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SOUTHERN STORIES
RETOLD FROM ST. NICHOLAS
[Illustration]
NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1907
Copyright, 1889, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1894, 1898, 1900, 1902, 1903, 1907,
by THE CENTURY CO.
THE DE VINNE PRESS
* * * * *
[Illustration: A REAL UNCLE REMUS STORY.]
CONTENTS
PAGE
A REAL UNCLE REMUS STORY _Frontispiece_
HIS HERO _Margaret Minor_ 3
JERICHO BOB _Anna Eichberg King_ 18
HOW WE BOUGHT LOUISIANA _Helen Lockwood Coffin_ 28
THE CITY THAT LIVES OUTDOORS _W. S. Harwood_ 34
QUEER AMERICAN RIVERS _F. H. Spearman_ 52
THE WATERMELON STOCKINGS _Alice Caldwell Hegan_ 65
THE "'GATOR" _Clarence B. Moore_ 80
THE EARTHQUAKE AT CHARLESTON _Ewing Gibson_ 96
HIDING PLACES IN WAR TIMES _J. H. Gore_ 102
ST. AUGUSTINE _Frank R. Stockton_ 108
CATCHING TERRAPIN _Alfred Kappes_ 126
"LOCOED" _Edward Marshall_ 130
A DIVIDED DUTY _M. A. Cassidy_ 165
THE "WALKING-BEAM BOY" _L. E. Stofiel_ 178
THE CREATURE WITH NO CLAWS _Joel Chandler Harris_ 185
SOUTHERN STORIES
SOUTH
Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and forests of fruit-trees;
Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of heavens
Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of the forest.
_Longfellow._
HIS HERO
BY MARGARET MINOR
It was an October afternoon, and through Indian summer's tulle-like haze
a low-swinging sun sent shafts of scarlet light at the highest peaks of
the Blue Ridge. The sweet-gum leaves looked like blood-colored stars as
they floated slowly to the ground, and brown chestnuts gleamed
satin-like through their gaping burs; while over all there rested a
dense stillness, cut now and then by the sharp yelp of a dog as he
scurried through the bushes after a rabbit.
Surrounded by this splendid autumn beauty stood Mountain Top Inn, near
the crest of the Blue Ridge in Rockfish Gap, its historical value dating
from the time when Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, after a long and
spirited discussion in one of its low-ceiled rooms, decided upon the
location of the University of Virginia.
On the porch of this old inn there now sat a little boy, idly swinging a
pair of sun-tanned legs. Occasionally he tickled an old liver-colored
hound that lay dozing in a limp heap; but being rewarded only by
toothless snaps at very long intervals, he finally grew tired of this
amusement, and stretching himself out on his back, he began to dream
with wide-open eyes. At these dream-times, when he let his thoughts
loose, they always bore him to the very same field, and here his fancy
painted pictures with the vivid colors of a boy's imagination: pictures
so strong that they left him flushed and tingling with pride; again,
pictures that brought a cool, choking feeling to his throat; and at
times pictures that made his childish mouth quiver and droop. Among all
of these thought-born scenes, at intervals there would stand out the
real ones, scenes that were etched on the clean walls of his memory in
everlasting strokes.
He never tired thinking of that first morning--that morning when all the
world seemed gilded with sunshine and throbbing with martial music. His
grandfather had lifted him up on one of the "big gate" posts to see the
soldiers march by. With mingled feelings of admiration and childish envy
he had watched them drill for many weeks, but they had never seemed such
real, grand soldiers until now, as they came marching by with quick,
firm steps, keeping time to the clear, staccato notes, marching off to
real battle-fields. It was all so beautiful, splendid, and gay--the
music, the soldiers, the people, the hurrahing! It stirred his sentient
little body through and through with a kind of joy, and he thought it so
strange that his mother's eyes were full of tears.
Just a few days later he had listened eagerly to the sharp, crackling
sound of guns and the rumbling thunder of cannon, so near that the air
seemed to vibrate. He and another little boy had stood and talked in
high, quick tones, bragging and predicting breathlessly the result of
the battle as they used the term "our men."
Finally they climbed the tallest oak on the lawn, and strained their
young eyes to see which was "gettin' whipped."
A little while after this he remembered following his father through the
long hospital ward. Over the first bed he saw him stoop and loosen the
white cotton bandages of a wounded man. On the next narrow cot there
was a slender boy of fifteen, who lay with clenched hands watching the
work of the surgeon. Then they passed a woman, who was gently bathing
the forehead of a man whose soldier days seemed likely to come to an
early end.
Some weeks had gone by, when one day he followed a party of men to
Marye's Heights. It was a short time after the battle of Fredericksburg.
A light snow had fallen the night before, which the wind whirled and
sifted about the dead, in a way that made them appear to be shuddering.
Once a sharp gust blew the snow off a body lying on its face, and the
boy's eyes filled. He scarcely heeded the talk of the men with whom he
had gone. His thoughts were held fast by the awful scene which lay
spread before his young eyes.
How often since then had the boy pictured himself a grown man, seated on
just such a fine horse and following Lee! It was always Lee; in his
dreamland through the heart of the battle he always followed General
Robert E. Lee, his hero, whom he had never seen, but whom he had carried
halo-crowned in his heart ever since he could remember.
And then the very saddest day in his life had come--the day when the
first news of Lee's surrender lay heavy on the hearts of the household.
