“Well, well,” said Grandma one evening when Bobby and Alice and Pink came to her room for their usual bedtime story, “I don’t know what to tell you about tonight.”
“Tell us a war story,” suggested Bobby eagerly.
“Maybe I might tell you a war story,” agreed Grandma, “a war story of a time long ago.” And she picked up her knitting and began slowly:
“When the Civil War broke out I was a very little girl. Of course there had been lots of talk of war, but the first thing I remember about it was when we heard that Fort Sumter had been fired on. It was a bright, sunshiny morning in the spring. I was helping Father rake the dead leaves off the garden when I saw a man coming up the road on horseback. I told Father, and he dropped his rake and went over to the fence. In those days it wasn’t as it is now. News traveled slowly—no telephones, no trains, no buggies. And this young man, who had been to Clayville to get his marriage license, brought us the news that Fort Sumter had been fired on.
“Father went straight into the house to tell Mother, and after a while he and my big brother, Joe, saddled their horses and rode away. I thought they were going right off to war and started to cry, and then I laughed instead when our big Dominique rooster flew up on the hen-house roof, flapped his wings, and crowed and crowed. A great many men and boys rode by our house that day on their way to Clayville, and when Father and Joe came back next day Joe had volunteered and been accepted and he stayed at home only long enough to pack his clothes and say good-by to us.
“There wasn’t much sleep in our house that night, and I lay in my trundle-bed, beside Father’s and Mother’s bed, and listened to them talking, talking, until I thought it must surely be morning. I went to sleep and wakened again and they were still talking. Finally I could hear Father’s regular breathing and knew that he had gone to sleep at last. In a little bit Mother slipped out of bed and went into the hall. I thought she was going for a drink and followed her, but she went into Stanley’s room, which had been Joe’s room, too, until that night.
“Mother bent over Stanley and spoke his name softly and he wakened and started up in bed.
“‘What is it, Mother?’ he whispered, frightened.
“‘Stanley,’ Mother said slowly, ‘I want you to promise me that you won’t go to war without my consent.’
“Stanley laughed out loud in relief.
“‘Gee, Mother, you gave me a scare!’ he said. ‘I thought some one was sick or something. The war’ll be over long before I’m old enough to go.’ He was going on sixteen then.
“‘It won’t do any harm to promise then,’ Mother persisted, and Stanley promised.
“I crept back to bed and pulled the covers up over my head.
“But Stanley was mistaken about the war being over soon. The war didn’t stop. It went on and on. Two years and more passed, and Stanley was eighteen. Boys of that age were being accepted for service, but Stanley never said a word about volunteering.
“Shortly after his eighteenth birthday there came a change in him. He was not like himself at all. He had always been a lively boy, full of fun and mischief, but now he was very quiet. He never mentioned the war any more, and often dashed out of the room when every one was talking excitedly about the latest news from the battlefield. He avoided the soldiers home on furlough, didn’t seem to care to read Joe’s letters, and as more and more of his friends enlisted he became gloomy and downhearted.
“We could all see as time went on that Father was disappointed in Stanley. He was always saying how much better it was for a young man to enlist than to wait for the draft. The very word ‘draft’ had for Father a disgraceful sound.
“I think Mother must have thought it was Stanley’s promise to her that was worrying him, for one day she came out to the barn where Stanley was shelling corn and I was picking out the biggest grains to play ‘Fox and Geese’ with. Mother told Stanley she released him from his promise, but he didn’t seem glad at all. He only said, ‘Don’t you worry, Mother, I’m not going to war.’
“‘I was troubled about Joe that night,’ Mother said. ‘I thought I couldn’t bear for you to go, too. But you are older now and you must do what you think best.’
One day two recruiting officers came out to Nebo Cross Roads
“As Mother went out of the barn there were tears in her eyes and I knew in that moment that she would rather have Stanley go to war than have him afraid to go.
“They were forming a new company in Clayville, and one day two recruiting officers came out to Nebo Cross Roads. Father let Truman take Charlie and me over to see them. It was raining, and I can see those two men yet standing there in the rain. One had a flute and the other had a drum. They played reveille and taps and guard mount and ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ and a new song we had never heard before, ‘Tenting on the Old Camp Ground.’ And how that music stirred the folks! They had to use two wagons to haul the recruits into Clayville that night.
“That evening when I was hunting eggs in the barn I found Stanley lying face down in the hay. He was crying! I could hardly believe my eyes. I went a little nearer and I saw for sure that his shoulders were shaking with sobs. But even while I watched him he got to his feet and began rubbing his right arm. I often saw Stanley working with his arm. He would rub it and swing it backward and forward and strike out with his fist as if he were going to hit some one a blow. He didn’t mind me watching him, and I never told anyone about it. He had broken that arm the winter before, and I had often seen him working with it after he had stopped wearing it in a sling.
“I wondered to myself why, if Father and Mother thought Stanley was afraid to fight, they did not ask him and find out. He knew why he didn’t enlist—he could tell them. At last I decided if they wouldn’t do it themselves I’d do it for them. So the next time I was alone with Stanley, I said, ‘Stanley, are you afraid to go to war?’
“‘Afraid!’ he cried angrily, ‘Who said I was afraid?’ Then his tone changed. ‘They don’t want me. They won’t have me. It’s this arm,’ and he held his right arm out and looked at it in a disgusted sort of way. ‘They claim it’s stiff, but I could shoot if they would only give me a chance. I’ve tried three times to get in, but there’s no use worrying Mother about it since I can’t go. But my arm is getting better. It’s not nearly as stiff as it was. I’ll get in yet.’ Then he looked at me scornfully and said, ‘Afraid! Afraid nothing!’
“I ran as fast as ever I could to find Father and Mother and tell them. Mother hugged me and laughed and cried at the same time and said she always knew it, and Father made me tell over to him three times, word for word, every single thing Stanley had said.
“‘He must never know,’ Mother said. ‘He must never suspect for a minute that we thought he didn’t want to go, the poor dear boy, keeping his trouble to himself for fear of worrying us.’ And she told me to get Charlie and catch a couple of chickens to fry for supper. Then I knew she was happy again, for whenever Mother was happy or specially pleased with one of us she always had something extra good to eat.
“Pass the apples, Alice, please, and tomorrow night if you’re real good and don’t get kept in at school I’ll tell you—well, you just be real good and you’ll see what I’ll tell you about.”