Benson was consumed by a great ambition, not for wealth exactly, though wealth must have been an incident. The railroad had already greatly extended their market, but this did not satisfy him; he felt that the world was at the beginning of an age when iron and steam would be used for a multitude of then unknown purposes. He was experimenting with improved machinery, machinery that was to largely displace the costly hand labour which at its best could not be counted on for results that were always uniform, since the human equation seemed to combat organization, to limit production. He imagined machinery, tireless, and skillful far beyond the skill of men, and unvaryingly effective; but above all, his great dream was to cheapen iron and steam. Toward this end, he was always planning, always contriving.
Mr. Bendy, now established at the post-office, swore a good deal at what the energetic Tom was doing; however, when he ventured into the shops he was meek enough, his displeasure and disapproval manifesting itself only in an air of cynical derision with which he listened to the Yankee mechanic's plans and theories.
Yet at the end of ten years, under Benson's management, the works covered an acre of ground, and employed fifty men where they had not kept twenty busy when he assumed control.
His family now consisted of his wife and a daughter; he lived in a large house on Water Street, which built according to plans of his own, violated every known law of beauty, but conformed to every requirement of strength and durability.
Jacob Benson was on the best of terms with his uncle. As a result of their intimacy Stephen came to know the mechanic and his daughter Marian, who was frequently her father's companion when he strolled around to the lawyer's office of an evening to chat—for he had a mighty hankering for political discussion, and certain radical convictions of his own were as fundamental with his nephew as they were with himself, being in truth a part of their very blood and bone.
At first the girl treated the boy with shy defference, while toward her he assumed an air of lofty tolerance; but imperceptibly this attitude of his changed; he grew shy, she tolerant. While he liked Marian, he did not altogether approve of her family. Her mother he compared unfavourably with his aunt. He was now a tall young fellow of seventeen or eighteen, and in his last year at the high school.
When Virginia, learned as she did in time, where many of his evenings were spent, she would have discouraged his visits to the Water Street house had she known how; but she feared the effect of opposition. She was aware that he was stubborn in his quiet way. Yet undeclared as her disapproval was, he was conscious of it, and it was unpleasant to him. He thought her unfair in this particular instance; he appreciated that neither Tom Benson nor his wife were the kind of people she would care to know, but he resented that she should include Marian in this evident feeling she had for them.
Stephen was graduated from the high school, and settled down to read law in earnest, but his zeal came and went by fits and starts. Success in life was highly desirable, but it seemed no more than a vague possibility. He would have liked to try his hand at the farm, but the income it yielded forbade his doing anything there. They must live, and he was not so sure there would be anything to live on while he experimented with crops.
He felt more and more as time went on, the inconvenience of their limited income. It made it the more difficult that he believed he was wasting his time in Benson's office, and that the law offered but an uncertain and precarious means of escape from the perplexities that were already hedging him in.
But events were to shape his future for him in ways he could not know.
One April day as he sat alone in the office by the window that overlooked the square, he saw Ben Wirt suddenly appear in front of the little one story building which was occupied by the Western Union as a telegraph office. Wirt was the operator. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and he carried in his hand a fluttering strip of paper.
For an instant he stood in front of his office, glancing back and forth across the square, as though he were looking for some one, but for the moment the square was deserted; then he espied Benson just issuing from the court-house half a block away, and hurried after him, calling as he ran.
Stephen closed his book, and watched them; they spoke together, and he saw the lawyer take the slip of paper and examine it. Then they were joined by one or two other men; and he saw the paper pass from hand to hand.
Now quite a crowd had collected about Wirt and the lawyer. Court, which was sitting, seemed to have adjourned for some inexplicable reason. There was the dumb show of eager questions and answers. And then Benson detached himself from the group and came hurrying across the square. When he entered the office, Stephen turned to him questioningly.
“What is it?” he asked eagerly.
“They have fired on Fort Sumter!” cried Benson.
“What if they have, that's about what I've been expecting. Is that what they were talking about out there?”
“Yes; they began firing on Fort Sumter early this morning; this means that the other slave States will join those that have already gone out!”
