# The Fanatics/Chapter 23

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CHAPTER XXIII
A TROUBLESOME SECRET
For a long time curiosity was rampant in a little country district not very far from Cincinnati. It was the proverbial rural locality where every one knows or wishes to know the business of every one else, and is offended if he doesn't. In this particular place, the object of interest was a white farmhouse set forward on the road, and fronting ample grounds both of field and garden. It was the home of John Metzinger, a prosperous German husbandman and his good wife, Gretchen. They were pleasant, easy-going people, warm-hearted and generous. Their neighbors had always looked upon them with favor, until one day—it was early in August, the eye of suspicion fell upon the house. Those who had lived near the Metzingers, and those who merely passed upon the road to and from town began to point questioning fingers at the place and to look askance at it. The gossips shook their heads and whispered together.
It all began with one woman who had ​unceremoniously "dropped in" on the couple; "dropping in" consisting of pushing open the door and entering unannounced by the formality of a knock. The easy-going neighbor had pursued this course only to find the door of an inner room hastily closed and the good wife profuse in embarrassed expostulations. Mrs. Metzinger was not good at dissimulation, and her explanation that the room was all torn up for she was house-cleaning served but to arouse her visitor's suspicion. In her own words as she told it many times later, she said with fine indignation, "Think o' her sayin' to me that she was cleanin' house, an' she with as spick an' span a white apern on as ever you see. Says I to her, 'Ain't you pickin' out a funny time to clean, Mrs. Metzinger?' and she says with that Dutch brogue o' hers, 'Oh, I cleans anydimes de place gets dirty.' Then I says ca'm like, because I've allus liked that woman, 'I should think you'd get yer apern dirty,' an' all of a sudden she jerked it off an' stood there grinnin' at me; but that was what give her away, for lo, an' behold, her dress was as clean as my bran' new calico. Then I says, 'Well, never min', I'll just come in an' help you, an' would you believe it, that woman got right in my way an' wouldn't let me go in that room, all the time jabbering something about 'Nod troublin' me.' Right then an' ​there, thinks I, there's something wrong in that room."
She closed her remarks as one who says, "There's murder behind that door."
Her hearers were struck by her tragic presentation of the case, and they too, began to watch for signs of guilt in the Germans. These were soon plentiful. None was more convincing than that a room that had always been open to the light had now its blinds closed. Some one had said too, that they had seen the doctor's gig at the door one night, and had waited for him to come out. But on questioning him, as any man has a right to do, "Who's sick, doctor?" he had sprung into his vehicle, put whip to his horse and dashed away without answering. This in itself, looked dark. For why should a doctor of all men, refuse to be questioned about his patients? The little scattered community for three or four miles and even further up and down the road was awe-struck and properly indignant. Such communities have no respect for reticence.
Meanwhile the trouble went on, and the Metzingers grew in disfavor. What had been friendly greetings degenerated into stiff nods or grew into clumsily veiled inquiries. While their neighbors lost sleep asking each other what horror was going on behind those closed doors, ​the simple couple went on about their duty and kept their counsel. It was really not so much the horror that the community resented but that the particulars of it were being kept from them.
If the Metzingers could have told their story, it would have proved, after all, a very short and simple one. It would have been to the effect that late one night towards the end of July, they had been awakened by the tramping of feet and a knocking upon their door. Going thither, they had found four men unkempt and mud-stained, who bore between them another, evidently wounded. They had brought him and laid him upon the sofa, and then with promises, that were half threats, had left him in their care. They came then to know who their visitors were; some of "Morgan's terrible men." Their promises to respect the farmer's stock had not been needed to secure attention for their wounded comrade, for the good wife's heart had gone out already to the young fellow who lay there so white and drabbled with blood.
John Metzinger would have told, though his good wife would never have mentioned it, how all that night and the next day, Gretchen had hovered over the wounded man, bandaging his arm, bathing it, and doing what she could to ease the pain, while the sufferer muttered strange things in his sleep and tossed like a restless child.
​They could not get a doctor until the next night, for they knew that all must proceed with secrecy, and when the physician came, the fever had already set in and the chances for the man's recovery seemed very slight.
They could have told too, of the doctor's long fight with the fever, and what the gossips did not know, how one night two physicians came and amputated the wounded arm at the elbow. Then of the long fight for life through the hot August days, of the terrible nights when Death seemed crowding into the close room and the sufferer lay gasping for breath. But they told nothing. Silently they went their way, grieved by the distrust of those about them, but unfaltering in their course. And when Van Doren first looked up weakly enough into the German woman's face, his eyes full of the gratitude he could not speak, both she and her John were repaid for all that they had suffered.
The woman fell upon her knees by the bed-side saying, "Dank Got, dank Got, he vill gid vell now, Shon," and "Shon" who was very big and very much a man, pressed his wife's hand and went behind the door to look for something that was not there.
