A TEXAS NORTHER.
WE had not been long in our camp at Hempstead, before the wives of two
of the staff arrived by way of Galveston. Their tents were put on a line
with or near ours, and arbors built over them. One of these women, Mrs.
Greene, had been one of my dearest girlhood friends, and every pleasure
of my happy life was enhanced by the presence of this lovely woman. We
all went out, after the heat of the day, on long rides about the
country. Our father Custer was a fine rider, and not only sat his horse
well, but it was almost impossible to unseat him. He grew more wary and
watchful of his tormenting sons every day. If they halted, apparently
only to say a casual word or so to their paternal, that keen old man
spurred his horse to one side with the agility of a circus-rider, just
in time to avoid the flying heels of the horse of his offspring in front
of him, which had been taught to fling his hoofs up when touched just
back of the saddle. If both boys came together and rode one on each side
of him, he looked uneasily from one to the other, suspicious of this
sudden exhibition of friendship; and well he might, for while one fixed
his attention by some question that provoked an answer, usually about
politics, the other gave a quick rap on the back of the horse, and the
next thing, the father was grasping the pommel to keep from being flung
forward of the animal as he threw up his heels and plunged his head
down, making the angle of an incline plane. Even when, after a concerted
plan, one rode up and pulled the cape of the elder man's overcoat over
his head and held it there a moment, while the other gave the horse a
cut, he sat like a centaur, and no surprise unseated him or loosened
his grip on the reins. They knew his horsemanship well, as he had ridden
after the hounds in Maryland and Virginia in his younger days, and had
taught them to sit a horse bareback, when their little fat legs were too
short to describe a curve on the animal's side. Of course I was always
begging to have them spare father, but it was needless championship. He
enjoyed their pranks with all his fun-loving soul.
It was very hard to get postage, and he was unwary enough one day--on
account of the color being the same as the issue of that year--to buy a
dollar's worth of his eldest scion, only to find them old ones, such as
were used before the war. Whether he considered the joke worth a dollar,
I could not decipher, for he was silent; but soon afterward he showed me
an envelope marked in the writing of his son Armstrong,
"Conscience-money," containing the $1 unlawfully obtained.
We were invited one night to go to a coon-hunt, conducted in the real
old Southern style. The officers wanted us to see some hunting, but were
obliged to leave us behind hitherto when they crossed the Brazos River
on deer-hunts, and were the guests of the planters in the chase, that
began before dawn and lasted all day. We had thickets, underbrush and
ditches to encounter, before the dogs treed the coon; then a little
darkey, brought along for the climbing, went up into the branches and
dislodged the game, which fell among our and the neighbors' dogs. No
voice excited them more wildly than the "Whoop-la!" of our old father,
and when we came home at 2 A. M., carrying a coon and a possum, he was
as fresh as the youngest of us.
The citizens surrounding us were so relieved to find that our troops
left them unmolested, they frankly contrasted the disciplined conduct
with the lawlessness to which they had been witness in States where the
Confederate army was stationed. But they scarcely realized that an army
in time of peace is much more restricted. They could hardly say enough
about the order that was carried out, preventing the negroes from
joining the column as it marched into Texas. There was no way of taking
care of them, and the General directed that none should follow, so they
went back, contented to work where they would be fed and clothed.
One reason that our life seemed to me the very perfection of all that is
ever attained on earth was, that the rumors of trouble with Mexico had
ceased. The demands of our Government had been complied with; but it was
thought best to keep the troops in the field the rest of the year,
though there was to be no war.
Our first experience with a Texas norther surprised and startled us. It
came on in the night, preceded by the usual heavy, suffocating air which
renders breathing an effort. After this prelude, the wild blast of wind
swept down on us with a fury indescribable. We heard the roar as it
approached over the stretch of prairie between us and the sea. Our tent,
though it was guyed by ropes stretched from the ridge-pole to a strong
post driven far into the ground, both in front and at the rear, shook,
rattled, and flapped as if with the rage of some human creature. It was
twisted and wrenched from side to side; the arbor overhead seemed to
toss to and fro, and the wagon rocked in a crazy effort to spill us out.
