Raintree County (72 page)

Later, Ellen took Johnny aside.

—You'd best be with Susanna when she wakes up, she said. She had a hard time of it, poor thing. I think she was nearly out of her head, but she'll be all right.

It was dawn when Susanna finally stirred in her deep sleep and opened her eyes.

—Susanna, it's me, Johnny.

She stared at him mournfully, and her hands began to trail slowly down the blanket.

—You're a mother, Johnny said. We have a fine little boy. Everything's all right.

She watched him with mournful, suspicious eyes.

—Listen to him, Johnny said. You can hear him.

The baby was crying in a little cradle near-by.

—Is it all right?

—Fine, Johnny said. T. D. says he's a perfect child.

Susanna's eyes burned with a steady intensity.

—I want to see him, she said.

He brought the baby and showed it to her. She spent a long time looking at its little hands and feet and its blue eyes.

—You sure there wasn't another? she said.

—Another?

—Yes, Susanna said, fixing him with the same truth-demanding gaze. A twin. I thought I remembered that there was another.

—No, I'm positive. You just imagined it. What'll we call him?

—Sure there wasn't another? Susanna said, watching him narrowly. One that wasn't—that wasn't right? One that was thrown away?

—Absolutely not, Johnny said.

But Susanna was so solemn and persistent in her questions that he began to wonder. When T. D. and Ellen got up later in the morning, he spoke to them about it.

—Pa, there was just this baby, wasn't there? There wasn't—there wasn't another one—I mean born dead?

He watched T. D. narrowly, wondering if he and Ellen were concealing something.

—What's that? T. D. said.

His clear blue eyes were innocent and bewildered. Instantly, Johnny's doubts dissolved. He described Susanna's memory that there had been another child.

—All women worry about their baby not being perfect, Ellen said. The poor dear was out of her mind with pain. It was a hard labor.

When he returned to Susanna's room, he found her suckling the child. As she didn't ask any more questions about it, he decided that she must have recovered from her anxiety.

—What'll we name this kid? Johnny asked.

He had thought about names before, but when he had approached Susanna with the question, she had always said to wait until the child came, and then they could name it. Now she said,

—If you don't mind, Johnny, I'd like to call it James Drake Shawnessy. After my father.

—All right. That's a fine name. I like it.

—James, she said thoughtfully. Jim. Yes, that's what I want to call him. Jim. Little Jim.

—Little Jim, Johnny said.

He laughed. But Susanna didn't laugh. Instead, she looked up at him with a curious smile. Then whispering to him as if they were conspirators, she said,

—You're absolutely sure? You can tell me now.

—Sure about what?

—That there wasn't another.

—Absolutely, Johnny said. Now, you go to sleep. You just need a good rest.

He kissed her then, said good night, turned down the lamp, left the room. He went downstairs and, feeling unable to sleep, asked T. D., who was going back to the Home Place, to let him drive. Ellen intended to stay and help look after Susanna for a while.

—I'll walk back from the Home Place, Johnny said. I'm not a bit sleepy. I feel like walking.

—Better get some rest, T. D. said. You got a new responsibility.

But Johnny drove his father home. The earth was bright and cool in the early morning. It was April in Raintree County. Johnny Shawnessy felt strong and confident again as he strode out resolutely along the road from the Home Place back to Freehaven.

Yes, all would somehow be well with him now. It was necessary to have courage and conviction and to find one's people at the right time. All would yet be well, too, with the Republic. Even if it came to war, there were brave men in Raintree County and throughout the Nation, and they would fight to see the Union sustained in Liberty and Justice. It mattered after all whether one was right or wrong. It mattered about slavery. It mattered about the Union. This was the springtime of a solemn awakening of conscience.

He looked about him at the earth of Raintree County, a dark earth on which the little flowers were putting into bloom. He saw the gentle hills and shallows lying away to north and south. He passed through the town of Danwebster, huddled in the crook of the river, he saw the river running clear and clean on its pebbly bed. He drank the young day scented with the flesh of flowers and colored with a mist of buds bursting on winterblackened trees and bushes. He loved this earth, which had been somehow sundered from him by the parting of the Nation.