With the cooler weather of autumn came more decided convalescence to the young trooper, but the earliest snows had fallen before he was ​able to creep to the door that looked out upon the road. He was only the shadow of his former self. Mrs. Metzinger looked at him, full of pity.
"I guess you petter led de toctor wride by your home now. Dey vill vant to hear from you."
"Not yet, not yet," he protested. "It would cause my father too much anxiety, and some others perhaps, too much joy to know how I am faring."
"Your poor fader, dough, he vill be vorried aboud you."
"Father knows the chances of war and he will not begin to worry yet. It would grieve him so much more to know that I am out of it all so soon."
"Mister Robert," said the woman impressively, "you don't know faders. Dey vas yoost like modders, pretty near, und modders, alvays vants to know; if he is vell, she is glad und she dank Got for dat. If he is det, she vants to gry und gry ofer dose leedle shoes dot he used to vear."
"He shall know, he shall know, Mrs. Metzinger, and very soon, for I am going home to him and his joy will make him forget how long he has waited."
"Yes, I guess maype dot is so."
Robert had divined more by instinct than by ​any outward demonstration of his hosts that his secret stay in the house had aroused in their neighbors some sort of feeling against these people. He was perfectly sure that should he write to his father, he would come to him in spite of everything, and at any stir or unusual commotion about the house, what was only smouldering now might burst into flame. So, although it wrung his heart to do so, living within sixty miles of his father, he kept his lips closed and gave no sign. His heart had gone out to these people who had sacrificed so much for him, and he wanted to do something in return for them. At first, because of his very weakness, they had forborne to question him about his home and people, and when he was strong enough to act, he had unconsciously accepted this silence as his sacrifice, without divining that he was not the real sufferer, not the real bearer of the burden.
He had promised that he would go home soon, but the case had been a severe one, and it was December before he dared to venture out beyond the gate. Sometimes, when the days were warm and bright, he would sit wrapped up on the porch at the side, for the need of secrecy gone, the Metzingers were openly and humanly unhumble. They bowed proudly, even jauntily to their detractors, while the priest and the Levites passed by on the other side. There were no ​good Samaritans about save the Metzingers themselves, and their little devices might have gone unobserved, but that the priest and the Levites were curious people, and at last, came over to. question.
"Who is the sick young man?" they questioned.
"He iss a friend of ours from de var," Mrs. Metzinger answered them.
"We'd like to talk to him," they volunteered.
"No, he must not talk to beoples, not yet," was the answer.
"Why don't he wear his uniform?" Robert wore a suit of "Shon's" jeans.
"It was yoost ruint and all spoilt mit blood."
But they looked at Robert askance, and the gossip which for awhile from inaction had faltered, sprang up anew. Who was he? Why so little about him? Why had they kept the secret so long?
The good people saw with dismay what they had done. They had only aroused the trouble which they had hoped to allay. Van Doren saw their trouble and determined immediately to relieve them.
"I am going home now," he told them one day.
"You are not yet so strong."
"Oh, yes I am. I'm quite a giant now."
​"Vat you dinks Shon? Iss he strong enough?"
"I dinks he gan stay here so long as he vants."
"But I am going, my good friends, it's best for us all."
"Vy?"
"I have seen how the neighbors look at me and I have seen how they look at you. You shan't hurt yourselves any longer."
"Dat iss not right. We care nodings for de neighbors. Ve minds our own business."
Mrs. Metzinger's husband said something under his breath, only a word it was, but it made his wife gasp and cry, "Shon, for shame on you!"
"I'm going," Robert went on, "either with your consent or without. I don't know how I'm ever going to thank you. You've both been so good. It's nasty in a case like this to think of pay. I can't do it decently, but I'm going to do it. It's the nearest way a brute of a man can come to showing his appreciation."
"No pay," said John.
"Not vun cent," said his wife.
"Ve had some gompany," Gretchen put in.
Robert smiled on; they were so like big children.
"I am not going to let you two cheat me out of showing my gratitude by any such excuse."
​Gretchen wept and John caused his wife to exclaim again, but it was of no use, and just at dusk, the old carryall took him away to the station, still in his host's suit, the empty sleeve turned up, and the stump of arm flapping at his side.
It was about an hour after John had gone with Robert to the station, that Mrs. Metzinger heard footsteps, and going to the door saw several men without.
"We want that man that's stayin' here," said the leader.
"He's yoost gone to his home in Dorbury."
"In Dorbury—why we thought—what side was he on?"
Mrs. Metzinger drew herself up in dignified anger and said, "I don'd dink Got has any sides, Deacon Callvell," then she slammed the door, and the deacon and his "Committee" went away feeling small, and glad that it was dark, while Mrs. Metzinger rocked out her pious anger until the floor cried again.