# The Fanatics/Chapter 22

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CHAPTER XXII
THE HOMECOMING OF THE CAPTAIN
Through the newspapers, and an occasional letter from the field, Bradford Waters was kept advised of the movements of his son. With his regiment, he had taken part in the engagements at Pittsburg Landing, and in all the active operations of the Army of Ohio, or, as it was finally rechristened, the Army of the Cumberland. He had distinguished himself in the terrible fight of the 19th of July, and it was as a captain that he lay with his company at Chattanooga Creek, encouraging his men by example not to flinch under the awful fire which the Confederate batteries poured upon them.
Dorbury knew the privations through which her boys were going, the long marches when both rest and refreshment were denied, the hardships of camp and field and the heroism of patient endurance. Then began that gradual turn of sentiment and feeling for which the battle of Pittsburg Landing and Morgan's raid had proved the cue. Another wave of enthusiasm for her ​patriotic sons swept over the town, and this time, had permanent effect. Even Davies scoffed no longer and spoke of "our boys" in a tone that led Waters to forgive all his past transgressions.
Tom had always been a favorite at home, but men spoke his name now with a new affection. After each new engagement in which his regiment was known to have taken a part, there were numerous inquiries at the Waters house as to how "the captain" had fared. He was no longer a family idol. He had become a public hero.
This pride in a young man's success, is, after all, of the vanity which is human. Something of credit seems to accrue to the man himself when he can say, "What! Captain ———, why I knew him when he was a boy!"
Behind closed doors, Stephen Van Doren sat and read the papers. He had the largeness of heart that made him respect a brave man wherever placed, and now he felt a real pride in the son of his enemy. To be sure, in his heart, he had misgivings and wished time and again that he might read something of his own son of whose whereabouts he knew nothing. There had come one brief letter some time before the raid, and since that, nothing. Why couldn't his Bob be a captain, too? His anxiety was shared in some degree by Mary, but the pride which ​she took in her brother and which Nannie constantly nourished, left her little time for brooding.
The summer wore away amid rumors of battles, reconnaissances, and skirmishes. The golden autumn came, and although so many of the husbandmen were a way reaping strange harvests in a strange land, the land smiled with the fullness of things, and the ring of scythes could be heard afield. Over the little town, over the fair meadows that surrounded it, the sun of plenty hung and drove away the darkness that the preceding summer had known. Morgan had come and gone and they felt no fear of another such invasion. Terror was dead and the people bent themselves joyously to the task of supplying whatever wants those at the front expressed. They rested in a content and security that even the imminence of a battle at Mission Ridge in which their "Own" might be engaged failed wholly to destroy. Orchard Knob had dealt kindly with them, and they began to think of their soldiers as each an Achilles with the vulnerable heel secure. Then like a tempest from a cloudless sky came the news of the battle of November 25th, and Dorbury was silent from sheer amazement. Could this thing really have happened to them and theirs? They looked down the list of the dead and wounded again. So many of the names were familiar. So many were those whom they ​thought to see again. Tom Waters, Captain Tom, could it be? Their young hero? They began to awake, and with the awakening the place became as a house of mourning. The bulletin boards were surrounded by hushed, awe-stricken men, while women with white faces, hastened up to hear the latest from the field.
It was Davies, who having heard the news, went over to break it to Bradford Waters. He had not left his office at the warehouse, and only knew from vague rumors that a battle had taken place. He was hastening through to get out and hear the particulars, when Davies entered, his white face speaking for him before his lips could utter a sound. Waters sprang to his feet, and then sank back into a chair.
"There has been a battle, they tell me," he said.
"Yes," said Davies, with dry lips. "Was—was—Tom's name mentioned?" He asked the question mechanically as if he already knew the answer that was coming.
Davies was trembling, the tears filled his eyes as he went over and laid his hand on the other's shoulder.
"Yes," he answered. "Tom—the captain's name, Waters, is among the killed."
An ashen pallor spread over Waters' seamed ​face and his hard hands gripped the desk in front of him fiercely. He breathed heavily but did not speak.
"Come, Bradford, come out in the air with me."
Waters rose, but there was a knock at the door, and opening it a messenger confronted him. It was a telegram from Tom's colonel. The old man could hardly read the words, his hand trembled so. But he made out that they were sending him home. Then Davies saw the man's form straighten up and his eye flash as with a clear voice he read, "Killed, while leading a gallant charge." "Thank God, Davies, be died like a soldier."