Though the ropes stretched and cracked like cordage at sea, and the
canvas flapped like loosened sails, we did not go down. Indeed, rocked
in this improvised "cradle of the deep," it was hard to tell whether one
was at sea or on land. I begged to get up and dress for the final
collapse that I was sure was coming, but my husband quieted me and
calmed my fears, believing that the approaching rain would still the
wind, as it eventually did. Next morning a scene of havoc was visible.
Our neighbors crept out of their tents, and we women, in a little
whispered aside, exchanged our opinions upon the climate of the "Sunny
South."
They also had passed a night of terror, but fortunately their tents did
not go down. Mrs. Lyon had just come from the North, and expected to
join her husband; meanwhile she was our guest, and the General and I had
endeavored to give her as cordial a welcome as we could, feeling that
all must be so strange to her after the security and seclusion of her
girlhood's home. The night preceding the norther we took her to her tent
near ours, and helped her arrange for the night, assuring her that we
were so near that we could hear her voice, if she was in the least
afraid. We, being novices in the experience of that climate and its
gales, had no idea the wind would rise to such concert pitch that no
voice could be distinguished. She said that when we fastened her in from
the outside world with two straps, she felt very uncertain about her
courage holding out. We kept on assuring her not to be afraid, but on
bidding her good-night and saying again not to be in the least
disturbed, that the sentinel walked his beat in front of her tent all
night, she dared not own up that this assurance did not tend to soothe
her anxious fears, for she thought she would be more afraid of the guard
than of anything else. And as I think of it, such a good-night from us
was rather unsatisfactory. My husband, soldier-like, put the utmost
faith in the guard, and I, though only so short a time before mortally
afraid of the stern, unswerving warrior myself, had soon forgotten that
there were many timid women in the world who knew nothing of sleeping
without locks or bolts, and thought, perhaps, that at the slightest
ignorance or dereliction of duty the sentinel would fire on an offender,
whether man or woman. Added to this fear of the sentinel, the storm took
what remnant of nerve she had left; and though she laughed next morning
about her initiation into the service of the Government, there were
subsequent confessions to the horror of that unending night. In talking
with Major and Mrs. Lyon nowadays, when it is my privilege to see them,
there seemed to be no memories but pleasant ones of our Texas life. They
might well cherish two reminiscences as somewhat disturbing, for Mrs.
Lyon's reception by the hurricane, and the Major's baptism of gore when
he killed his first deer, were not scenes that would bear frequent
repetition and only leave pleasant memories.
The staff-officers had caused a long shade to be built, instead of
shorter ones, which would have stood the storms better. Under this all
of their tents were pitched in two rows facing each other; and protected
by this arbor, they daily took the siesta which is almost compulsory
there in the heat of the noontide. Now the shade was lifted off one side
and tilted over, and some of the tents were also flat. Among them was
that of our father Custer. He had extricated himself with difficulty
from under the canvas, and described his sensations so quaintly that his
woes were greeted with roars of laughter from us all. After narrating
the downfall of his "rag house," he dryly remarked that it would seem,
owing to the climate and other causes, he was not going to have much
uninterrupted sleep, and, looking slyly at the staff, he added that his
neighborhood was not the quietest he had ever known.
The letters home at that time, in spite of their description of trivial
events, and the exuberant underlined expressions of girlish pleasure
over nothings, my father enjoyed and preserved. I find that our idle
Sundays were almost blanks in life, as we had no service and the hunting
and riding were suspended. I marked the day by writing home, and a few
extracts will perhaps present a clearer idea of the life there than
anything that could be written now:
"Every Sunday I wake up with the thought of home, and wish that we might
be there and go to church with you. I can imagine how pleasant home is
now. Among other luxuries, I see with my 'mind's eye,' a large plate of
your nice apples on the dining-room table. I miss apples here; none grow
in this country; and a man living near here told our Henry that he
hadn't seen one for five years. Father Custer bought me some small,
withered-looking ones for fifty cents apiece. It seems so strange that
in this State, where many planters live who are rich enough to build a
church individually, there is such a scarcity of churches. Why, at the
North, the first knowledge one has of the proximity of a village is by
seeing a spire, and a church is almost the first building put up when a
town is laid out. Here in this country it is the last to be thought of.
