The Fanatics

Front matter

Copyright, 1901,

By Dodd, Mead and Company.

TO MY FRIEND

Love and Politics

CHAPTER 1

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 forthcom

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 some 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.

The Parting of Two Ways

CHAPTER 2

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

"Don't you think a little cottage down by the river would be the best thing, Mary?" asked Bob.

"And then you'd be away from me every minute you could spare fishing. I know you, Bob Van Doren."

From the inside of the house Mary's brother Tom "twitted" the two unmercifully.

"I say there, Bob," he called, "you'd better let Mary come in and help about this supper. If you don't, there'll be a death when father comes home."

Mary's father was gentle with her, and this remark of her brother's was so obviously hyperbolic that she burst out laughing as she flung back, "Oh, I guess you've kept Nannie Woods from her work many a time, and there haven't been any deaths in that family yet."

"But there may be in this if Luke Sharples catches you sparking around Nannie," interposed Bob.

"Oh, I can attend to Luke any day."

"That's so, Luke isn't a very fast runner."

Tom threw a corncob out of the door and it struck Bob's hat and knocked it off. "There's an answer for you," he called.

They were still laughing and Mary's face was flushed with love and merriment when Bradford Waters came up and strode silently through the gateway.

"I must go in now," said Mary.

"So soon? Why it's hardly time to put the potatoes on yet."

"Suppose sometimes you should come home and find your supper not ready?"

"Oh, I wouldn't mind if you were there."

Just then Bradford Waters' voice floated angrily out to them, "What's that young whelp hanging around my gate for?"

The girl turned pale, and her heart stood still, but the young man only laughed and shouted back, "What's the matter, Mr. Waters, you and father been at war again?"

"Yes, we've been at war, and soon we shall all be at war. Some of your dirty kinsmen have fired on Fort Sumter."

"What!"

"Yes, and there'll be hell for this day's work, you mark my words." The old man came to the door again, and his son stood behind him, holding his arm. "Get away from my gate there. Mary, come in the house. I've got better business for you than skylarking with copperheads."

The girl stood transfixed. "What is it, father, what is it?" cried Tom.

"I tell you, those Southern devils have fired on Fort Sumter, and it means war! Get away from here, Bob Van Doren. There is a time when men must separate on the ground of their beliefs, and this house has no dealing with the enemies of the Union, Mary."

But the girl's eyes were flashing, and her lips compressed. "Go in, Mary," said Bob, and he dropped her hand. His face was red and pale by turns. She turned and went into the house, and her lover left the gate and walked down the street.

"Let this be the last time I catch you talking with one of the Van Dorens. We are two families on opposite sides of a great question. We can have no dealings, one with the other."

"But father, you gave Bob the right to love me, and you can't take it back, you can't."

"I can take it back, and I will take it back. I'd rather see you marry Nigger Ed, the town crier, than to cross my blood with that Van Doren breed. To-day, Stephen Van Doren rejoiced because his flag had been fired upon. The flag he's living under, the flag that protects him wherever he goes!"

"That wasn't Bob, father."

"Like father, like son," broke in Tom passionately.

"Why, Tom!" Mary turned her eyes, grief-filled to overflowing upon her brother, "you and he were such friends!"

"I have no friends who are not the friends of my country. Since I know what I know, I would not take Bob Van Doren's hand if he were my brother."

"If he were Nannie Woods' brother?"

"Nannie Woods is a good loyal girl, and her affections are placed on a loyal man. There is no division there."

"Bob is right, Mary. We have come to the parting of the ways. Those who hold with the South must go with the South. Those who hold with the North must stand by the flag. We are all either Union men or we are rebels."

"But father, what of Vallandigham? You have always said that he was a noble man."

"Vallandigham? Let me never hear his name again! In this house it spells treason. I can make some allowance for the Southerner, living among his institutions and drawing his life from them; but for the man who lives at the North, represents Northern people and fills his pockets with the coin which Northern hands have worked for, for him, I have only contempt. Such men hide like copperheads in the grass, and sting when we least expect it. Weed them out, I say, weed them out!"

