# War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy/Chapter 29

XXIX
THE LAST DAY
WELL, Kratz had certainly kept us busy drilling and parading, and electing officers as fast as they backed out, and getting uniforms made, and hearing speeches, till it seemed like there were no rebels about any more. I suppose another company could have been raised easy after they saw us drill and parade in our uniforms.
What the people that was left seemed to want now was everything that was Union.
And everybody who wasn't going to fight was just crazy for us to hurry right on to Richmond and end the war and reduce the cost of pork. But I must say, for one, that I wasn't as crazy to take Richmond as I had been. We knew now that it was dangerous. But I don't back out of a game, once I am in it.
​We had it all arranged that Dave and the hireland, with a little help from Betsy, could keep the farm on top of the earth for the little time Jon and I would be away.
We had an idea that when we got to fighting the war would be a matter of months.
And so came the last day before we moved. Dave was as gay as ever, and still thought of it as a picnic. He made a kind of farewell address to Jon and me—from him and Evelyn. There was both poetry and Scripture in it. Then he talked in a funny way about the red roses Evelyn wore in her cheeks—called them Lancaster roses—and gave Jon and me a bunch of white ones out of the ones that Evelyn wore—which he called York roses. I didn't know much about that business of York and Lancaster roses, except that it had nothing to do with those towns over in Pennsylvania, but some old-time business off in England. Yet, under it all, I saw that Dave was sorry for us, and was just trying to keep up and keep us all up—on account of Evelyn, I expect. We ​were in our full uniforms, for the first time, account Dave made us, and even wore our arms to supper! Dave made us stand up together now and then to look at us. And I begun to think he was crazy to be inside of a uniform himself.
"Look mighty glorious, don't they, Evelyn?" asks Dave.
"Yi—yes," says Evelyn, choking on some bread.
"Especially old Jon. Say, Jon, you been fooling us all the time. You weren't no farmer nor no student nor no preacher. You've been a soldier all the time! And now you're telling us the truth. By God, you'll give a good account of yourself down there!"
Well! Dave used all kinds of strange languages, but that's the very first time I ever heard him swear. We all jumped up, and, I think, we all got white. Evelyn looked like a ghost.
"Davy," says I, "don't you be worked up about Jon's patriotism. He's going on account ​of a small aching void. And as soon as that's all filled up he'll be back."
Jon nearly kicked my shin off.
"Daddy," says he, "it's not a good time to be joking—just before we're going away. Dave knows what I am going for—patriotism."
"That's right, brother," says Dave, in a funny mood, reaching over and taking Jon's hands. "It's a thing I didn't think I owned—till to-night. But, by the Lord, if it wasn't too late, I'd get into a uniform myself. I may yet. It's a great thing to love your country well enought to die for it. God bless the Union for ever! Hip, hip, hurrah!"
He begun serious and ended funny—as usual.
"Ah, Dave," says Jon, "you're forgettin' something better than your country."
Neither of them looked toward Evelyn, but both understood, and Dave goes over and touches her, almost as if she were a stranger.
"Yes," he says, dreamy, "I didn't think there ​was anything on earth or in heaven could make me forget this and these and this—"
He puts his hands through her hair, touches her eyes, and kisses her. But it was plain to see that his thoughts were elsewhere.
"Isn't it strange," he goes on, "that I never thought of it till now! I really have had no convictions, rebel or Union, till now. It's good—oh, 'It's sweet and glorious for one's country to die.' That's a Latin quotation," he laughs at me.
I didn't know it then, but I know it now:
"O, carior et gloria est pro patria mori."
Evelyn knew it and found it for us.
"Evelyn," says Dave, sitting half on the arm of her chair and half on her, "something inside, here, is drawing me to the army. I know now what has kept the ranks full notwithstanding the pine boxes we see at the station so often now. They had the good fortune to feel when they enlisted as I do to-night. Don't you think I'd better go, dear? Don't you want to send me? Don't you want a soldier?"
​She didn't hesitate a minute.
"Yes, Dave," she says, "go," shivering.
But I chimes in:
"Who d'you think is going to take care of her—and the farm? If Jon and me'd known that you were so crazy to go we'd have stayed at home and left you go. Why didn't you speak up sooner? Now you got to stay at home. Evelyn daren't be left alone."
Evelyn thanks me with her frightened eyes, and Dave lets out a great sigh.
"All right, daddy," he says, "all right."
"You'll get over that feeling in your breast. If not before, as soon as the first shell drops behind you. They say that's an awful scare—to be smiling and suddenly have to change your face. Don't try it I'll tell you all about it."
Dave turns away as if he had forgotten Evelyn, and she looks after him as if she didn't know what had come over him.
She seemed, somehow, to have been deserted by all of us!
"Jon," says Evelyn, choking, "I want to talk to you!"
​And out she goes to the seat under the plums.
Jon looks round at us a moment in wonder at it all. Dave goes on:
"To-night, somehow, when I see you and daddy in your uniforms, ready to be sacrificed—that comes close home—when your father and your brother are ready to march to the firing line. I wish to God you hadn't enlisted. I am the one to go. I really have a feeling of hatred for the South to-night for taking you from me. And as you see, I am really the one in the family who has the most pronounced views on the war. Look here, slip off your uniform. We are of about the same size. We look enough alike. They won't know the difference. Let me go in your place! Honest! I'm fighting-crazy, too. I want to go. I've got to go!"
"Dave," I says, nodding after Evelyn, "that hurts her. And what's the use? It's too late. She has trouble of her own. Don't make it worse. She needs protection—needs it bad."
Jon takes Dave, very quiet, by the shoulders, and when he has him eye to eye, he says:
​"Dave—you know she's sick, very sick still. You know that place still hurts when—when—"
Jonathan almost gave himself away that time. After a moment he managed to go on.
"—When you put your arms around her!"
"For God's sake hush !" shrieks Dave, squeezing his hands on his ears. "I'm a beast—a beast—a beast! Come!"
He starts to drag Jon out toward her, but then stops.
"No. I'd do the other thing now. I'd kill her with loving! Yes, I would, Jonthy! Yes; I guess I want her more than—than—anything else."
Well, it makes the tears come to my old eyes yet—what happened. Those two boys put their arms about each other and cried.
Presently Jon says:
"Come with me."
And he points toward the plums.
"No," says Dave, "she wants you, God bless her. After a while—when I'm decent—for ​me. Anyhow, I'll have her always, and this is your last night with her."
He pushed Jon out of the door and Jonathan walked over to Evelyn; we could hear his bayonet clank against his canteen at each step, and knew that he was going very slowly—unwillingly, I think. At last the sound ceased and we knew that he and Evelyn were together—for—yes, their last night.