Cotton is indeed king. The cake you sent to me by Nettie Greene, dear
mother, was a perfect godsend. Oh, anything you make does taste so
good!"
"Our orderly has perfected a trade for a beautiful little horse for me,
so that when Custis Lee's corns trouble him, I am not obliged to take
the choice of staying at home or riding one of Armstrong's prancers. The
new horse has cunning tricks, getting down on his knees to let me get on
and off, if I tell him to do so. He is very affectionate, and he racks a
mile inside of three minutes. We talk 'horse' a great deal here, dear
father, and my letters may be like our talk; but any man who has kept in
his stable, for months at a time, a famous race-horse worth $9,000, as
you have kept Don Juan,[B] ought not to object to a little account of
other people's animals. We had an offer of $500 for Custis Lee at
Alexandria."
* * * * *
"I sometimes have uninvited guests in my tent. Friday, Nettie saw
something on the tray that Eliza was carrying. It had a long tail, and
proved to be a stinging scorpion. The citizens pooh-pooh at our fear of
scorpions, and insist that they are not so very dangerous; but I was
glad to have that particular one killed by Armstrong planting his gun on
it. I feel much pleased, and Armstrong is quite proud, that I made
myself a riding-habit. You know I lost the waist of mine in the forest.
It took me weeks to finish it, being my first attempt. I ripped an old
waist, and copied it by drawing lines with a pencil, pinning and
basting; but it fits very well. I remember how you both wanted me to
learn when I was at home, and I almost wished I had, when I found it
took me such ages to do what ought to have been short work."
"Our letters take twenty days in coming, and longer if there are storms
in the Gulf. The papers are stale enough, but Armstrong goes through
them all. I feel so rich, and am luxuriating in four splint-bottom
chairs that we hired an old darkey to make for us. I want to sit in all
four at once, it seems so good to get anything in which to rest that has
a back."
"Our dogs give us such pleasure, though it took me some time to get used
to the din they set up when Armstrong practiced on the horn. They call
it 'giving tongue' here, but I call that too mild a word. Their whole
bodies seem hollow, they bring forth such wild cries and cavernous
howls. We call them Byron, Brandy, Jupiter, Rattler, Sultan, and Tyler."
* * * * *
"Something awful is constantly occurring among the citizens. It is a
lawless country. A relative of one of our old army officers, a prominent
planter living near here, was shot dead in Houston by a man bearing an
old grudge against him. It is a common occurrence to shoot down men here
for any offense whatever. Armstrong never goes anywhere except for
hunting, and as we have plenty of books and our evening rides, we enjoy
life thoroughly. Nettie fell from her horse, and we were frightened for
a time, but she was only lamed. Though she weighs 165 pounds, Autie[C]
picked her up as if she were a baby, and carried her into their tent."
* * * * *
"Besides visiting at the house of the collector of the port, where there
is a houseful of young girls, we have been hospitably treated by some
people to whom Armstrong was able to be of use. One day, a gentle
well-bred Southern woman came into our tent to see Armstrong, and asked
his protection for her boy, telling him that for some childish
carelessness the neighboring colored people had threatened his life.
Armstrong believed her, and melted. He afterward inquired elsewhere into
the matter, and was convinced that the boy had not intentionally erred.
The child himself was proof, by his frank manner and his straightforward
story, of his innocence."
"I suppose we were the first Yankees these people had ever known, and
doubtless nothing but gratitude induced them even to speak with us; yet
they conquered prejudice, and asked us to dinner. They had been so well
dressed when they called--and were accounted rich, I believe, by the
neighbors--that I could scarcely believe we had reached the right house
when we halted. It was like the cabins of the 'poor white trash' in the
forest, only larger. I thought we had mistaken the negro quarters for
the master's. Two large rooms, with extensions at the rear, were divided
by an open space roofed over, under which the table was spread. The
house was of rough logs, and unpainted. Unless the Texans built with
home materials, their houses cost as much as palaces abroad, for the
dressed lumber had to be hauled from the seacoast."