For a while he had followed his mother as she went silently, with closed
white lips, from one duty to another. Finally he went out to seek
comfort from Uncle Jake, whom he found sitting with his back propped
against the side of the corn-crib, drawing little quick puffs of smoke
from his pipe.
"Uncle Jake," he said, "Lee's just _had_ to s'render."
"Yes, honey." And as he looked into Uncle Jake's little red, watery
eyes, he saw no comfort there, and turned away.
Seven months had gone by since the war had ended; still, on this October
afternoon, as the boy lay stretched out on the porch of the old inn, he
dreamed his boyish dreams of romance and heroism.
Suddenly his attention was attracted by the sound of hoofs, and turning
his head he saw a man riding slowly down the road. A new arrival at the
inn was always most interesting. An eager light came into the boy's eyes
as he watched the rider, who was now near enough for him to see how
firmly he sat in his saddle. The man seemed a very part of the strongly
built horse, which carried him with an ease that indicated long habit.
A wiry little negro had also seen the approaching horseman, and was now
hurrying across the lawn to meet him.
"May I spend the night here, my man?" asked the stranger.
"Yessuh--yessuh!" answered Uncle Jake, quickly, and opening the gate he
stepped out and caught the bridle near the bit, as the horseman swung
out of the creaking saddle to the ground.
"Uncle Jake, take the horse around to the stable!" called out the boy,
who felt that the honors of hospitality rested on him, there being no
one else in sight. Then he ran briskly down the walk to meet the
stranger, who extended his fine, strong hand with a little smile, and
said very kindly:
"How do you do, sir?"
"I'm well," replied the boy.
"And what is your name?"
"Jimmy."
"Jimmy? Well, Jimmy is a nice name," he said. Then he turned, and still
held the boy's hand as he watched the little old negro, who stood with
his head under the saddle-skirt, tiptoeing and straining in his effort
to unfasten the girth. Finally, when he succeeded, he flung the saddle
on the ground, and the horse, feeling relieved of his burden, first
shook himself violently, and then expressed his comfort again and again
in deep chest-tones.
During all this time Jimmy's eyes had been fastened on the stranger's
spurs, and a peculiar feeling of incredulity gradually filled his mind.
Silver, indeed! He could not fool him! No one was rich enough to have
real silver spurs! So sternly did he resent what he thought to be an
attempt at deception that he drew his small brown hand slowly out of the
stranger's gentle clasp.
After slipping off the bridle from the horse's head and dropping it by
the saddle, Uncle Jake led him away by his forelock to the stable, and
Jimmy walked toward the inn with his guest, who said as they reached the
steps:
"Jimmy, we will sit here for a while, and then I will go over to the
stable and see about my horse."
As they sat down the old hound came cautiously down the steps, wheezing
out a husky greeting.
"She is too old to hurt any one," said Jimmy.
"Is she yours?"
"No, sir. Tip's mine. Listen!" he exclaimed, as the sharp yelp of a dog
again broke the stillness. "That's Tip! He goes off and runs rabbits all
by himself."
"Perhaps he is after a fox."
"No, sir; Tip won't run a fox."
"Jimmy, can you tell from a dog's cry whether he is running a fox or a
rabbit?"
"No, sir."
"Well, if he is trailing a rabbit he does not bark continually, but if
he is after a fox he does; so you can always tell if you listen
carefully."
"Never heard about that before," replied Jimmy, with a smile.
After this there followed a long pause, during which the stranger looked
about inquiringly, then said:
"Jimmy, how long have you been living here?"
"Not very long. We refugeed over in North Carolina the first part of the
war. Then we came back to Spottsylvania County while father was in
prison. Why, we just came here after the s'render. You remember when Lee
just had to s'render?" he asked, looking up into the stranger's face.
[Illustration: "'YOU REMEMBER WHEN LEE JUST HAD TO S'RENDER?' ASKED
JIMMY."]
The boy's mouth, as usual, quivered as he uttered the word "s'render,"
but the man did not appear to see this. He seemed to be looking at a
far-off mountain peak. After a pause he replied, "Yes, I remember," as
he arose and started toward the stable.
"I'll show you the way," said Jimmy.
"Thank you, sir," he answered gravely.
When they entered the stable the big gray horse greeted his master with
some soft little nickerings. "Oh, he knows you without even looking!"
exclaimed Jimmy, in tones expressing delight and surprise.
"Yes, he knows me pretty well," the man replied, as he looked with
anxious sympathy at a saddle-galled place on the horse's back.
Jimmy had climbed up on the side of the stall, and was also looking with
much interest. Suddenly he exclaimed: "I know what's good for that! Some
stuff down in the bottom of the chalybeate spring."
He pronounced each syllable of the word "chalybeate" very clearly, for
it was a newly learned word, and he was proud of his ability to use it.
"Why, yes; the iron in it ought to be healing. How far is the spring?"
"Oh, just a little way; I'll show you," Jimmy replied, jumping to the
ground and quickly opening the stable door. "Let me lead him," he added.
"Hadn't you rather ride him, Jimmy?"
"Yes, sir," he replied, in rather shy but pleased tones.
"All right," said the man, as he swung the little fellow up on the
horse. "There! Sit farther back, so you will not hurt that galled place.
Now I'll lead him, and you tell me in which direction to go."
"Down the road there, just on the other side of the ice-pond," said
Jimmy, pointing in that direction as they moved off.
