"But it wasn't a woman that come between my brothers, it was the war. It was a long time before the family found out that David and Jonathan didn't think alike about States' rights; and when we did find out, we paid mighty little attention to it, for we thought they'd come to an agreement about this jest as they had about every other question that'd ever come up between 'em. But when the President made his first call for soldiers, David and Jonathan both went to Mother and asked her consent to enlist. They was of age and might 'a' done as they pleased. But as long as one of us children stayed under Father's roof, we never took a step of any importance that we didn't first ask Mother's consent.
"Well, Mother looked at 'em awhile, standin' before her so tall and strong and handsome, and she says, 'My sons, you'll never have my consent to goin' in the army.' And David and Jonathan looked at each other, and then David spoke. 'Well, Mother,' says he, 'if you won't give your consent, we'll have to go without it.' And Mother says, 'You boys never disobeyed me in your lives, are you goin' to disobey me at this late day?' And David says, 'No, Mother, we're goin' to obey you,' says he. 'You've told us from our youth up that we must listen to the voice of conscience and do whatever we thought was right,—I think one way about this matter and Jonathan thinks the other, but we're both listenin' to the voice of conscience and doin' what we think is right jest as you taught us to do.'
"Well, of course, Mother couldn't answer that, and so the word went out that David and Jonathan was goin' to enlist, and all the married brothers and sisters gethered at the old home place to say farewell to 'em.
"Maybe you know, child, how you feel the mornin' after there's been a death in the house. It hardly seems worth while to do any thing, for your heart's in the coffin in the dark room, but you go on and cook and put the house in order and try to eat the same as if nothin' had happened. And that's the way we all felt the mornin' my brothers went to the war. Mother wouldn't let anybody help her cook breakfast. Says she, 'It's the last thing I can do for my boys, and I don't want any help.' So she cooked the breakfast and waited on the boys and watched 'em while they eat, the same as she'd been doin' all their lives. And when the meal was over, Father was at the gate with the wagon to take 'em to town to catch the mornin' train to Louisville, and from there Jonathan had to go to Camp Joe Holt over in Indiana—that's where the Federals had their recruitin' place—and David, he was to go to Camp Boone in Tennessee. All of us went out to the gate to say farewell, and there wasn't a tear dropped nor a useless word said. If one had cried we'd all 'a' cried. But we saw that Mother was holdin' her tears back, so we all did the same. And we stood and looked till the wagon was out o' sight, and then everybody went back to the house feelin' as if we'd jest come back from a buryin'. Well, from that day on, all we lived for was to hear the news from the battles and find out which side beat. Some o' the neighbors was on the side o' the North and some on the side o' the South, and one could rejoice to-day and another one to-morrow, and one was prayin' for Lee and the other for Grant, but Mother she'd say, 'It's all one! It's all one! There's no rejoicin' for me no matter which side wins, and the only prayer I can pray is "Lord! Lord! put an end to this war and give me back my boys."' People used to come over and talk to Mother and try to make her see things different. Uncle Haley says to her once, says he, 'Deborah, can't you think o' your country? There's a great question to be settled. Nobody knows which is the strongest, the government up yonder at Washin'ton, or the government down yonder in South Carolina and right here in Kentucky. It's a big question,' says he, 'and it's been botherin' this country ever since it's been a country, and this war's goin' to settle it one way or the other for good and all, and no matter which side a man's fightin' on, he's doin' his part in the settlement.' Says he, 'You've got a son on each side, and you ought to feel proud and glad that you're doin' so much for your country.' And Mother's eyes'd flash and she'd say, 'Country! You men never told me I had a country till you got up this war and took my sons away from me. I'm nothin' but a poor old woman that's spent her life raisin' up a family, and what's a country to me unless I've got my sons?'"
The mother-heart! It beats to the same measure, be it Garibaldi's time in Italy or war-time in Kentucky.
And when Italy's made, for what end is it done
If we have not a son?
. . . . . . . .
When you have your country from mountain to sea,
When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head.
(And I have my dead.)
"If David and Jonathan had been on the same side," continued Aunt Jane, "it would 'a' been easier for Mother; but she used to say it was like havin' her heart torn in two, and one half of it was with David and the other half with Jonathan, and she worried herself nearly crazy over the fear that one of her boys might kill the other. And the fightin' kept on, the battles longer and harder all the time,—Manassas and Fort Donaldson and Pea Ridge and Mill Spring, and there was hardly a time when it wasn't Kentuckian against Kentuckian, and at last come the battle o' Shiloh."
On that fatal word Aunt Jane's voice broke. She turned away from me and covered her face with her apron, and there was a long pause. The rains of more than forty springs had cleansed the earth from the taint of blood; grass and flowers and grain were growing over the old battle-field; but, like the wand of a wizard, the rusty bayonet had waved out of sight and out of mind the decades of peace, and her tears flowed for a grief too deep to be healed by the flight of mortal years.
Presently, with trembling hands she began arranging the boxes and bundles on the shelves. There were no unfinished tasks in Aunt Jane's life; the closet must be cleaned, and a story once begun must be told to the end. She steadied her voice and went on.