"The inside of this queer home was in marked contrast with the exterior.
The furniture was modern and handsome, and the piano, on which the
accomplished mother, as well as her little son, gave us music, was from
one of our best Northern manufactories. The china, glass and linen on
the dinner-table were still another surprise."
"They never broached politics, gave us an excellent dinner, and got on
Armstrong's blind side forever by giving him a valuable full-blooded
pointer, called Ginnie, short for Virginia. With four game chickens, a
Virginia cured ham (as that was their former State), and two turkeys, we
were sent on our way rejoicing."
* * * * *
"Our Henry has gone home, and we miss him, for he is fidelity itself. He
expects to move his entire family of negroes from Virginia to Monroe,
because he says, father, you are the finest man he ever _did_ see.
Prepare, then, for the dark cloud that is moving toward you, and you
may have the privilege of contributing to their support for a time, if
he follows Eliza's plan of billeting the orphan upon us."
"We have a new cook called Uncle Charley, who has heretofore been a
preacher, but now condescends to get up good dinners for us. We had
eleven to dine to-day, and borrowed dishes of our Southern neighbors. We
had a soup made out of an immense turtle that Armstrong killed in the
stream yesterday. Then followed turkeys, boiled ham--and roast beef, of
course, for Armstrong thinks no dinner quite perfect without his beef.
We are living well, and on so little. Armstrong's pay as a major-general
will soon cease, and we are trying now to get accustomed to living on
less."
"I listen to the citizens talking over the prospects of this State, and
I think it promises wonders. There are chances for money-making all the
time thrown in Armstrong's way; but he seems to think that while he is
on duty he had better not enter into business schemes."
"Armstrong has such good success in hunting and fishing that he sends to
the other officers' messes turtle, deer, duck, quail, squirrels, doves
and prairie chickens. The possums are accepted with many a scrape and
flourish by the 'nigs.' I forgot to tell you that our nine dogs sleep
round our wagon at night, quarreling, growling, snoring, but I sleep too
soundly to be kept awake by them."
The very ants in Texas, though not poisonous, were provided with such
sharp nippers that they made me jump from my chair with a bound, if,
after going out of sight in the neck or sleeves of my dress, they
attempted to cut their way out. They clipped one's flesh with sharp
little cuts that were not pleasant, especially when there remained a
doubt as to whether it might be a scorpion. We had to guard our linen
carefully, for they cut it up with ugly little slits that were hard to
mend. Besides, we had to be careful, as we were so cut off that we could
not well replace our few clothes, and it costs a ruinous sum to send
North, or even to New Orleans, for anything. I found this out when the
General paid an express bill on a gown from New York--ordered before we
left the East--far larger than the cost of the material and the
dressmaker's bill together. The ants besieged the cook-tent and set
Uncle Charley and Eliza to growling; but an old settler told them to
surround the place with tan-bark, and they were thus freed. It was all I
could do to keep the General from digging down into the ant-mounds, as
he was anxious to see into their mechanism. The colored people and
citizens told us what fighters they were, and what injuries they
inflicted on people who molested them. We watched them curiously day by
day, and wanted to see if the residents had told us stories about their
stripping the trees of foliage just to guy us. (It has long been the
favorite pastime of old residents to impose all sorts of improbable
tales on the new-comer.) Whether this occurrence happens often or not I
cannot say, but it certainly took place once while we were there. One
morning my husband ran into the tent and asked me to hurry up with my
dressing; he had something strange to show me, and helped me scramble
into my clothes.
The carriage-road in front of our tents cut rather deep ruts, over which
the ants found a difficult passage, so they had laid a causeway of bits
of cut leaves, over which they journeyed between a tree and their
ant-hills, not far from our tents on the other side of the road. They
were still traveling back and forth, each bearing a bit of leaf bigger
than itself; and a half-grown tree near us, which had been full of
foliage the day before, was entirely bare.