For Raintree County, he felt, lay far beyond the four borders
which contained its span of dirt. It was also the Republic, a peerless dream. The war that had come was being fought for Raintree County and its way of life. It was for the soul of Johnny Shawnessy and his wife Susanna. It was for the future of his son.

At about nine-thirty, he reached the office of the
Enquirer.
Niles Foster was out in front talking with several other men. Although it was Sunday, the Square was crowded.

—Hi, Niles, Johnny said. I have an item I want you to print tomorrow.

—Tomorrow be damned! Niles said. You can print it today if you want to.

—I thought today was Sunday.

—It is, Niles said. My boy, we're putting out a special edition. Come on in and help.

—You mean——

—I mean we've struck the flag on Sumter. Pulled it down this morning, and surrendered with honor after a heroic defense. The Rebels shelled the place for two days steady. No telling how many brave men lost their lives. By the living God, the traitors will have to pay for it. Starting today we nail our colors to the masthead, ‘Down with Treason. The Union Forever.'

—We'll fight then?

—Sure we'll fight. This town's crazy right now with war spirit. I never saw anything like it. They sure have pulled in their necks down at the
Clarion.
Every boy in Raintree County with red blood in his veins is itching to volunteer and get into the fight.

—They'll have to have it without me, Johnny said. I've just had a baby.

—Congratulations! Niles said. Leave the facts inside, and I'll write it up. Boy?

—Yes, sir.

—You'll never get into it then, a man said. War'll be over before that kid uncrosses his eyes.

Johnny had a hard time getting through the Square. In front of the
Clarion
office he found Garwood Jones.

—Hi, John, Garwood said. Hear you've gone and had that baby. You picked a bad time.

—What's the Democratic line on this Sumter matter? Johnny said.
I suppose it's all just a mirage in the minds of victory-drunk Republicans. Like Secession and all the rest.

—I cannot pretend, Garwood said, clearing his throat and looking around to see how many people were listening, that I am not deeply moved by this insult to the Flag. We are men of generous breasts and slow to anger, we of the North, but——

—Save it for the
Clarion,
Johnny said. So you're doing a turntail?

—Hell, no, Garwood said, talking low in his informal voice through the shattered horn of his cigar. After all, can you blame the Southerners? But if the people up here want war, war there will be.

Later, Johnny ran into Zeke.

—Well, John, Zeke said, you better take a last look at your favorite brother.

—How's that?

—I'm volunteerin', Zeke said.

—Folks know?

—Not yet. They been too busy gittin' that brat of yours born.

—How long do you think you'll be gone?

—Maybe a month, maybe two, Zeke said. Long enough to chase those skunks into the Gulf. Yippee!

His big redbearded face was flushed, eager, happy. He laughed, rubbed his hands together, slapped his knee.

—Who's organizing the volunteers? Johnny asked.

—Jake Jackson is takin' a company over to Indianapolis next week. They say Lincoln will issue a call for volunteers any time now.

A band went by playing ‘Yankee Doodle.' A lot of hysterical citizens, men and women, were marching behind it.

Down at the telegraph office, a talkative mob was taking the news apart as it came in.

—Hell, a heavyset middleaged man said, if you boys have half the guts that we had back in '46, you'll have the damn traitors whipped by the Fourth of July. I wish I could git into it myself.

The crowd was making fun of an old man, who was the town's only veteran of the War of 1812.

—How about it, Pap? Goin' to git into it?

—Demn right, the old man said. If they'll let me.

They thumped the old man on the back, his eyes watered, he laughed happily—an old man's idiot, toothless laugh. All the young men were being slapped on the back too. Veterans of the Republic's last war kept feeling the youngsters' arms and giving them advice. The young men grinned goodnaturedly and looked vaguely shy and heroic. They were the chosen.

Almost everyone seemed elated and confident about this war, which had begun with a defeat.

