But never again in this life, never, never again, shall I have such a glorious ride. For to one coming from the old world at that time, Texas was a new world. That afternoon, after mounting a steep hill, and then thundering down it at lightning speed, the horses were allowed to rest and draw breath for ten minutes. Then I got out of the coach, and was transported by the wonderful beauty and majesty of the scene before me. The flowery prairie rolled away magnificently to the far-off horizon, here and there jumping into hills, over which marched myriads of red cattle. Masses of wild honeysuckle scented the air for miles and miles, and a fresh odor of earth and clover, mixed with the perfume of wild flowers, was the joy we breathed. But, best of all was the clear, sweet atmosphere. It went to the heart like wine. It made us laugh, it made us sing, and I never heard on any other spot of earth such melodious fluting as the winds of Texas made all around us.
Surely it was the giants of the unflooded world, who cleared off and leveled these boundless plains as a dwelling place for liberty.
Looking back to that charmed drive over them, I thank God, even as I write, that I was then permitted to see earth as it may be, when He shall make "His tabernacle with men." And I remember this hour that, when I could find no words fit to express the delight with which my heart was filled, that wonderful Old Book that is the interpreter of all human feeling came to my help, and I touched Robert's arm, as we stood together, and said, "How beautiful is this place! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." I have no doubt it is much changed now, settled and improved; but it lives in my memory green and sweet as the fields of Paradise, with the fresh wild winds gurgling melodiously through all its lovely spaces.
The moon was full that night, and we took advantage of the light and the cool breezes to go as far as the horses were able. I think it must have been eight o'clock, when we stopped at a planter's house standing on the edge of a creek or bayou. The moonlight sifted down on its white walls, its slender pillars, and flowering vines, and there was a little company of men and women sitting on a broad piazza. Late as it was, we were served with a good meal, and a large, cool bedroom. I went to rest with the children, as soon as I had eaten, but Robert sat till midnight with the men, smoking and talking on the moonlit piazza.
The children were soon asleep; then I lifted the window shade and looked out. I saw before me a long avenue of sweet gum and chinquapin, magnolia, and tulip trees, and all through them were the whitewashed cabins of the negro slaves. Some of the women were sewing, though, for the most part, men and women were huddled in little ebony squads, around the doors of their quarters. They were talking softly in their abbreviated patois, or humming their sad minor melodies, while the moon far up in the zenith--calm, bright, worshipful--cast a softened radiance which gave sufficient light for young eyes either to sew, or to read. The living picture filled me with melancholy, and I went in dreams to some lonely desolate place, where all was sand and silence.
We were off early in the morning, and our road lay through pine woods; a very primitive road, as yet, and a very hard one on both travelers and horses; however, horses are not expected to be particular about roads in Texas. At one o'clock we stopped, and spread the lunch brought with us on the ground; some negroes, who were cutting down trees, brought us fresh water and attended to our horses. One of these negroes, a young black Hercules, whose soul Nature had forgotten to make bond, took me a few yards into the wood to show me the fairest picture--a little natural clearing with a pretty piece of water in the center, and, standing all round it, motionless as statues, a flock of white cranes! Speaking of the circumstance afterwards, a passenger who had joined us that morning, and who was also going to Austin, told me, that the home of the crane is on the Texas prairies. He said nothing could traverse the prairies without being challenged by their tocsin shout of _Kewrrook! Kewrrook! Kewrrook!_ which he likened to a pistol shot in the rare air. Furthermore, that the Comanche and Apache hated the note, which gave both man and beast warning that they were on the murder path. Strange sights and sounds these guardians of the prairies must see and hear, as with slow and stately tread, they pace their rounds, as much a part of the prairie as the ostrich is of the desert; for when the deer have fled to the timber, and the buffalo gone west, and the wolves are on their trail, the cranes still flock on the prairies.
We were among the pines all afternoon, and in the gloaming came to a much larger settlement than I had hitherto seen. If I remember rightly, it was called Bastrop. With a great rush and clatter we drove to a large house or hotel, and found good food and comfortable rooms, and many signs of drawing near to civilization. One of these signs was a release from the continuous meal of bacon. Throughout our journey there had been myriads of cattle around us, but nothing except bacon to eat--hundreds of thousands of milk cows, but rarely, indeed, either milk, butter, or cheese on the table. Here we found a fine roast of beef, and some venison steaks, both deliciously cooked; also young corn ears and early squash. I returned thanks for these things with all my heart, for a good meal and a good book deserve not only a blessing, but a thanksgiving.