The boy was happy as he cupped his bare legs close around the body of
the horse, and watched the square shoulders of the man who walked slowly
ahead. He thought him exceedingly nice and kind, and his feelings in
regard to the spurs were not nearly so intense. The desire to ask if
they were real silver, though, was strong, but he felt that perhaps it
would not be polite, so he said nothing.
After they had gone some distance Jimmy exclaimed, "There's the spring!"
Then he slid quickly to the ground, and without other words knelt down
and, baring one arm, dipped out of the bottom of the spring a handful of
rust-colored flakes.
"This is what you put on his back," he said. "Just lay it right on. It
doesn't hurt; it just feels cool."
The directions were quietly obeyed, and the horse made no movement, save
a slight quiver of the skin, as if to shake off a fly.
"Uncle Jake says that doctors can't make any finer medicine than this,"
he said, as he scooped up another handful.
"Well, Jimmy, I am very much obliged to you, and I'm sure that my horse
is also," said the stranger, as they started on back to the stable.
In the meantime the saddle left by Uncle Jake near the horse-rack had
attracted the attention of a young man as he came through the front
gate. After looking at it for a few minutes, idle curiosity prompted him
to turn it over with his foot, and as he did so three bright brass
letters--"R. E. L."--greeted him. He looked sharply at them at first,
then his eyes dilated, and a little prickly thrill ran through him. "I
wonder if it can be!" he said. Suddenly some convincing feeling seemed
to fill his mind, and then he almost ran to the house. On reaching the
steps, he sprang up them two at a time, and entered the hall, where he
met Mrs. Claverly.
"Mrs. Claverly--" he began, and stopped.
"Well?" she asked, smiling at his hesitation. "What is it, Charley?"
"Ah, do you know, Mrs. Claverly, I think that General Lee is here." His
voice was husky with excitement.
"General Lee! Where?" But without waiting for a reply, she stepped
quickly to the door of the old-fashioned parlor, and exclaimed in soft,
suppressed tones to a group of women sitting there:
"They think that General Lee is here!"
"What makes them think so?" asked a thin, gray-haired woman, as she
hastily arose.
"Why," replied the young man, his tones now quite positive, "his saddle
with 'R. E. L.' on it is out there by the gate."
"There he comes now," said one of the group, eagerly; "at least, I
suppose that it is he."
"Let me see," said Mrs. Claverly, going rapidly to the window. "I saw
him once at the Greenbrier White, and I am sure that I would know him.
Yes, it is he!" she exclaimed, as she looked at the man coming slowly
across the lawn, talking earnestly to the barefoot boy at his side. His
thoughts were so completely occupied by what he was saying that not
until he was quite near the inn did he see the group on the porch, and
his face flushed slightly as he realized that they were there to greet
him. Lifting his hat, he ascended the steps with bared head. Mrs.
Claverly walked quickly forward, and extended her slim white hand.
"General Lee, I believe."
"Yes, madam," he replied gravely, as he bowed low over her hand.
At the sound of Lee's name Jimmy's eyes grew round, and filled with
astonishment. For one brief moment he stood gazing up at the stately old
soldier, whom every one was greeting, then he backed slowly away until
he reached the door. There he stood another moment, seeing nothing but
his hero.
Suddenly he turned and darted down the long hall, up the stairway, and
into his mother's room.
"Mother!" he exclaimed in breathless wonderment, "mother! General Lee is
downstairs, and he is just splendid, and--er--mother, he's just exactly
like anybody else!"[1]
[Footnote 1: This story is based upon the personal experience of one who
related it to the author.]
JERICHO BOB
BY ANNA EICHBERG KING
Jericho Bob, when he was four years old, hoped that one day he might be
allowed to eat just as much turkey as he possibly could. He was eight
now, but that hope had not been realized.
[Illustration]
Mrs. Jericho Bob, his mother, kept hens for a living, and she expected
that they would lay enough eggs in the course of time to help her son to
an independent career as a bootblack.
They lived in a tumble-down house in a waste of land near the steam
cars, and besides her hens Mrs. Bob owned a goat.
Our story has, however, nothing to do with the goat except to say he was
there, and that he was on nibbling terms, not only with Jericho Bob,
but with Bob's bosom friend, Julius Caesar Fish, and it was surprising
how many old hat-brims and other tidbits of clothing he could swallow
during a day.
As Mrs. Bob truly said, it was no earthly use to get something new for
Jericho, even if she could afford it; for the goat browsed all over him,
and had been known to carry away even a leg of his trousers.
Jericho Bob was eight years old, and the friend of his bosom, Julius
Caesar Fish, was nine. They were both of a lovely black; a tallow-dip
couldn't take the kink out of their hair, and the hardest whipping did
not disturb the even cheerfulness of their spirits. They were so much
alike that if it hadn't been for Jericho's bow-legs and his turn-up
nose, you really could not have told them apart.
A kindred taste for turkey also united them.
In honor of Thanksgiving day Mrs. Bob always sacrificed a hen which
would, but for such blessed release, have died of old age. One drumstick
was given to Jericho, whose interior remained an unsatisfied void.
Jericho Bob had heard of turkey as a fowl larger, sweeter, and more
tender than hen; and about Thanksgiving time he would linger around the
provision stores and gaze with open mouth at the noble array of turkeys
hanging, head downward, over bushels of cranberries, as if even at that
uncooked stage, they were destined for one another. And turkey was his
dream.