“Oh, no, they won't!” said the young man easily, and with sudden cheerfulness. “We won't let them!” he tossed his book to the table and left his chair. “We won't let them!” he repeated.
“We!” cried Benson.
“Certainly!” he laughed queerly, gleefully. “I shan't be able to stop them alone, but if there's going to be a war, they'll want soldiers to fight—that will just suit me! I'll enlist!”
“You! You'll do nothing of the kind!” said Benson sharply. “Why, you're just ready to be admitted to the bar.”
“I'll never make a lawyer!” the boy kept on with growing enthusiasm. “I've known that all along; but soldiering—”
“You're too young,” began the lawyer.
“I'm twenty, and it will be the young fellow's fight! The old fellows will stay home and talk fight just the way they have been doing ever since I can remember—what are they ringing that confounded court-house bell for anyhow?”
“They are going to call a meeting, I suppose,” said the lawyer.
“To pass resolutions?” shouted the boy, laughing. “To encourage us young fellows to go down South and get shot? It takes experience to knock together a batch of resolutions that look well on paper; that's the job for the old fellows! Stiff joints don't disqualify a man for that sort of thing. I'll bet they make you chairman, you or old Bradly.”
“You seem to find a good deal of amusement in this,” said Benson.
“I do. I'm just thinking what a lot of talking and quill driving has gone to get this thing started, but the real work will be done in quite another way; and it's the other way that suits me!”
“I wish you'd leave yourself out of this, Stephen,” said Benson shortly.
“I want to get you acquainted with the idea that I am to be in it!” retorted Stephen.
Benson shrugged his shoulders.
“I suppose you think that a good strong set of resolutions from the town of Benson in the State of Ohio, will settle the business,” said the boy, still laughing.
“Suppose there should be a call for men, and you should enlist; how do you think your aunt would feel?” inquired Benson.
This sobered Stephen instantly.
“Well,” he rejoined slowly, “if there's a war, I don't suppose it can be carried on by the orphans of the country; but, come to think of it, that describes me, though I hadn't thought of myself as that before!”
“No; and why hadn't you thought of it?” demanded the lawyer quickly.
“Well, I never think of myself in that way; my Aunt Virginia's been too good to me, for me to have missed anything in my life in the way of affection, you know that!”
“And you are now considering making her this singularly grateful return for all her goodness.”
“That's so,” said Stephen drily. “I'm all she has, just as she is all I have,” but the acknowledgment was made reluctantly enough.
“I was sure you would think of that,” said Benson.
The boy turned with a sigh to his chair by the window.
“Perhaps there won't be any need of men,” he muttered.
“Let us hope not,” Benson gravely rejoined. “Will you come with me?” he added. “I'm going back to see if Wirt has heard anything more.”
“No, it's not for me, you've shown me that,” said Stephen quietly, taking up his book again.
He remained in the office and read on, doggedly and determinedly seeking to close his senses to all external sights and sounds. Whatever happened, duty and devotion left but one course open to him.
That evening—it was Friday—he went home; he wished to escape from the fever of excitement that he knew was raging all about him, though he had voluntarily held himself aloof from it as from something he feared.
Early the next morning he hunted up Sam West, who had spent half the night in town. Of him he eagerly enquired the latest news; the bombardment of Fort Sumter still continued. In the afternoon, Jackson, the farm tenant, was able to tell him that a meeting had been called for Monday night; and that Captain Jim McKeever, a veteran of the Mexican War, who had recently failed in the liquor business, had already been to Columbus and had returned with the governor's authority to raise a company of volunteers in the event of there being a call for troops.
Stephen knew the captain, a dissipated little man, whose record as a citizen was far from spotless; but in the boy's eyes he suddenly assumed heroic proportions, for he had met the occasion in the one way it could be met, he had risen above profitless discussion. He slowly turned this latest information over in his mind as he strolled about the place. One thing was certain, he would not go into town; most of all, he would not go near that meeting on Monday night.