For some reason unexplainable, malarial fever broke out among our staff.
It was, I suppose, the acclimation to which we were being subjected. My
father Custer was ill, and came forth from the siege whitened out, while
the officers disappeared to mourn over the number of their bones for a
few days, and then crept out of the tents as soon as they could move. My
husband all this time had never even changed color. His powers of
endurance amazed me. He seemed to have set his strong will against
yielding to climatic influences; but after two days of this fighting he
gave in and tossed himself on our borrowed lounge, a vanquished man. He
was very sick. Break-bone fever had waited to do its worst with its last
victim. Everything looked very gloomy to me. We had not even a wide bed,
on which it is a little comfort if a fever-tossed patient can fling
himself from side to side. We had no ice, no fruit, indeed nothing but
quinine. The supplies of that drug to the hospital department of Texas
must be sent by the barrel, it seemed to me, from the manner in which it
was consumed.
Our devoted surgeon came, of his own accord, over and over again, and
was untiring in his patience in coming when I sent for him
in-between-times, to please me in my anxiety. My husband was so racked
and tormented by pain, and burnt up with fiery heat, that he hardly made
the feeblest fight about the medicine, after having attained the
satisfaction of my tasting it, to be sure that I knew how bitter it was.
As the fever abated every hour, I resorted to new modes of bribery and
corruption to get him to swallow the huge pill. My stepmother's cake had
come in the very best time, for I extracted the raisins and hid the
quinine in them, as my father had done when giving me medicine as a
child. It seemed to me an interminable time before the disease began to
yield to the remedies. In reality, it was not long, as the General was
unaccustomed to medicine, and its effect was more quickly realized on
that account. Even when my husband began to crawl about again, the
doctor continued the medicine, and I as nurse remorselessly carried out
his directions, though I had by no means a tractable patient, as with
returning health came restored combative powers. My husband noticed the
rapid disappearance of the pills from the table when he lay and watched
the hated things with relief, as he discovered that he was being aided
in the consumption by some unknown friend. One morning we found the
plate on which the doctor had placed thirty the night before, empty. Of
course I accused the General of being the cause of the strange
disappearance, and prepared to send for more, inexorable in my temporary
reign over a weak man. He attempted a mild kicking celebration and
clapping accompaniment over the departure of his hated medicine, as much
as his rather unsteady feet and arms would allow, but stoutly denied
having done away with the offending pills. The next night we kept watch
over the fresh supply, and soon after dark the ants began their
migrations up the loose tent-wall on the table-cover that fell against
the canvas, and while one grasped the flour-mixed pill with his long
nippers, the partner pushed, steered and helped roll the plunder down
the side of the tent on to the ground.
The triumph of the citizens was complete. Their tales were outdone by
our actual experience. After that there was no story they told us which
we did not take in immediately without question.
The hunting included alligators also. In the stream below us there were
occasional deep pools, darkened by the overhanging trees. As we women
walked on the banks, we kept a respectful distance from the places where
the bend in the creek widened into a pond, with still water near the
high banks. In one of these dark pools lived an ancient alligator, well
known to the neighbors, on which they had been unsuccessfully firing for
years. The darkeys kept aloof from his fastness, and even Eliza, whose
Monday-morning soul longed for the running water of the stream, for she
had struggled with muddy water so long, trembled at the tales of this
monster. She reminds me now "what a lovely place to wash that Gros
wash-house was, down by the creek. But it was near the old alligator's
pool, and I know I hurried up my wash awfully, for I was afraid he might
come up; for you know, Miss Libbie, it was reckoned that they was mighty
fond of children and colored people."
[Illustration: MEASURING AN ALLIGATOR.]