It was spring-time, and the hens were being a credit to themselves. The
goat in the yard, tied to a stake, was varying a meal of old shoe and
tomato-can by a nibble of fresh green grass. Mrs. Bob was laid up with
rheumatism.
"Jericho Bob!" she said to her son, shaking her red and yellow turban at
him, "Jericho Bob, you go down an' fetch de eggs to-day. Ef I find yer
don't bring me twenty-three, I'll--well, never mind what I'll do, but
yer won't like it."
Now, Jericho Bob meant to be honest, but the fact was he found
twenty-four, and the twenty-fourth was so big, so remarkably big.
Twenty-three eggs he brought to Mrs. Bob, but the twenty-fourth he
sinfully left in charge of the discreet hen.
On his return he met Julius Caesar Fish, with his hands in his pockets
and his head extinguished by his grandfather's fur cap.
Together they went toward the hen-coop and Julius Caesar Fish spoke, or
rather lisped (he had lost some of his front teeth):
"Jericho Bobth, that 'th a turkey'th egg."
"Yer don't say so?"
"I think i'th a-goin' ter hatch." No sooner said than they heard a pick
and a peck in the shell.
"Pick!" a tiny beak broke through the shell. "Peck!" more beak. "Crack!"
a funny little head, a long, bare neck, and then "Pick! Peck! Crack!"
before them stood the funniest, fluffiest brown ball resting on two weak
little legs.
"Hooray!" shouted the woolly heads.
"Peep!" said turkeykin.
"It's mine!" Jericho shouted excitedly.
"I'th Marm Pitkin'th turkey'th; she laid it there."
"It's mine, and I'm going to keep it, and next Thanksgiving I'm going
ter eat him."
"Think your ma'll let you feed him up for thath?" Julius Caesar asked,
triumphantly.
Jericho Bob's next Thanksgiving dinner seemed destined to be a dream.
His face fell.
"I'll tell yer whath I'll do," his friend said, benevolently; "I'll keep
'm for you, and Thanksgivin' we'll go halvth."
[Illustration: JERICHO BOB AND JULIUS CAESAR FISH PLANNING THEIR
THANKSGIVING DINNER.]
Jericho resigned himself to the inevitable, and the infant turkey was
borne home by his friend.
Fish, Jr., lived next door, and the only difference in the premises was
a freight-car permanently switched off before the broken-down fence of
the Fish yard; and in this car turkeykin took up his abode.
I will not tell you how he grew and more than realized the hopes of his
foster-fathers, nor with what impatience and anticipation they saw
spring, summer, and autumn pass, while they watched their Thanksgiving
dinner stalk proudly up the bare yard, and even hop across the railroad
tracks.
But, alas! the possession of the turkey brought with it strife and
discord.
Quarrels arose between the friends as to the prospective disposal of his
remains. We grieve to say that the question of who was to cook him led
to blows.
It was the day before Thanksgiving. There was a coldness between the
friends which was not dispelled by the bringing of a pint of cranberries
to the common store by Jericho, and the contributing thereto of a couple
of cold boiled sweet potatoes by Julius Caesar Fish.
The friends sat on an ancient wash-tub in the back yard, and there was a
momentary truce between them. Before them stood the freight-car, and
along the track beyond an occasional train tore down the road, which so
far excited their mutual sympathy that they rose and shouted as one man.
At the open door of the freight-car stood the unsuspecting turkey, and
looked meditatively out on the landscape and at the two figures on the
wash-tub.
One had bow-legs, a turn-up nose, and a huge straw hat. The other wore a
fur cap and a gentleman's swallow-tail coat, with the tails caught up
because they were too long.
The turkey hopped out of the car and gazed confidingly at his
protectors. In point of size he was altogether their superior.
"I think," said Jericho Bob, "we'd better ketch 'im; to-morrow's
Thanksgiving. Yum!"
And he looked with great joy at the innocent, the unsuspecting fowl.
"Butcher Tham 'th goin' ter kill 'im for uth," Julius Caesar hastened to
say, "an' I kin cook 'im."
"No, you ain't. I'm goin' to cook 'im," Jericho Bob cried, resentfully.
"He's mine."
"He ain'th; he'th mine."
"He was my egg," and Jericho Bob danced defiance at his friend.
The turkey looked on with some surprise, and he became alarmed when he
saw his foster-fathers clasped in an embrace more of anger than of love.
"I'll eat 'im all alone!" Jericho Bob cried.
"No, yer sha'n't!" the other shouted.
The turkey fled in a circle about the yard.
"Now, look yere," said Julius Caesar, who had conquered. "We're goin' to
be squar'. He wath your egg, but who brought 'im up? Me! Who'th got a
friend to kill 'im? Me! Who'th got a fire to cook 'im? Me! Now you git
up and we'll kitch 'im. Ef you thay another word about your egg I'll
jeth eat 'im up all mythelf."
Jericho Bob was conquered. With mutual understanding they approached the
turkey.
"Come yere; come yere," Julius Caesar said, coaxingly.
For a moment the bird gazed at both, uncertain what to do.
"Come yere," Julius Caesar repeated, and made a dive for him. The turkey
spread his tail. Oh, didn't he run!