Yet when Monday came, and never before had a Sunday seemed so long in passing, or such a useless interruption to the affairs of life, he found his interest in the meeting all consuming and not to be denied; Sumter had fallen, and surely something would be done! During the afternoon he informed Virginia that he was going in to see Benson; and after supper rode in with Jackson who expected to attend the meeting. But when they reached town, the court-house was already packed to the doors; Stephen could not have gained admittance had he wished; but he no longer wished to, for what was going forward on the square he found infinitely more to his taste.
The centre of interest was Captain McKeever, who, mounted on an upturned barrel was haranguing the crowd that pressed about him. The whole scene was more one of popular rejoicing than anything else; for no one then realized the blackness of the shadow that was falling on the land; all was life and excitement, and joyous anticipation. How soon this was to simmer down in the realities of war, no one could have foreseen; but that, too, was again a phase of the national uprising, which was only national as it was widely individual.
Stephen was not in the least moved by McKeever's speech; he had a certain contempt for oratory; even the quiet restraint that characterized most of Benson's utterances in public, and he rarely ventured on a metaphor or happy turn, had always offended him; but his glance was fixed yearningly on a score or more of men in red shirts, who kept together about the speaker. At intervals, from the court-house there issued the sound of cheers and the heavy stamping of feet, but he had no interest in what was passing there; it was McKeever who was worth watching, McKeever and his men! Yet after a time he disengaged himself from the crowd, and was about to turn away, when some one touched him gently on the arm. It was Marian Benson.
“I've been standing close at your elbow for the past ten minutes, and you never saw me, you hadn't any eyes for me!” she said, laughing up into his face.
“I was listening to McKeever,” he muttered.
“But you were looking at the men who've enlisted, you never took your eyes off them; you looked and looked.”
“Did I? Aren't you afraid here alone in all this crowd?” he asked.
“I am waiting for papa,” she explained. “He has gone into the court-house, but I wanted to hear Captain McKeever, so I told him I would stand here by you. Isn't it dreadfully exciting? Do you think the captain will be able to raise his company? How fine it was of him to go to Columbus and offer to enlist men for the government!”
“Oh, yes, every one seems to want to join,” said the young man moodily.
He drew her further from the crowd. They turned the corner into Main Street; here there was silence.
“I suppose they are afraid it will be over with so soon, don't you?” suggested the girl.
“I don't think they need worry about that,” answered Stephen, moved to prophesy. He was conscious that his head ached, and that to have left the crowded square came as a welcome relief to him. “Why should we think it's going to be all our way?” he asked. “I suppose down South they are thinking the same thing; probably they and we are both wrong.”
“Shall you go, have you enlisted?” she asked quickly. She was in a flutter of foolish excitement; she had been eager to ask him this. Mentally she clothed his erect stalwart figure in a splendid uniform. War had no significance to her beyond the externals; that it might mean death, and suffering, she had not considered.
“No,” he said slowly, but added in the same breath, “not yet;” for he noted the quick change that had come over her, and knew that she was disappointed in him.
“If I were a man—” began the girl, and then stopped abruptly, abashed and diffident, realizing to what her words would lead.
“And what would you do if you were a man, Marian, surely you wouldn't want to be a soldier?” he said, smiling down at her.
“Yes, I should want to be a soldier! What can be more noble than to fight for one's country?”
Stephen gulped down something that rose in his throat; his breast seemed to swell to bursting with dull anguish, that it should be required of him to play so mean a part in this crisis.
“Why, Marian, I believe you want me to enlist!” he said at last in miserable perplexity.
“No, I don't, I haven't any right to want you to do anything,” she gave her head a scornful little toss. “Perhaps you wouldn't like to be a soldier.”
“You have no right to sneer at me!” said the boy, in a tone of bitter injury.
He was not even aware of her silliness; his one thought was that this was the way all women would feel, except only his Aunt Virginia, who seemed so resolutely opposed to all that his heart hungered for. His father and his uncle had been brave men! Every one would expect something of him; and here he was doomed to stay at home and read law. Read law! Why, he would be the laughing stock of the town. In his quick unreasoning vanity he saw himself disgraced, an object of ridicule; how was he to hold up his head? He turned unsteadily to the girl at his side, forgetful of the momentary hurt she had given him.