There was not a tear in Waters' eye, though pride and grief struggled for mastery in his voice. Davies, who under all his cynical indifference was as soft-hearted as a woman, was weeping like a child.
"I gave him unreservedly," the bereaved father went on, "and he has given me nothing to regret. Come on, I must go home, I must set my house in order to receive my son, the captain."
They went out of the house together, Bradford Waters' face set and firm. Men looked at him shyly upon the street and greeted him briefly. They knew how deeply he had loved his son, and ​feared a break down of his self-control. Men are always cowards in the face of grief. But their caution was unnecessary. Waters returned their civility with a poise of manner almost stern. What had he to woep for? He had laid his son upon the altar, and he had proven an acceptable sacrifice. Other men might weep for craven sons who had left the fighting to others or who had trembled under fire. As for him, he must be strong. He must walk among men with a high head and a step that showed him worthy to be the father of such a son.
Davies left him at the door of his house. He heard him say as he entered, "You must look sharp, Martha, and have everything in good order. The captain is coming home."
The light was fast fading from the room where Waters sat down, but a ray of gold came in through the window and touched the pictured face of the dead soldier in its place on the mantel. The father rose and taking it down held it close to his breast. "I gave you to them, boy," he murmured, "and they took you, but they cannot, they can never take the memory of you from me."
Some one knocked, and a moment later Martha came in, saying, "A gentleman to see you, Mr. Waters."
With perfect self-possession he passed into the ​next room, where in the dimness a man stood awaiting him.
"I have dared to come, Bradford," said Stephen Van Doren's voice, "because I knew, and we both loved the boy. I thought maybe we could shake hands over the memory of a brave soldier."
Waters' form trembled like an aspen. He paused in silence, and the moment was full of import. It was to say what the course of his whole future life would be. Whether the iron of his nature would be melted or annealed by the fire through which he was passing. He took a step forward and grasped Van Doren's outstretched hand.
"I am glad you came, Stephen," he said; "he was a brave boy, and you loved him, too."
"No one could help loving him. He was one man among a thousand who was fine enough for the sacrifice. Whether my son be alive or dead, may I always have as little right to sorrow for him as you have for yours to-night."
Stephen Van Doren's voice was low, earnest and impressive, and it broke down something that had stood up very hard and stern in Bradford Waters' spirit. The tears welled up into his eyes and fell unheeded down his cheeks. He wrung Van Doren's hand.
"You must stay and talk to me of him, of both ​of them. Our boys fought on different sides, Stephen, but they were both ours."
"In a time like this, before an example of bravery, we forget sides and differences and only remember our boys and our love for them."
For awhile they sat and talked of the dead, and of him of whose whereabouts they as yet know nothing, and Waters' heart was lightened and softened.
"You must go away," he said at last to his visitor, "I have another thing that I must do. Maybe, after all, Stephen, there is a deeper meaning in this sacrifice than either of us yet sees."
"May God grant it," was the fervent response.
"When you hear from Bob, let me know at once. You know he was Tom's friend," he added, almost joyously.
As soon as Van Doren was gone, he gave the servant some directions, and then set out for Nathan Woods' house, which was no less than his own a place of bereavement. The entire household was grief-stricken. The two girls bad mingled their tears and sought vainly to comfort each other in their sorrow. Mary was fairly exhausted from her grief, and Nannie, seeing that, recovered herself sufficiently to minister to the weaker girl.
When Mary found out that her father was ​below and asking for her, she sprang up with wild eyes and fluttering heart.
"Oh, he has come to reproach me," she said. "He will never forgive me."
"There is no reproach in his face, Mary. I think he wants you to be with him when Tom comes home."
Nannie's voice reassured her, and together they went down hand in hand. When his daughter came into the room, Bradford Waters held forth his arms, and with a cry that was half grief, half joy, she flung herself into them.
"Father, father," she sobbed, "what shall we do without him?"
"What would his country have done without him, my dear? It has taken him, and we must give him ungrudgingly."
Nannie was leaving the room, but with a new softness, a quality his voice had never known, he put out his hand to her.
"Come, my other daughter," he said, "you loved him too."
For the three, then, there was no past, no difference, no wrong. They were all members of one family bound more strongly by a great love and a great grief. There was a strange similarity apparent in the attitude of Nannie and Bradford Waters towards Tom's death. While Mary thought almost solely of the brother she had lost, ​they both seemed to say, "We are glad to give him, since we may give him thus."
Come, let us go home," said Waters, "there is much to do. Mary, come. Nannie, you must go with us. We must go and make ready to receive the captain."