"Now I've got yer!" the wicked Jericho Bob cried, and thought he had
captured the fowl; when with a shriek from Jericho Bob, as the turkey
knocked him over, the Thanksgiving dinner spread his wings, rose in the
air, and alighted on the roof of the freight-car.
The turkey looked down over the edge of the car at his enemies, and they
gazed up at him. Both parties surveyed the situation.
"We've got him," Julius Caesar cried at last, exultantly. "You git on the
roof, and ef you don't kitch 'im up thar, I'll kitch 'im down yere."
With the help of the wash-tub, an old chair, Julius Caesar's back, and
much scrambling, Jericho Bob was hoisted on top of the car. The turkey
was stalking solemnly up and down the roof with tail and wings half
spread.
"I've got yer now," Jericho Bob said, creeping softly after him. "I've
got yer now, sure," he was just repeating, when with a deafening roar
the express-train came tearing down the road.
For what possible reason it slowed up on approaching the freight-car
nobody ever knew; but the fact remains that it did, just as Jericho Bob
laid his wicked black paw on the turkey's tail.
The turkey shrieked, spread his wings, shook the small black boy's
grasp from his tail, and with a mighty swoop alighted on the roof of the
very last car as it passed; and in a moment more Jericho Bob's
Thanksgiving dinner had vanished, like a beautiful dream, down the road!
What became of that Thanksgiving dinner no one ever knew. If you happen
to meet a traveling turkey without any luggage, but with a smile on his
countenance, please send word to Jericho Bob.
Every evening he and Julius Caesar Fish stand by the broken-down fence
and look up and down the road, as if they expected some one.
Jericho Bob has a turn-up nose and bow-legs. Julius Caesar still wears
his dress-coat, and both are watching for a Thanksgiving dinner that ran
away.
HOW WE BOUGHT LOUISIANA
BY HELEN LOCKWOOD COFFIN
It is a hard matter to tell just how much power a little thing has,
because little things have the habit of growing. That was the trouble
that France and England and Spain and all the other big nations had with
America at first. The thirteen colonies occupied so small and
unimportant a strip of land that few people thought they would ever
amount to much. How could such insignificance ever bother old England,
for instance, big and powerful as she was? To England's great loss she
soon learned her error in underestimating the importance or strength of
her colonies.
France watched the giant and the pygmy fighting together, and learned
several lessons while she was watching. For one thing, she found out
that the little American colonies were going to grow, and so she said to
herself: "I will be a sort of back-stop to them. These Americans are
going to be foolish over this bit of success, and think that just
because they have won the Revolution they can do anything they wish to
do. They'll think they can spread out all over this country and grow to
be as big as England herself; and of course anybody can see that that is
impossible. I'll just put up a net along the Mississippi River, and
prevent them crossing over it. That will be the only way to keep them
within bounds."
And so France held the Mississippi, and from there back to the Rocky
Mountains, and whenever the United States citizen desired to go west of
the Mississippi, France said: "No, dear child. Stay within your own yard
and play, like a good little boy," or something to that effect.
Now the United States citizen didn't like this at all; he had pushed his
way with much trouble and expense and hard work through bands of Indians
and through forests and over rivers and mountains, into Wisconsin and
Illinois, and he wished to go farther. And, besides, he wanted to have
the right to sail up and down the Mississippi, and so save himself the
trouble of walking over the land and cutting out his own roads as he
went. So when France said, "No, dear," and told him to "be a good
little boy and not tease," the United States citizen very naturally
rebelled.
Mr. Jefferson was President of the United States at that time, and he
was a man who hated war of any description. He certainly did not wish to
fight with his own countrymen, and he as certainly did not wish to fight
with any other nation, so he searched around for some sort of a
compromise. He thought that if America could own even one port on this
useful river and had the right of Mississippi navigation, the matter
would be settled with satisfaction to all parties. So he sent James
Monroe over to Paris to join our minister, Mr. Livingston, and see if
the two of them together could not persuade France to sell them the
island of New Orleans, on which was the city of the same name.
Now Napoleon was the ruler of France, and he was dreaming dreams and
seeing visions in which France was the most important power in America,
because she owned this wonderful Mississippi River and all this
"Louisiana" which stretched back from the river to the Rockies. He
already held forts along the river, and he was planning to strengthen
these and build some new ones. But you know what happens to the plans of
mice and men sometimes. Napoleon was depending upon his army to help
him out on these plans, but his armies in San Domingo were swept away by
war and sickness, so that on the day he had set for them to move up into
Louisiana not a man was able to go. At the same time Napoleon had on
hand another scheme against England, which was even more important than
his plans for America, and which demanded men and money. Besides this,
he was shrewd enough to know that he could not hold this far-away
territory for any long time against England, which had so many more
ships than France. He suddenly changed his mind about his American
possessions, and nearly sent Mr. Monroe and Mr. Livingston into a state
of collapse by offering to sell them not only New Orleans but also the
whole Province of Louisiana.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE
UNITED STATES
SHOWING
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE
AND OTHER
ACCESSIONS OF TERRITORY.]
There was no time to write to President Jefferson and ask his advice,
and this was before the days of the cable; so Monroe and Livingston took
the matter into their own hands, and signed the contract which
transferred the Louisiana territory to the United States for a
consideration of $15,000,000. They were severely criticized by many of
their own countrymen, and they had some doubts of their own about the
wisdom of their action. You see, nobody knew then that corn and wheat
would grow so abundantly in this territory, or that beyond the
Mississippi there were such stretches of glorious pasture-lands, or that
underneath its mountainous regions were such mines of gold, silver, and
copper. Americans saw only the commercial possibilities of the river,
and all they wanted was the right of navigating it and the permission to
explore the unknown country to the westward.
