The Greatest Christmas Tales & Poems in One Volume (Illustrated). О. Генри
can understand your feeling,” said his brother, who was known as Tom Reckenthorpe, “on the assumption that you think more of being a soldier than of being a man; but not otherwise.”
“Even if I were no soldier, I would not be a rebel,” said Frank.
“How a man can be a rebel for sticking to his own country, I cannot understand,” said Tom.
“Your own country!” said Frank. “Is it to be Kentucky or South Carolina? And is it to be a republic or a monarchy? Or shall we hear of Emperor Davis? You already belong to the greatest nation on the earth, and you are preparing yourself to belong to the least: that is, if you should be successful. Luckily for yourself, you have no chance of success.”
“At any rate, I will do my best to fight for it.”
“Nonsense, Tom,” said the old man, who was sitting by.
“It is no nonsense, sir. A man can fight without having been at Westpoint. Whether he can do so after having his spirit drilled and drummed out of him there, I don’t know.”
“Tom!” said the old man.
“Don’t mind him, Father,” said the younger. “His appetite for fighting will soon be over. Even yet I doubt whether we shall ever see a regiment in arms sent from the Southern States against the Union.”
“Do you?” said Tom. “If you stick to your colours, as you say you will, your doubts will be soon set at rest. And I’ll tell you what, if your regiment is brought into the field, I trust that I may find myself opposite to it. You have chosen to forget that we are brothers, and you shall find that I can forget it also.”
“Tom!” said the father, “you should not say such words as that; at any rate, in my presence.”
“It is true, sir,” said he. “A man who speaks as he speaks does not belong to Kentucky, and can be no brother of mine. If I were to meet him face to face, I would as soon shoot him as another; sooner, because he is a renegade.”
“You are very wicked, very wicked,” said the old man, rising from his chair, “very wicked.” And then, leaning on his stick, he left the room.
“Indeed, what he says is true,” said a sweet, soft voice from a sofa in the far corner of the room. “Tom, you are very wicked to speak to your brother thus. Would you take on yourself the part of Cain?”
“He is more silly than wicked, Ada,” said the soldier. “He will have no chance of shooting me, or of seeing me shot. He may succeed in getting himself locked up as a rebel; but I doubt whether he’ll ever go beyond that.”
“If I ever find myself opposite to you with a pistol in my grasp,” said the elder brother, “may my right hand “
But his voice was stopped, and the imprecation remained unuttered. The girl who had spoken rushed from her seat, and put her hand before his mouth.
“Tom,” she said, “I will never speak to you again if you utter such an oath never!”
And her eyes flashed fire at his, and made him dumb.
Ada Forster called Mrs Reckenthorpe her aunt, but the connection between them was not so near as that of aunt and niece. Ada, nevertheless, lived with the Reckenthorpes, and had done so for the last two years. She was an orphan, and on the death of her father had followed her father’s sister-in-law from Maine down to Kentucky; for Mrs Reckenthorpe had come from that farthest and most straitlaced State of the Union, in which people bind themselves by law to drink neither beer, wine, nor spirits, and all go to bed at nine o’clock. But Ada Forster was an heiress, and therefore it was thought well by the elder Reckenthorpes that she should marry one of their sons. Ada Forster was also a beauty, with slim, tall form, very pleasant to the eye; with bright speaking eyes and glossy hair; with ivory teeth of the whitest, only to be seen now and then when a smile could be won from her; and therefore such a match was thought desirable also by the younger Reckenthorpes. But unfortunately it had been thought desirable by each of them, whereas the father and mother had intended Ada for the soldier.
I have not space in this short story to tell how progress had been made in the troubles of this love affair. So it was now, that Ada had consented to become the wife of the elder brother, of Tom Reckenthorpe, with his home among the slaves, although she, with all her New England feelings strong about her, hated slavery and all its adjuncts. But when has Love stayed to be guided by any such consideration as that? Tom Reckenthorpe was a handsome, highspirited, intelligent man. So was his brother Frank. But Tom Reckenthorpe could be soft to a woman, and in that, I think, had he found the means of his success. Frank Reckenthorpe was never soft.
Frank had gone angrily from home when, some three months since, Ada had told him her determination. His brother had been then absent, and they had not met till this their Christmas meeting. Now it had been understood between them, by the intervention of their mother, that they would say nothing to each other as to Ada Forster. The elder had, of course, no cause for saying aught, and Frank was too proud to wish to speak on such a matter before his successful rival. But Frank had not given up the battle. When Ada had made her speech to him, he had told her that he would not take it as conclusive. “The whole tenor of Tom’s life,” he had said to her, “must be distasteful to you. It is impossible that you should live as the wife of a slaveowner.”
“In a few years there will be no slaves in Kentucky,” she had answered.
“Wait till then,” he had answered, “and I also will wait.”
And so he had left her, resolving that he would bide his time. He thought that the right still remained to him of seeking Ada’s hand, although she had told him that she loved his brother.
“I know that such a marriage would make each of them miserable,” he said to himself over and over again. And now that these terrible times had come upon them, and that he was going one way with the Union, while his brother was going the other way with Secession, he felt more strongly than ever that he might still be successful. The political predilections of American women are as strong as those of American men. And Frank Reckenthorpe knew that all Ada’s feelings were as strongly in favour of the Union as his own. Had not she been born and bred in Maine? Was she not ever keen for total abolition, till even the old Major, with all his gallantry for womanhood and his love for the young girl who had come to his house in his old age, would be driven occasionally by stress of feeling to rebuke her? Frank Reckenthorpe was patient, hopeful, and firm. The time must come when Ada would learn that she could not be a fit wife for his brother. The time had, he thought, perhaps come already; and so he spoke to her a word or two on the evening of that day on which she had laid her hand upon his brother’s mouth.
“Ada,” he had said, “there are bad times coming to us.”
“Good times, I hope,” she had answered. “No one could expect that the thing could be done without some struggle. When the struggle has passed, we shall say that good times have come.” The thing of which she spoke was that little thing of which she was ever thinking the enfranchisement of four millions of slaves.
“I fear that there will be bad times first. Of course, I am thinking of you now.”
“Bad or good, they will not be worse to me than to others.”
“They would be very bad to you if this State were to secede, and if you were to join your lot to my brother’s. In the first place, all your fortune would be lost to him and to you.”
“I do not see that; but, of course, I will caution him that it may be so. If it alters his views, I shall hold him free to act as he chooses.”
“But, Ada, should it not alter yours?”
“What, because of my money? or because Tom could not afford to marry a girl without a fortune?”
“I did not mean that. He might decide that for himself. But your marriage with him under such circumstances as those which he now contemplates would be as though you married a Spaniard or a Greek adventurer. You would be without country, without home, without fortune, and without standing-ground