taken away when she went to town.
"What is it?" asks I.
"Daddy," she laughs, kind of excited and hysterical, "if you think back, you'll remember that I hadn't many clothes when I came, and I haven't got many since. Don't you think a girl's clothes—especially certain flimsy ones—wear out?"
"Of course," says I, "of course. It's a shame! I never thought of clothes for you. I'm so unused to women."
"Don't bother, daddy," she says, as affectionate, "I got some right here—when they're once made!"
She cried about it. I couldn't understand that! A girl crying about new clothes!
"You got to make 'em all? I'll get Sis Lowry to do it for you. She needs the money, anyhow."
"No! I must make them myself!" says Evelyn.
Well, I thought it was funny, that the tired sad look came into her eyes when she said that, instead of the crazy-with-joy look a girl would have about making her own pretty clothes. It came often now!
"I suppose no one can see them, " I laughs, "when they're done?"
"Daddy!" she says. "No you will never see them!"
And again the sick look came in her eyes.
"And, I shall be secret—with my door locked, while I'm working on 'em. You won't mind, will you, for a little while?"
"No," I says, "but the boys?"
"Ah, the boys!" she says, suddenly turning away and choking. "I'm tired—awful tired. I'll go straight to my room."
I went with her as far as the stair-steps. There she stopped, a couple of steps up, and says, so pitiful that I felt like comforting her:
"Daddy, did your passions ever lead you where you oughtn't to go? Where it's death?"
"I don't know what you mean," says I.
"Suppose that when you were very angry—say at me—you unconsciously betrayed me to enemies—or fixed it so that some brute would come and beat me, put me in prison, kill me, and then, when you repented and loved me again, and tried to get the brute to stop coming to beat and kill me, you couldn't! You had gone too far—told too much—brought the danger too near!"
"Again!" says I. "You are talking in parables. I never read 'em, because I do not understand 'em. The Psalmist might as well have made a translation for fellers like me—if he wanted us to know what he was talking about. What's the English of it, Evelyn?"
"—And you had to keep on doing things to please the brute—even letting him take you to keep him from taking me!"
"Me?" says I. "I'd shoot the brute and be done with it! I wouldn't stand no such hell! Not for a minute!"
"But if he were so big and impervious that you couldn't injure him—just shoot and shoot and shoot and be laughed at—while he, with one twist of his thumb and finger, could take the head off of me you love—"
She sighs and is silent for a while.
"—or off of you—or Jon—"
Another and worse sigh, and more silence.
"—or Dave—whom I love!"
"Come back," says I, "and fetch the dictionary with you!"
But she just goes on—holding hard to the side of the stair, drooping her nice head, as if it was about all she could bear.
"Wi—wouldn't you keep on trying to please the brute—even though you suffered—oh, suffered hell itself—died—so as to keep him from me? I mean from you-all?"
"I don't understand, dear," says I, as kind as possible—for I never saw her so worked up. "But if it's trouble, let your old daddy—yes, and Jon and Dave, too, help you!"
"And suppose," she goes on, "that was just the hell of it, as you said—that you couldn't—daren't—call on them to help you—the, the only ones who would! Suppose that merely calling on them would ruin them. Suppose that you had to do it all alone—and that you were only a girl, after all, like me!"
"Evelyn," says I again, "I don't understand. You got to speak plain. If you are in trouble—or any of your friends—you got two brave boys to fight for you—and another old man that'll do his best to hurt any one who hurts you!"
"Ah, daddy, daddy, daddy, how well I know that! And how bitter that makes it!"
"I expect it s about your being a rebel, ain't it?" asks I.
She nods.
"Well, how often must I say not to bother about that—that we don't care how rebel you are? You shan't be hurt for it! We'll see to that!"
She cries and leans her nice head down on me.
"Oh, if you only could—if you only could, daddy, daddy, darling! Ah, you are the only ones who can't. Daddy, if they kill me—will you see that I am decently interred and not thrown on the dunghill as I deserve to be? I love you-all now more than—that other thing—I used to love when the devil was awake. Daddy, whatever happens, don't you, for God's sake, desert me! Stay with me and give me another chance!"