But Jefferson and Monroe and Livingston builded better than they knew.
All this happened a hundred years ago; and to-day that old Louisiana
territory is, in natural resources, the wealthiest part of the whole
United States. Without that territory in our possession we should have
no Colorado and no Wyoming, no Dakotas, or Nebraska, or Minnesota, or
Montana, or Missouri, or Iowa, or Kansas, or Arkansas, or Louisiana, or
Oklahoma, or Indian Territory.
For all these reasons we owe our most sincere and hearty thanks to the
patriotic and far-sighted men who were concerned in buying this
territory for the United States.
THE CITY THAT LIVES OUTDOORS
BY W. S. HARWOOD
When the wind is howling through the days of the mad March far up in the
lands where snow and ice thick cover the earth, here in this city that
lives outdoors the roses are clambering over the "galleries" and the
wistaria is drooping in purplish splendor from the low branches of the
trees and from the red heights of brick walls.
The yellow jonquils, too, are swelling, and the geraniums are throwing
out their scarlet flame across wide stretches of greensward, while the
violets are nodding at the feet of the gigantic magnolias, whose huge
yellowish-gray buds will soon burst into white beauty, crowning this
noblest of flower-bearing trees.
It is a strange old city, this city that lives outdoors--a city rich in
romantic history, throbbing with tragedy and fascinating events, a
beautiful old city, with a child by its side as beautiful as the mother.
The child is the newer, more modern city, and the child, like the
parent, lives out of doors.
The people seem to come into closer touch with nature than the people of
most other portions of the land. The climate, the constant invitation of
the earth and sky, seem to demand a life lived in the open. This city
that lives outdoors is a real city, with all a city's varied life; but
it is a country place as well--a city set in the country, or the country
moved into town.
For at least nine months in the twelve, the people of this rare old town
live out of doors nearly all the waking hours of the twenty-four. For
the remaining three months of the year, December, January, and February,
they delude themselves into the notion that they are having a winter,
when they gather around a winter-time hearth and listen to imaginary
wind-roarings in the chimney, and see through the panes fictitious and
spectral snow-storms, and dream that they are housed so snug and warm.
But when the day comes the sun is shining and there is no trace of white
on the ground, and the grass is green and there are industrious buds
breaking out of cover, and the earth is sleeping very lightly.
Open-eyed, the youngsters sit by these December firesides and listen to
their elders tell of the snow-storms in the long ago that came so very,
very deep--ah, yes, so deep that the darkies were full of fear and would
not stir from their cabins to do the work of the white people; when
snowballs were flying in the streets, and the earth was white, and the
"banquettes," or sidewalks, were ankle-deep in slush.
All the long years of the two centuries since this old city was born, a
mighty river has been flowing by its doors, never so far forgetting its
purpose to live outdoors as to freeze its yellow crest, stealing softly
past by night and by day, bearing along the city's front a vast commerce
on down to the blue waters of the Gulf, and enriching the city by its
cargoes from the outer world and from the plantations of the upper
river. Strangely enough, the great yellow river flows above the city,
its surface being nearly thirty feet above the streets in time of flood.
It is held in its course by vast banks of earth.
[Illustration: THE SPANISH DAGGER IN BLOOM.]
It is a cold, drear March where the north star shines high overhead; but
here, where it seems suddenly to have lost its balance and to have
dropped low in the brilliant night, March is like June. It is June
indeed, June with its wealth of grasses, its noble avenue of
magnolias, its great green spread of live-oaks--most magnificent of
Southern trees; June with its soft balm, and its sweet sunshine, and its
perfume-laden air. And if you have never seen the pole star in the sky
of the north, where the star is almost directly over your head, you
cannot realize how strange a sight it is to see it so low in the sky as
it is here.
There is a large garden in this city--it is, in fact, a part of the city
proper. It was once a beautiful faubourg, now known as the Garden
District, where the people live outdoors in a fine old aristocratic way,
and where all the beauty in nature seen in the other sections of the
city seems to be outdone. Very many rare old homes are in this garden
region, with its deep hedges and ample grounds, inclosed in high stone
walls, and a wealth of flowers and noble courts and an abounding
hospitality. But what, after all, are houses to a people that lives
outdoors? Conveniences only; for such a people, better than houses are
the air of the open, the scent of the roses, the blue of the Southern
sky, the vast, strong sweep of the brilliant stars!
If we pause here along this street where run such every-day things as
electric street-cars, we shall see on one side of the splendid avenue a
smooth-paved roadway for the carriages, on the other a course for the
horsemen, and in the center a noble inner avenue of trees set in a
velvet-like carpet of grass; and here and there along the way, almost in
touch of your hand from the open car window, appears the Spanish dagger,
with its green, sharp blades and its snowy, showy plume. Not far away
stands a lowly negro cabin, where the sun beats down hot and fierce upon
a great straggling rose-bush, reaching up to the eaves, beating back the
rays of the sun defiantly and gaining fresh strength in the struggle. On
such a bush one day I counted two hundred and ninety roses.