After we had eaten I went with the children to the room assigned us, and was hearing their evening prayers when a woman softly entered. She respected the duty that engaged me, and sat down almost noiselessly.
"I'm kind of lonesome," she said, when I turned to her. "Mollie is away, and I wanted to see your little girls. They are mighty pretty, well-behaved young ones, and they do mind what you say to them!
Sure!"
I was pleased with her remarks, and I put Lilly in her out-stretched arms, and, though the child was very weary, she behaved beautifully, and fell asleep in them.
"My children were sot on their own way from the jump," she continued, "so contrary-minded that their hair grew upward, instead o' downward.
That's a fact! Look at my Jack's hair in the morning, and you'll see it stands straight up. And babies are hard to raise in Texas; you don't like to put them out o' their way, it might be the death o'
them, for you can never call your child your own in Texas, until it has passed its second year."
"And by that time they have got used to having their own way," I commented.
"So they have, and they will scream you blind and deaf, until they get it. But you are feared to lose them. I've lost five outen my seven.
That is so. I've only Jack and Mollie left, but they keep me considering day and night. They are not bad; they are real good, only they are sot on havin' what is not good for them. And, nat'rally, I know what is best, or else the Great Master above us has made a mistake in sending them to me. That's how I look at it."
By the time this sentence was finished, Lilly was so fast asleep that I lifted her from my visitor's arms, and laid her upon the bed beside her sister. Then we continued the conversation about the natural inclination of all children to have their own way, until I was quite convinced the children of my companion had kept up a guerrilla fight with her, from their birth until the present hour.
"There's Mollie," she continued, "smart and pert as a cricket, and nothing would do her but a New York school. Her father was alive, then, and I asked him to interfere; what he said was, 'Let her go to New York. I don't see from the samples of New York women sent us, that they are a picayune cleverer than ours are, but, if Mollie wants to go, she's going. I can back her with all the gold she needs.' That's the way her father interfered. He just let her go to aggravate and contradict me. His hair stood straight up. I have told Mollie ever since she put shoes on never to marry a man whose hair grows up, but I'll just bet she does that same thing, even if she goes all the way to New York to find him."
"Then she went to New York, I suppose?"
"Yes, she went, and she stayed more than two years, and got what they call a diploma. Mollie is always drawing people's attention to it, but it kind o' shames me. It looks like there was somebody better than Mollie that thought they could give her a character, or a certif'cate that she had done about right while at school. Now Mollie is as good a girl as breathes, and as smart as girls can be made, and there's nobody better than Mollie on this planet, and I just can't bear this certif'cate business. How would you like it?"
I made this matter clearer to her, and she said, "I wish you had come here 'fore Jake died. This same thing bothered him above a bit, and he used to say if any man thought his Mollie needed a certif'cate of doing well, he would tell him Mollie was the best woman God ever made, and, if he contradicted, he'd bore a few holes into him. I reckon he would have done it! Sure! But he took ill and died suddent one night, just after Mollie came home. I miss Jake whiles, though he left me well-to-do, and a full sorrow is easier borne than an empty one."
"What do you call well-to-do?" I asked.
"Jake had twelve thousand horned cattle, and a herd of eight hundred horses, land enough for horses and cattle to get lost in, and a very comfortable lump of spizerinctum in New Orleans Bank."
"_Spizerinctum!_" I ejaculated.
She nodded, and explained in one better known word, "specie."
"Then Mollie is rich?"
"Richer than rights be, for Jake left her half of all he had, and the other half he left to me."
"And Jack?" I asked.
"He left Jack nothing. Jack and his father were not comfortable together. They never had the same notion about anything. They had contradicted each other for twenty years, and in course they could not agree concerning money. I have heard them toss a dime between them for an hour, and then fling it to the devil; that is, where no man could find it. But Jack is real good. He is, sure! As I say, he will contradict, but he's as straight a man as lives, between here and anywhere; and he would not let a mortal touch a hair of my head, if it was to wrong me. No, ma'am, he would make any man forever silent, who said _no_ to his Mammy's _yes_. Come, and I will show you my parlor."