And together they went with him to receive the captain. The strange idea took Bradford Waters to prepare for his son's homecoming as if the dead could know. Perhaps there did remain to him some of the mysticism to which his New England birth and ancestry gave him right. It would not have assorted illy with his bleak nature. Perhaps he believed that Tom would know. However it was, he had determined that all should be quite as the young man would have liked it had he come home with conscious eyes to see and light with pleasure at what he saw.
To Mary the house was very desolate, and a rush of sad emotions swept over her as she looked at the familiar things arranged by an alien hand.
"Tom would hardly know the place now, if he could see it," she told her father.
But he replied, "Never mind, never mind, it shall all be set right before he comes. He shall find nothing to his distaste."
The saddest duty they had was the arrangement of his room. The old man still followed his ​strange whim, and bad the chamber arranged as if a living guest were to occupy it. The bed was laid as Tom would have had it laid, and the fresh sheets turned back as if to receive his tired form. In the vases was the late golden-rod, always a great favorite with him. But on his pillows were the marks of tears which Nannie had shed as she smoothed their soft whiteness, and knew that his brown head would never press them again.
To her a great change had come. In spite of the pride and fortitude which bore her up, the light and spontaneity had gone out of her life. She might laugh again, but it would never be with the old free ring. In spirit, she was already Tom's wife, and she was now as much widowed as any woman who had followed her husband to the grave. That she bore her burden better than Mary, was largely due to the practical strength of her love for Tom. Had he lived, she would have been glad to welcome and help him. As he was dead, she was no less his and waited the time when she might join him. Mary might weep for him, but she would wait for him, believing that no such love as hers was given to mortals to wither and die without fruition. This love held her so utterly above ordinary opinions and conventions that she did not think to ask what would be said of her entering her lover's house as one of the family. It was nothing to ​her. It was a matter of course. There was a certain joy in feeling that she had the right to help and in seeing hour after hour that Tom's father and sister leaned more and more upon her strength.
It was on the third day after the news of the battle that Tom's body was brought home, one mute mourner accompanying it—Nigger Ed. Those were strenuous times and there was no opportunity for fine courtesies, for escorts and officer pall-bearers, even for that brave one, but the flag was wrapped around him, the flag he had fought and died for.
His father was very calm as he looked at the boyish face so cold and still before him. Death had been kind to the soldier and had come quickly, leaving him almost unaltered. He lay as if he had fallen asleep with bright dreams of a purposeful to-morrow. There was none of the horror or dread of battle impressed upon his marble countenance, nothing that could cause the woman who loved him best of all to shrink from him.
Bradford Waters stooped and kissed his son's brow. There was a smile on his own lips. Even Mary forgot to weep. This was the majesty, the beauty of death. Nannie hovered over him as she would over a flower. They were alone together these three, when a knock, soft ​and hesitating, fell upon the door. Bradford opened it to find without the negro Ed. He silently motioned him to enter.
"Dey tol' me to gin you dis when you was settled," he said. He handed Waters a letter. It was from Colonel Bassett, Tom's commanding officer, and ran,
"Dear Sir, I wish I knew how to pay tribute to the finest man and most gallant gentleman I ever knew—your son. I wish I might have shown him the respect that I feel and come with his body to see it laid in its last resting-place, but this is war. I would condone with you, sir, but that I know the father of such a son must be proud to have had him die where and as he did."
It was a soldier's letter and though Waters read it with trembling voice, his eyes glowed and he looked at the still form as if to say, "I would not have had it otherwise."
Ed was still standing, waiting for the father to speak. But Waters said nothing. The negro shifted uneasily, then he said anxiously, "Is you mad at me, Mistah Watahs? Has de cunnel said anythin'? Dey wouldn't have sont me home wid him, but I baiged, 'cause I kinder thought you'd ravah have somebody—dat knowed him—bring him back."
Waters reached out and grasped the black ​man's hand. "Why, God bless you forever and ever," he said.
The privacy of the family even with its dead could not long be maintained. Dorbury had suspended business. This hero was theirs as well as his family's. They filled the sidewalks, they surged at the doors. They would see him. They would bring their flowers to lay beside his bier. He belonged to them, to them, who had helped to send him forth and had cheered his departure. Bradford Waters should not be selfish in his grief. The boys from the factories and warehouses came, and also from the shops, those who had known him and those who had not. All men know a hero. And the father said, "Let them come in, he will be glad to see them."
And so "the captain" came home.