This city which lives outdoors must play most in the open, and in its
noble park, with its vast stretches of bright green, here empurpled by
masses of the dainty grass-flower, there yellowing with the sheen of the
buttercup, one finds the tireless golf-players leisurely strolling over
the links; from yonder come the cries of the boys at ball; and in the
farther distance you may see through the frame-like branches of a
giant live-oak the students of a great university hard set at a
game of tennis. And yet--is it the air, or the race, or the
traditions?--something it is which makes the sportsmen, like the spring,
seem slow to move.
[Illustration: FAR IN THE PINEY WOODS.]
And here even the palms grow outdoors in the city yards. And should you
go past the city's limits, and yet within seeing distance of its
blue-tiled housetops, you will find the palms growing rank in the great
swamps, which you must search if you care to hunt for the languid
alligators--palms growing so thick and rank that it is quite like
looking into some vast conservatory, with the blue dome of the sky for
glass. And here grow the magnolias in their wild, barbaric splendor of
bloom, and the live-oaks, mighty of girth and spread, draped in somber
gray moss as if for the funeral of some god of the deep green wood. At
the fringe of the swamp, tempting you until near to jumping into the
morass after them, are the huge fleurs-de-lis, each gorgeous blossom
fully seven inches across its purple top.
To the north, somewhat apart from the reach of the treacherous river,
lie the health-giving piny woods, and along the big, sullen stream the
sugar plantations, some of them still the home of a lavish hospitality,
some of them transformed into mere places of trade, where thrift and
push have elbowed out all that fine gallantry and ease and ample
hospitality of an earlier day--that hospitality which will ever remain a
leading characteristic of the people. To be a Southern man or a Southern
woman and to be inhospitable--that is not possible in the nature of
things.
[Illustration: A PICTURESQUE FRONT IN THE FRENCH QUARTER.]
It is, when all is said and done, on the gallery that this city lives
most of its life--on the gallery even more than on the evening-thronged
banquette, which is the sidewalk of the North, or the boulevards, or
even the fragrant parks, where life flows in a fair, placid stream. Some
there must be who toil by day in shop, or at counter, or in dim
accounting-rooms, or on the floors of the marts where fortunes are made
and lost in sugar or cotton or rice. For such the gallery is a haven of
rest. If they must pass the earlier day indoors, for them the gallery
during the long, late afternoon, and the ghost of a twilight, and the
long evenings far into the starry night. The ghost of a twilight
indeed--the South knows no other. Sometimes I have watched the long,
splendid twilight come down over the wild Canadian forest--slowly
delaying; creeping up the low mountains; halting from hour to hour in
the glades below; shade after shade in the glorious sky of the west
gradually merging into the dimness of the oncoming dusk; the moments
passing so slowly, the day fading so elusively, until, at last, when
even the low moon has hung out its silver sign in the west and the stars
are pricking through, it is still twilight along the lower earth. And
still farther to the north, around the globe in the far upper Europe,
with the polar circle below you, it is like living on a planet of
eternal day to sit through the northern light and feel about you the
all-pervasive twilight of the land of the midnight sun. But the night is
so hasty here, and the day is swift; and between them runs but a
slender, dim thread.
[Illustration: OLD PLANTATION VILLA ON ANNUNCIATION STREET.]
The gallery is a feature of every house in this city that lives
outdoors, be it big or little, humble or grand, or lowly or mean. It is
on the first floor or the second, or even the third, though the third it
seldom reaches, for few people care for houses of great height. Indeed,
there are hundreds of homes of but one story, full of the costliest
tokens of the taste of an artistic people. And the soil below is so like
a morass that ample space must be left between floor and earth; while as
for cellars, I have heard of but two in all the great city. The
gallery may run around the entire house, flanked and set off by splendid
pillars with capitals rich and ornate; it may run across one end of the
residence and be a marvel of rich ironwork, as fine as art and
handicraft can make it, with, mayhap, the figures of its field outlined
in some bit of color, as gold or green; it may be but a single cheap
wooden affair, paintless, dingy, dilapidated, weather-worn, and stained
with neglect; but a gallery it is still, an important social feature of
this outdoor life.
Over the gallery grow the roses; out near at hand a bignonia-vine lifts
its yellow flare aloft and throws down a fluttering shower of bell-like
blooms, and all the air is heavy with the scents of the South. So
through the long evening the people sit upon the gallery and chat or
read or sing or doze or plan or discuss their family affairs. By day the
galleries are protected with gay-colored awnings or those filmy woven
sheets of reeds which keep out the glare and let through the light and
the fragrant breeze. Children make of the gallery a play-house; young
people here entertain their friends; the elders discuss the affairs of a
nation or dwell on that wonderful past through which this ancient
Southern city has come tumultuously down through the lines of Castilian
and Saxon and Gaul.
[Illustration: OLD SPANISH HOUSES.]
If you should take your map of the United States and run your finger far
down its surface until it rested upon the largest city in all the
beautiful South, and the metropolis of a vast inner empire which holds
two civilizations, one French-Spanish, one American, both slowly, very
slowly, merging through the centuries; or, better still, if you should
stroll along the streets on a sweet March day, peering into its curious
quarters, watching the beautiful little children and the dark-eyed men
and the gaily dressed women and all the throngs of people, city people
who can never long remain away from the green fields and the noble old
trees and the scent of the roses--then you could not fail to hit upon
this charming old place, New Orleans--in many ways the most interesting
of all the cities in America, the beautiful city that lives outdoors.
