Ramsey Milholland | Page 2

shadows, produced by a struggle to think. "Well, but--" he began,

slowly. "Listen, Grandpa, listen here!"
"Well?"
"Listen! Well, you said--you said you never got scared the ole Rebels
were goin' to win."
"They did win pretty often," said the grandfather. "They won a good
many battles."
"I mean, you said you never got scared they'd win the war."
"No, we were never afraid of that."
"Well, but if they were good men and fought like wildcats, Grandpa,
and kep' winning battles and everything, how could that be? How could
you help bein' scared they'd win the war?"
The grandfather's feeble eyes twinkled brightly. "Why, we knew they
couldn't, Ramsey."
At this, the little vertical shadows on Ramsey's forehead became more
pronounced, for he had succeeded in thinking. "Well, they didn't know
they couldn't, did they?" he argued. "They thought they were goin' to
win, didn't they?"
"Yes, I guess they did. Up till toward the last, I suppose they probably
did. But you see they were wrong."
"Well, but--" Ramsey struggled. "Listen! Listen here, Grandpa! Well,
anyway, if they never got scared we'd win, and nobody got scared
they'd win--well, I don't see--"
"You don't see what?"
But Ramsey found himself unable to continue his concentration; he
slumped down upon the small of his back, and his brow relaxed to its
more comfortable placidity, while his eyes wandered with a new
butterfly fluttering over the irises that bordered the iron picket fence at

the south side of the yard. "Oh, nothin' much," he murmured.
"I see." And his grandfather laughed again. "You mean: If the Rebels
felt just as sure of winning the war as we did, and kept winning battles
why shouldn't we ever have had any doubts that we were going to win?
That's it, isn't it?"
"I guess so, Grandpa."
"Well, I think it was mostly because we were certain that we were
right."
"I see," said Ramsey. "The Rebels knew they were on the side of the
Devil." But at this, the grandfather's laugh was louder than it had been
before, and Ramsey looked hurt. "Well, you can laugh if you want to!"
he objected in an aggrieved voice. "Anyway, the Sunday-school
sup'intendent told us when people knew they were on the Devil's side
they always--"
"I dare say, I dare say," the old man interrupted, a little impatiently.
"But in this world mighty few people think they're on the Devil's side,
Ramsey. There was a Frenchman once, in olden times; he said people
were crazy because, though they couldn't even make worms, they
believed they could make gods. And so whenever countries or parts of
a country get into a war, each side makes a god and a devil, and says:
'God's on our side and the Devil's on the other.' The South thought the
Devil was on our side, you see."
"Well, that kind o' mixes it all up more'n ever."
"Yes, it seems so; but Abraham Lincoln wasn't mixed up about it.
When some people told him that God was on our side, he said the
important thing was to find out if we were on God's side. That was the
whole question, you see; because either side could make up a god, the
kind of a god they liked and wanted; and then they'd believe in him, too,
and fight for him--but if he was only a made-up god they'd lose.
President Lincoln didn't want to have a made-up god on his side; he
wanted to find God Himself and find out what he wanted, and then do

it. And that's what Lincoln did."
"Well, I don't understand much of all that!"
"No? Then suppose you look at it this way: The South was fighting for
what it believed to be its rights, but we weren't fighting for our rights;
we were fighting for the right. The South was fighting for what it
believed to be its right to split the Union and be a country by itself; but
we were fighting for 'Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and
inseparable.' It wasn't only the Union we fought for; it was Freedom.
The South wanted freedom to leave the Union; but the reason the South
wanted that freedom to separate from us was because we wanted the
Freedom of Man. There's the reason we had the certain knowledge that
we were going to win the war. How plain and simple it is!"
Ramsey didn't think so. He had begun to feel bored by the conversation,
and to undergo the oppression he usually suffered in school; yet he took
a little interest in the inexplicable increase of fervour with which his
grandfather spoke, and in a shoot of sunshine which somehow got
through the foliage of the walnut tree and made a bedazzlement of