"I wish you'd tell me exactly what's up," says I, "though I expect an old fool like me wouldn't understand a nice young girl's thoughts."
"Daddy," she asks, "did you ever hear the story of Penelope?"
"I never was acquainted with her. I suppose she lives in Hartford County, not?" answers I.
"She lived in Greece—"
"The country in the geography," I says, "not the Shnitzlers' place?"
"Yes. She was the wife of a great soldier named Ulysses. And while he was off in the wars many other chiefs came and wanted her, and they all brought their weapons, and all thought him dead. For men didn't woo women in those days; they took them. But, scared though she was, she kept them all at bay, playing one against the other by promising to choose one of them as soon as a tapestry she was weaving for her husband's shroud was finished. But, at night, she ripped out what she had woven by day, so that it took a long time—and then Ulysses, who had not been killed, returned, as she had hoped and prayed he would, and all ended happily for her."
"Well," I says, "that's a nice story. But what's the answer?"
"I am Penelope, daddy, dear," she says, "and this is the tapestry."
She holds up the bundle she'd brought home.
"I've got a grudging permission to weave my own shroud, because there's none ready made about here, for—"
She sighs hard and long.
"And I am going to make it last long, long, long, hoping and praying that before it is done my Ulysses may return and save me, and make a happy ending."
Then she suddenly takes another tack.
"Daddy, sometimes I hear that the war can't last long any more. What do you think?"
"Well," I says, not very cheerful, "it's my opinion, that the war'll last as long as the South has anything to fight with. Gosh! Sometimes I almost wish 'em success—they are such grand fellows. No matter how many we kill there's always others a-coming. No matter how little they got to eat and wear, nor how little ammunition they got, they fight! Yes—as long as they can fight this war'll keep on."
She gives a long moan.
"What," I says, "you don't mean it?"
"Oh, daddy," she says, "if that is the only way to stop it, let us pray, as I do, that my people may soon—oh, very soon—have nothing left to fight with—men or guns or food!"
Think of that, will you, from such a rebel as Evelyn!
"Evelyn," says I, "that is serious from a rebel like you. Are you sick? Why is it? Stand fast by your colors!"
"I can't," she says. "It's not in here any more!" She pounds her breast. "Something else has taken its place. Yes, I am a brute. But, I suppose, if I could, I'd sacrifice the whole South—for—that one other thing. But," she laughs a little, "maybe I can keep my tapestry from being finished till the war's over. That's my only hope."
"Oh," I says, "then that's the trouble! You're bothering because we've changed your mind for you! You can't be rebel any more and you think you oughtn't be Union! Say, Evelyn, that makes me laugh, it does, really. Of course, we're glad you're Union. But, if you ain't sure about it, why, keep on being rebel. We'll all love you just as hard. What's the odds—for a woman? And, if you can't do either the one or the other, which, I expect, is your trouble, just forget it and be happy. It's hereditary: that's why I'm Union. And it'll work itself out all right. Do you hear? Just be happy. That's what'll please us most."
Goshens! When I looks up the turn of the stair, where she had been, she's not there. I don't think she heard a word of that nice stuff of mine! I didn't like that.
Jon and Dave came a little later, as happy as a pair of June bugs, Dave, really on Jon's back, with a string of fish as long as your arm. What do you think of that! Dave on Jon's back! I wonder how far Jon'd carried him? Why, Dave had caught up and was as big as Jon now!
Of course, the first thing they asked for was Evelyn, and I told them about her being in town and the new clothes. But not about the soldiers nor Penelope.
"Now, I expect," whines Dave, "we'll see her about once a week—all on account of clothes."
"Davy," says I, "a woman and clothes means the same thing."
But Dave, he sings up to her window:
"'Oh, tell me where my Eva's gone!'"
And Evelyn throws open the window and flings a kiss and laughs, happy as blazes. All changed the minute Dave comes! She has sewing things in her mouth and hands, and, as she waves, something drops out of her hand into the tall grass. We all tries to find it but it is no good, and she laughs, kind of excited, and says:
"Only an empty spool, boys. Don't bother," and we didn't—no more.