I did not like to refuse the invitation, and I did not like to leave the children, but, after being assured of their perfect safety, I felt some curiosity about a Texan parlor. So I went with her through an adjoining room, where a number of men were sitting at a table playing cards--very tall, wiry men, with prominent features, long hair, and a fierce, determined expression on their thin, sallow faces. They did not even glance at us as we walked past them, but I saw the gleam of ornamented knife handles in their belts, and was pretty certain that revolvers kept them company and that derringers lay handy, either in breast or hip pockets. Yet they sat still and speechless, holding some little bits of paper in their long, strong hands. There were two candles on the table, but the rest of the room was in semi-darkness, and the strange gathering in that patch of gloomy light made a picture I have never forgotten. If it had been a painted picture, its gloom and its suggestions of quarrel and bloodshed, might have labeled it, "A Scene in Hades."
Out of this room we went into the parlor. The first object I saw was a handsome grand square piano. "It is Mollie's!" said Mollie's mother, "and she can make it talk, you may just bet on that." The walls were adorned with pictures of Mollie's drawing, and the upholstered chairs and sofa shielded by crochet lace of Mollie's handiwork. I was expected to be astonished at this display of wealth and culture, and I tried to make good this expectation. Indeed I really felt a great respect for the girl who had lifted herself so far above her surroundings. I asked where she was, and said I should like to see her, and was told she was in New Orleans, and that her brother Jack was going in a few days to bring her home.
"Jack's powerful fond of his sister," she continued; "he thinks all creation of Mollie. I am feared he will never find a man good enough to marry her. He has run two young fellows off the place, who he thought were sneaking 'round after her. He is going to Orleans in a few days. I wish she had been home. She would have fancied you."
I said I was sorry she was in New Orleans, but I did not mention yellow fever's presence in that city. All nature and all humanity hates the carrier of bad news. It is the feet of those that bring glad tidings that are blessed and beautiful upon the mountains.
The next morning we were called early, but found quite a number of people at the plentiful breakfast-table--some were going with us to Austin, others were boarders belonging to the place. My kind hostess had saved seats beside herself for us, and I noticed that Robert nodded and spoke familiarly to a handsome youth assisting her to serve the meal. Of course it was Jack. I knew instinctively it was Jack, though he was amiable looking, and wore his pale yellow hair parted down the middle of his head.
At first I thought his mother had been romancing about his "sot, determined ways, and quarrelsome temper," but, towards the end of the meal, I noticed him lift his steel-gray eyes, and look at a man who was noisily relating one of his own adventures. Nothing more was necessary, not only to confirm all his mother had said, but to rouse the imagination concerning the likelihoods and probabilities a man with such passionate eyes could summon. For, if the eyes are the windows of the soul, I saw a soul of tremendous will and temper looking through them. However, he was polite, and even kind to us, and I left a message with him for his sister Mollie; then Mollie's mother put into my hands something good for luncheon, because, she said, there was no nooning place, and it would be four o'clock, as like as not, before we reached Austin. "And I hope that is the end of your journeying," she added, "for to go further is to fare worse. You keep that fact in your mind. Maybe I'll be up to see you some day. I want Jack in the legislature. He is the very man to get on there, considering the way it is put up at present."
As we talked we were standing just within the store door, waiting for the coach, and though it was so early a number of sallow, long-haired, fiercely whiskered men were stalking up and down, the tinkle of their great bell spurs, the ring of coins on the counter, and the kindly tones of my companion's voice chiming softly together. Even at this moment I seem to be trying to disentangle them, until the whole is lost in the clatter of the coach, and the beating of the horses' feet upon the hard road. So we left the hospitable lady with many kind words and wishes. At last she kissed the children, and I, remembering my own mother, kissed her; for about a good woman, who has taken the sacrament of maternity, there is the odor and sense of sacrifice. We may touch her lips, and do her honor, and be sure that we are honoring ourselves in the homely rite.