Cash Carney had one thin, trimtailored leg on the top of a hitching stone and was evolving plans.

—The key to the situation is railroads, he was saying. When you get right down to it, railroads will win the War. And we got more and better ones.

—Think it'll last long, Cash? Johnny said.

—It can't last long. Not the way people feel about it up here.

Before he left the Square, Johnny picked up a copy of the
Enquirer.
The news from Sumter filled the important space. Down in the lower lefthand corner of the last page was an item under Personal News.

NEW BABY

(Epic Fragment from the
Free Enquirer
)

The union of Mr. and Mrs. John Wickliff Shawnessy has been happily blessed with a male heir, who was ushered into this valley of tears, turmoil, and trouble at 4:00 this morning. The new cherub will carry the cognomen of James Drake Shawnessy, and a finer little fellow, it is reported, has never yet gladdened the eyes of doting parents. He weighed eight and a half pounds, and the mother is doing quite well, thank you. The father, a young man of prominence in the community, is resting easy and is expected to pull through. Interviewed just after the Happy Event, he stated that the arrival of the child would,

AT LEAST FOR THE TIME BEING, MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE
FOR HIM TO GO
TO

—W
AR
, said the Perfessor, is the most monstrous of all human illusions. All ideals worth anything are worth not fighting for.

—War, gentlemen, the Senator said, is one of the world's necessary evils. This nation grew strong through battle. The Civil War was the college in which the young men of this country learned how to do big things.

—War is just plain killing, the Perfessor said. You understand, I'm not sentimental about it. God knows, unless we drew a little blood now and then, there wouldn't be room on the globe for us all. What's pitiful is how men murder each other and then glorify the crime in song and story. The real issues of the Civil War always seemed simple to me. The Civil War was fought quite simply because some men are darker than others. In a way both North and South were fighting the Negro—the South to keep him a slave and productive, the North to keep him from being too productive, which meant making him free.

—There's a lot of truth in that, the Senator said. No use pretending that either side fought the War on moral grounds. Two economic systems were pitted against each other—railroads against cotton. When I changed over and became a Republican, it was in recognition of that fact. Economically, the South was behind the times. This country was meant to be one Nation, one big industrial and political bloc. It was Fate, and the South had to give in to Fate—and the bigger battalions.

—The Civil War, Mr. Shawnessy said, was fought because man will be free. Both sides fought it as a holy war.

—But you see, John, the Perfessor said, you and I were part of the War, and we can't get away from its fine old fervors. All that cant about Liberty and Union was part of our youth, and a man will cling to as much youth as he can. But was it so important after all that a certain hunk of the earth be called by one name instead of two? Which side fought for God and the Right? Well, I'll tell you. God doesn't care about these things. God was quite untroubled by the Great American Civil War. God, the God of Nature, is a great
brute impulse. He laughs at our romantic ideals of love and war. I tell you, John, the farmboys went out and died merely because they had the goddam rotten luck to be born one side or other of a river. There's no absoluteness in these things. War is neither moral nor immoral, just as life is neither moral nor immoral. War simply happens to men, they're blind victims of it, it's a clash of forces ruthless and natural, like the unconscious strife between the dinosaurs and the little early mammals who ate their eggs and destroyed them. Only our everlasting glorification of the individual makes us believe in the epic heroism of war. We get completely lost in a swirl of proper nouns. Sumter, Fredericksburg, Antietam, Gettysburg, Lincoln, Lee, Sherman, Grant, Washington, Richmond, the 134th Indiana Volunteers, the March to the Sea, Shiloh, Vicksburg—what are all these names? Words only, I assure you. All this is simply the romantic human being trying to deny that he's an animal. It's because we all try so hard to be immortal and distinguish ourselves from every other individual who ever lived that we have so much sorrow and so much poetry. We'd be happier if we practiced the same ethics toward ourselves that we do toward flies. What is the death of one hundred thousand flies? Just a natural phenomenon. A fly is not an individual. A fly is simply the representative of a species. No one but that sentimental sap, Uncle Toby, cares about what happens to a fly.