QUEER AMERICAN RIVERS
BY F. H. SPEARMAN
I wonder if my readers realize what a story of the vast extent of our
country is told by its rivers?
Every variety of river in the world seems to have a cousin in our
collection. What other country on the face of the globe affords such an
assortment of streams for fishing and boating and swimming and
skating--besides having any number of streams on which you can do none
of these things? One can hardly imagine rivers like that; but we have
them, plenty of them, as you shall see.
As for fishing, the American boy may cast his flies for salmon in the
Arctic circle, or angle for sharks under a tropical sun in Florida,
without leaving the domain of the American flag. But the fishing-rivers
are not the most curious, nor the most instructive as to diversity of
climate, soil, and that sort of thing--physical geography, the teacher
calls it.
[Illustration: A LIVE-OAK WITH SPANISH MOSS.]
For instance, if you want to get a good idea of what tropical heat and
moisture will do for a country, slip your canoe from a Florida steamer
into the Ocklawaha River. It is as odd as its name, and appears to be
hopelessly undecided as to whether it had better continue in the fish
and alligator and drainage business, or devote itself to raising
live-oak and cypress-trees, with Spanish moss for mattresses as a side
product.
In this fickle-minded state it does a little of all these things, so
that when you are really on the river you think you are lost in the
woods; and when you actually get lost in the woods, you are quite
confident your canoe is at last on the river. This confusion is due to
the low, flat country, and the luxuriance of a tropical vegetation.
To say that such a river overflows its banks would hardly be correct;
for that would imply that it was not behaving itself; besides, it has
n't any banks--or, at least, very few! The fact is, those peaceful
Florida rivers seem to wander pretty much where they like over the
pretty peninsula without giving offense; but if Jack Frost takes such a
liberty--presto! you should see how the people get after _him_ with
weather-bulletins and danger-signals and formidable smudges. So the
Ocklawaha River and a score of its kind roam through the woods,--or
maybe it is the woods that roam through them,--and the moss sways from
the live-oaks, and the cypress trees stick their knees up through the
water in the oddest way imaginable.
In Florida one may have another odd experience: a river ride in an
ox-cart. Florida rivers are usually shallow, and when the water is high
you can travel for miles across country behind oxen, with more or less
river under you all the way. There are ancient jokes about Florida
steamboats that travel on heavy dews, and use spades for paddle-wheels.
But those of you who have been on its rivers know there is but one
Florida, with its bearded oaks and fronded palms; its dusky woods,
carpeted with glassy waters; its cypress bays, where lonely cranes pose,
silently thoughtful (of stray polliwogs); and its birds of wondrous
plumage that rise with startled splash when the noiseless canoe glides
down upon their haunts.
[Illustration: MOSS-DRAPED LIVE-OAKS.]
Every strange fowl and every hideous reptile, every singular plant and
every tangled jungle, will tell the American boy how far he is to the
south. Florida is, in fact, his corner of the tropics; and the clear
waters of its rivers, stained to brown and wine-color with the juices
of a tropical vegetation, will tell him, if he reads nature's book, how
different the sandy soil of the South is from the yellow mold of the
great Western plains.
Such a boy hardly need ask the conductor how far west he is if he can
catch a glimpse of one of the rivers. All the rivers of the plains are
alike full of yellow mud, because the soil of the plains melts at the
touch of water. These are our spendthrift rivers, full to the banks at
times, but most of the year desperately in need of water. It is only
with the greatest effort that they can keep their places in the summer:
there is just a scanty thread of water strung along a great, rambling
bed of sand, to restrain Dame Nature from revoking their licenses to run
and turning them into cattle-ranches.
No wonder that fish refuse to have anything to do with such streams, and
refuse tempting offers of free worms, free transportation, and
protection from the fatal nets. Fancy trying to raise a family of little
fish, and not knowing one day where water is coming from the next!
Not but what there is water enough at times; only, those rivers of the
great plains, like the Platte and the Kansas and the Arkansas, are so
wasteful of their supply in the spring that by July they are gasping for
a shower. So, part of the year they revel in luxury, and during the rest
they go shabby--like shiftless people.
But the irrigation engineers have lately discovered something wonderful
about even these despised rivers. During the very driest seasons, when
the stream is apparently quite dry, there is still a great body of water
running in the sand. Like a vast sponge, the sand holds the water, yet
it flows continually, just as if it were in plain sight, but more slowly
of course. The volume may be estimated by the depth and breadth of the
sand. One pint of it will hold three quarters of a pint of water. This
is called the underground flow, and is peculiar to this class of rivers.
By means of ditches this water may be brought to the surface for
irrigation.
Scattered among the foot-hills of the Rockies are rivers still more
wilful in their habits. Instead of keeping to their duties in a
methodical way, they rush their annual work through in a month or two;
then they take long vacations. For months together they carry no water
at all; and one may plant and build and live and sleep in their deserted
beds--but beware! Without warning, they resume active business. Maybe
on a Sunday, or in the middle of the night, a storm-cloud visits the
mountains. There is a roar, a tearing, a crashing, and down comes a
terrible wall of water, sweeping away houses and barns and people. No
fishing, no boating, no swimming, no skating on those treacherous
rivers; only surprise and shock and disaster!
So different that they seem to belong in a different world are the great
inter-mountain streams, like the Yellowstone and the Colorado.