“If I go, Marian, shall you forget me?” he asked.
“Are you going, are you really going?” she cried, resting her hand on his arm, and glancing into his face with smiling eyes.
“You'll not forget me,” he repeated, “we've been such good friends, I can't bear to think that you might be able to forget me; yet if I go—” He covered the hand she had rested on his arm with his own.
“Of course I shan't forget you, Stephen,” she murmured. “Why, how absurd of you to speak of that! I shall always remember you, I never forget my friends, never!”
“When I come back may I tell you something I've wanted to tell you for ever so long—may I?”
She half hid her face on his arm, the pretty face that was making him a traitor to his duty. A new and strange emotion mastered him, as he felt her tremble at his side, the pressure of her little hands on his arm, her cheek against his sleeve; he drew her closer to him, and upward, until her flushed face was on a level with his own, and then for the first time he kissed her—not once, but again, and again.
“You know what I mean, Marian!” he whispered rapturously. “I'm not going to wait to tell you that I love you, I'm going to tell you now before I go;” for he was going, he could not stay to be held in contempt by her.
Presently they retraced their steps, the boy still drunk with ecstasy. The band was playing now; McKeever had ended his speech. Marian's eyes sparkled at the sound, her little feet kept eager step.
“Isn't it glorious!” she murmured, clinging to him. “Who wouldn't be a soldier that could be! I am so glad you are going, Stephen, I was almost afraid to ask you at first.”
But Stephen did not answer her. Joy in the pride of his asserted manhood left him dumb; he had broken free of the dull office, with its drab walls and dusty walnut woodwork, and littered desk, its bookcases with their yellow calfskin volumes; his future was to be wholly given over to heroism and glory! He was sure that he had made a choice that none, not even his Aunt Virginia or Benson, when they fully understood how he felt about it, would censure him for having made.
The drums and fifes rattled on merrily, the lights in the courthouse windows flashed out over the noisy mob on the square. Stephen found a place for Marian on the tavern steps where she could see all that was passing.
McKeever's Company, with McKeever at its head, was making the circuit of the square. Here and there as it moved along, a man would break through the crowd and fall in line, to be greeted by a burst of frantic cheering.
The company crossed the north side of the square, then the west and south sides, now it was approaching the east side and the tavern where Marian, clinging to the boy's arm, stood flushed and eager; but as the marching men came opposite them, she uttered a little smothered cry of dismay, for Stephen had gently released himself from her hold.
An instant later and he had vanished in the crowd, and when she saw him again he was one of the marching men.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I 'VE enlisted,” said Stephen to Benson.
The crowd had dispersed, and silence had fallen on the square. Benson had just entered his office whither Stephen had preceded him. The latter stood before his friend, shame-faced and dogged, with his blood quite cooled, and accused by an awakening sense of duty, which denied by his act, was now protesting against that act.
“I've enlisted,” he repeated, “and I must go home and tell my Aunt Virginia.”
“You've done what?” cried Benson, wheeling on him.
“Don't I make it plain to you, I've said it twice—I've enlisted. I'm going to the war.”
“You'll do nothing of the sort!” said Benson sharply and angrily. “What do you expect me to say to you?”
“I hope you'll be careful what you say,” retorted the young fellow, grinning with a fleeting sense of humour at the situation, “for I'm a soldier now!” He seated himself, and buried his hands deep in his trousers' pockets. “I've thrown over the whole thing, I'll never be a lawyer now, I've chosen a better trade, why don't you congratulate me? They have been patting me on the back and calling me a brave boy, haven't you anything to say?”
“I'll get you out of this in the morning,” declared Benson shortly.
“No, you won't!” said the young man quietly. “This is my affair. You can't get me out of it unless I am willing to be got out, and I won't be willing—my mind's made up; in fact, it was made up the moment I heard the news, only I didn't know it; but I know it now. It's the sort of a chance I've been looking for all along to escape from this. It's been all nonsense my reading law; but this, this is going to be right in my line.”