At noon we stopped on the banks of a great river. There were large troughs here, full of water, and a couple of negroes sitting on the grass and playing cards. Evidently they were waiting for our arrival, for, as the coach approached them, they stepped quickly to the heads of the horses, unharnessed, fed, and watered them, while we had the hour to eat our lunch and rest. I looked around, but saw no house; yet there was a very large one, belonging to a sugar planter, hidden away among the trees; and, just as we were preparing to go forward, I saw a negro lad running with frantic speed towards a closed gate near the troughs. I walked towards this gate and watched his approach. He was spent of breath, and could hardly speak, but, after a mouthful of water, he gasped out,
"How--long--'fore Chris'mas, Missis?"
I told him, and then asked, "Why do you want to know?"
"I'se gwine home at Chris'mas!" he cried. "I ain't 'long to dese people--I'se only hired to them." These last remarks he uttered with all the childish scorn and dislike imaginable, and then sobbed out once more, "I'se gwine home at Chris'mas!"
"Where is your home?" I asked.
"In Austin," he answered. "There's people in Austin--there's Mammy and Mass'r Tom, and Miss Mary, in Austin. I want to go home. I don't 'long here!"
"Whom do you belong to?" I asked.
He told me, and then I had to hurry away, but I carried with me the piteous face of that unhappy child, peering through the gate palings, with no hope in his heart but Christmas, and Christmas five months away.
The last twenty miles of our drive gave no indications that we were approaching the capital of the state. On the banks of the creeks there were sheep and cattle ranches, and here and there rough farm houses, but the country was uncultivated, open prairie, or cedar covered hills. People now going to Austin will reach the beautiful city by the railway, and I have no doubt it has chosen the ugliest entrance it could find. But we had almost an idyllic introduction to what was then one of the loveliest dwelling-places of men in the whole world. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon that we came to the Colorado River, and our horses walked leisurely across its clear, limpid waters. Then we mounted a hill, and a scene of unwritable beauty was before us on every side. Other portions of Texas are lovely as Paradise, but nowhere had I ever seen such exquisite and picturesque arrangement of wood and mountains, grassy stretches, and silvery waters, and crowned hills. From every mouth, there was an instant and spontaneous cry of delight.
The city was built on hills, surrounded by a rampart of higher hills, crowned with the evergreen cedar, and the shining waters of the Colorado wound in and out among these hills, and then swept grandly round the southern part of the city. For a minute or two Senor Tomas--as if compelled by his own innate love of what was picturesque--drew reins on the top of the hill on which there stood a little church. It was painted a pale pink color, and did not look inconsistent. It must have been full of the perfume of the China berry trees, and it stood at the gate of the town like a visible prayer. I have no doubt it has been replaced by a much grander structure, but there must be many living yet, who remember, with me, those happy Sabbaths when we went up together to the little pink church on the hill, and served the Lord with gladness, and came before His presence with a song.
For that short pause I must always thank Senor Tomas Sandobel, though it may have been neither prayer nor a sense of beauty that was his compelling motive. For I noticed, that as soon as the horses were full breathed he gathered up the reins tightly, and, with a peculiarly exciting cry, began his descent at the highest possible speed to the main avenue. Fortunately it was but a transient trial. In a few minutes we stopped at the Smith Hotel, a rather large wooden building standing on Congress Avenue and Pecan Street, I think. Under the wooden awning in front of the building there were a number of men sitting in tilted-up chairs, and, as Senor Tomas stopped the coach, a pleasant-looking gentleman was opening the door. He lifted Mary and Lilly out in his arms, and then, removing his hat with his left hand, offered me his right hand to assist in my descent. It was just such a kind, respectful greeting as an English landlord of that time would have given his coming guests, and it went straight to my heart. Robert asked him if we could have rooms, and he said he would show us the best he had in a few minutes.
He had a pleasant word for every passenger, and a few directions to give, then he lifted Lilly in his arms, and we followed him to a large, low room, directly above the entrance. It was spotlessly clean, and, though the floors were bare, they were scrubbed until they looked like ivory. The chairs were of unpainted wood, and their seats of rawhide--not at all handsome--but very comfortable; and the large bed looked so white and cool it made me drowsy.
"This room is delightful, Robert," I said. "I hope Mr. Smith can spare it." Then a sudden thought came to me, and I continued, "The children!
We must have a room for them that opens into our room."
Mr. Smith smiled benignly. "We can do better for you than that, Madame," he said; "there is a trundle bed, you know."
"A trundle bed!" I repeated. "What is that?"