The old man shook with the passion of his feelings, and his face was ashen with anger. There had been a time when Vallandigham was his idol. He had gone against his party to help vote him into Congress, and then——

It was a strangely silent meal to which the three sat down that night. Tom was feverishly anxious to be out for news, and Mary with tear-stained face sat looking away into space. There was a compression about her lips that gave her countenance a wonderful similarity to her father's. She could not eat, and she could not talk, but her thoughts were busy with the events that were going on about her. How she hated it all—the strife, the turmoil, the bickerings and disagreements. The Union, Confederacy, abolition, slavery, the North, the South; one the upper, the other, the lower millstone, and between them, love and the women of the whole country. Why could not they be let alone? Was there not enough to be sacrificed that even the budding flower of love must be brought too? It was hard, too hard. She loved Bob Van Doren. What did she care with which side he sympa ? She loved Bob, not his politics. What had she to do with those black men down there in the South, it was none of her business? For her part, she only knew one black man and he was bad enough. Of course, Nigger Ed was funny. They all liked him and laughed at him, but he was not exemplary. He filled, with equal adaptability, the position of town crier and town drunkard. Really, if all his brethren were like him, they would be none the worse for having masters. Anyhow, her father had not been always so rigid, for he laughed when somebody stole the Bible from the colored folks' meeting-house, and wondered what they could do with a Bible anyhow.

Her reverie was broken by her brother's rising from the table.

"I'm going out to see what's going on," he announced.

"I'll walk up the street with you," said his father.

They took their hats and went out, and with a grey face, but set lips, the daughter went about her evening's work. When they reached the courthouse a crowd was gathered there, and rumors and stories of all kinds were passing from lip to lip. Another crowd was gathered on the opposite side of the street, hooting and jeering, while now and then some self-appointed orator harangued it. The assembly was composed of some of the worst elements of the town, reinforced by the young sports of some of the best families. Altogether, it was a combination of hot blood and lawlessness.

An old friend of the Waters', who had been listening to the noisier crowd, brushed against the two men, and said under his breath, "Come on home, there's hell's work brewing here to-night."

"Then I'll stay and be in it," said the older man."

"There's nothing you can help about," replied the friend. "You'd better come."

"No, we'll stay."

The lawless element, emboldened at the news of Sumter's disaster, determined to have some fun at the expense of their opponents. With one accord, they surged towards the office of the Republican, armed with horns, and whistled, hooted and jeered themselves hoarse.

"This is child's play," said Bradford Waters to his son," if this is all they're going to do, we might as well go home."

They went back to the house, where for hours they could hear the horns and whistles of the crowd.

It was near midnight, when they were awak by the clanging of a bell, and they heard Nigger Ed as he sped past the house, crying, "Fiah, fiah! De Publican buildin' on fiah, tu'n out!"

The Waters were dressed and out of the house in a twinkling and had joined the crowd of men and boys who, with shouts and grunts, were tugging at the old hose-cart. Then they strained and tore their way to the Republican office where the fire had made terrible headway. The hose was turned on the building, and the pumps started. The flames crackled and the water hissed and like an echo there floated to the ears of the toiling men the cry of the rioters far away in another part of the town. They had done their work. It had, perhaps, come about unintentionally. They had only met to jeer; but finally some one threw a stone. The sound of crashing glass filled them with the spirit of destruction. A rioter cried, "Fire the damned shanty!" There were cries of "No! No!" but the cry had already been taken up, and a brand had been flung. Then madness seized them all and they battered and broke, smashed and tore, fired the place and fled singing with delirious joy. The work of the firemen was of no avail, and in an hour the building and its contents were a confused mass of ashes, charred beams and molten metal.

When the Waters reached home, Mary, wide-eyed, white and shivering, sat up waiting for them. She hurried to give them each a cup of coffee, but asked no questions, though her hungry eyes craved the news. She sat and stared at them, as they eagerly drank.

Then her father turned to her. "Well," he said, "here's another sacrifice to the spirit of rebellion in the North. A man ruined, his property destroyed. They have burned the Republican, but they can't burn the principle it stood for, and the fire they lighted to night will leave a flame in the heart of loyal citizens that will burn out every stock and stubble of secession, and disloyalty. Then woe to the copperheads who are hiding in the grass! When the flames have driven them out, we will trample on them, trample on them!" The old man rose and ground his heel into the floor.

Mary gave a cry, and shivering, covered her face with her hands.

Preparation

CHAPTER 3

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."