“Stephen,” said Benson sternly. “Pardon me, but you are talking like a fool. It's nothing to me what you do, I suppose if you get shot I can survive it.”
“So may I!” retorted the boy laughing. “You know there are worse things than that!”
“You'll oblige me by being serious,” said Benson curtly. “I am thinking now of your aunt, you know that.”
“Yes, I know,” answered Stephen, a trifle weary. “I've thought of her, too,” he added softly.
“This will be a serious matter to her, Stephen; and don't you think that enough sorrow has entered into her life already without you doing all you can to add to it?”
“Oh, what's the use of going into that phase of it to-night, I've thought of all that!”
“Then where's your love for her?” demanded Benson.
“It's just as deep and strong as it ever was!” said the boy defiantly. “You know it is; but can't you understand—I have to go—it's in me to go. I pledge you my word, I've made up my mind a score of times not on any account to be led away by my own wishes, but to stick it out here with you, and perhaps one of these days get where you'd give me the small end of your practice. I am quite hopeless, you see; I shall never be able to stand alone in this profession. I'll never fill the toes of your shoes even, you see I'm not to be fooled!”
“You're doing very well,” interrupted Benson quickly. “Of course, you are not exactly cut out for the law—”
“Then what in God's name am I cut out for, have you been able to discover that?”
“A young man may doubt his ability, that is natural enough, but it argues nothing; and in your case it is certainly no reason why you should throw your life, your chances all away!”
“If it were not for my Aunt Virginia I should be perfectly happy to-night; but having to go home and tell her—” Stephen frowned and was silent.
“But you don't have to go home and tell her! That's the very thing you are not to do!”
The boy shook his head. .
“I'm going to get it over with as soon as possible.”
“To-morrow morning—to-night—we'll go and see McKeever, and arrange it with him. Come, be reasonable!” urged Benson.
“No, we won't see him, not for that, anyhow!” retorted the boy.
“Look here, what do you suppose McKeever's after? He hopes to get a commission, and you are helping him along in his ambition!”
“Quite right. He should get a commission, he's gone ahead and done something worth while, why shouldn't he get what he wants? He's the biggest man in town to-night!” cried the boy with frank enthusiasm.
“He's a needy adventurer, Stephen, a man of no character; who has made a failure of his life solely because he was a man of no character.”
“Well, call him what you like; but it isn't helping me to think what I'll tell Aunt Virginia. That's the only thing I've got to worry over!”
“I tell you I can arrange it with McKeever!” insisted Benson. “You will just drop out. You are only committed in so far as you foolishly gave your promise to join his company; you were excited, carried away, and did not stop to think of the consequences. Now you have had time to cool off, and you are seeing in what direction your duty lies.”
“No, I'm not going to appear ridiculous, or as if I hadn't known my own mind!” said the boy doggedly, but secretly he was rather alarmed by the lawyer's opposition, and he feared that he might take steps in the matter which would humiliate him.
“I suppose you had rather appear merely ungrateful,” observed Benson contemptuously.
“Well, that's all in the family. Understand, please, you are not to see McKeever, and you are not to say anything to him if you chance to meet him. Please, now—I don't want you to! It's my affair—”
“He had no business to accept you.” Benson placed his hand on the young man's shoulder, and let it rest there with a kindly pressure. “Don't you be a fool, Stephen!” he urged gently. “All you have to think about is your Aunt Virginia, her feelings, her anxiety, and suffering, if you enlist!”
The boy rounded his shoulder at the touch, and looked up sullenly into his friend's face.
“What's the use of your working yourself into a state of mind over this! I tell you it's settled,” he declared, in a tone that he meant should stop further argument.
“Think of her!”
“I tell you it's settled. Let me stay here with you to-night, and tomorrow you drive out and tell her what I've done, that's where I lose my grip.”
“No, I'll have no part in breaking that news to her; but you stay here to-night, and in the morning we'll hunt up McKeever.”
But Stephen only shook his head.
“I thought you'd help me,” he said, with much dejection of manner.
“Not in this, not in the way you wish me to.”