One of the young officers was determined to get this veteran, and day
after day went up and down the creek, coming home at night to meet the
jeers of the others, who did not believe that alligator-hunting in a hot
country paid. One night he stopped at our tent, radiant and jubilant. He
had shot the old disturber of the peace, the intimidator of the
neighborhood, and was going for help to haul him up to the tents. He was
a monster, and it cost the men tough pulling to get him up the bank, and
then to drag him down near our tent. There he was left for us women to
see. We walked around and around him, very brave, and quite relieved to
think that we were rid of so dangerous a neighbor, with a real old
Jonah-and-the-whale mouth. The General congratulated the young officer
heartily, and wished it had been his successful shot that had ended him.
Part of the jaw had been shot away, evidently years ago, as it was then
calloused over. It was distended to its utmost capacity, and propped
open with a stick. Nettie brought out a broom from her tent, with which
to get a rough estimate of his length, as we knew well that if we did
not give some idea of his size in our letters home, they would think the
climate, which enervates so quickly, had produced a total collapse in
our power to tell the truth. The broom did not begin to answer, so we
pieced out the measure with something else, in order to arrive at some
kind of accuracy. Then we thought we would like to see how the beast
looked with his mouth closed, and the officers, patient in humoring our
whims, pulled out the props. There was a sudden commotion. The next
thing visible was three sets of flying petticoats making for the tent,
as the alligator, revived by the sudden let-down of his upper jaw,
sprawled out his feet and began to walk over the grass. The crack of the
rifle a moment after brought the heads of three cowards from their
tents, but after that no woman hovered over even his dead hide. The
General was convulsed over our retreat. The drying skin of his majesty,
the lord of the pool, flung and flapped in the wind, suspended to the
pole of the officers' arbor for weeks, and it was well tanned by the air
long before they ceased to make sly allusions to women's curiosity.
At last, in November, the sealed proposals from citizens to the
quartermaster for the contract for transporting the camp equipage and
baggage, forage, etc., over the country, were all in, and the most
reasonable of the propositions was accepted. Orders had come to move on
to Austin, the capital, where we were to winter. It was with real regret
that I saw our traps packed, the tents of our pretty encampment taken
down, the arbors thrown over, and our faces turned toward the interior
of the State. The General, too buoyant not to think that every move
would better us, felt nothing but pleasure to be on the march again. The
journey was very pleasant through the day, and we were not compelled to
rise before dawn, for the sun was by no means unbearable, as it had been
in August. It was cold at night, and the wind blew around the wagon,
flapping the curtains, under which it penetrated, and lifting the covers
unless they were strongly secured. As to trying to keep warm by a
camp-fire in November, I rather incline to the belief that it is
impossible. Instead of heat coming into the tent where I put on my habit
with benumbed fingers, the wind blew the smoke in. Sometimes the
mornings were so cold I begged to be left in bed, and argued that the
mules could be attached and I could go straight on to camp, warm all the
way. But my husband woke my drowsy pride by saying "the officers will
surely think you a 'feather-bed soldier,'" which term of derision was
applied to a man who sought soft places for duty and avoided hardships,
driving when he ought to ride.
If we all huddled around one of my husband's splendid camp-fires, I came
in for the smoke. The officers' pretty little gallantries about "smoke
always following beauty," did not keep my eyes from being blistered and
blinded. It was, after all, not a very great hardship, as during the day
we had the royal sun of that Southern winter.
My husband rode on in advance every day to select a camp. He gave the
choice into my hands sometimes, but it was hard to keep wood, water and
suitable ground uppermost; I wanted always the sheltered, pretty spots.
We enjoyed every mile of our march. It rained sometimes, pouring down so
suddenly that a retreat to the traveling wagons was impossible. One day
I was wet to the skin three times, and my husband wondered what the
anxious father and mother, who used frantically to call "rubbers" after
me, as a girl, when I tried to slip out unnoticed, would say to him
then; but it did not hurt me in the least. The General actually seemed
unconscious of the shower. He wore a soldier's overcoat, pulled his
broad hat down to shed the rain, and encouraged me by saying I was
getting to be a tough veteran, which among us was very high praise.
Indeed, we were all then so well, we snapped our fingers at the
once-dreaded break-bone fever. If we broke the ice in the bucket for our
early ablutions, it became a matter to joke over when the sun was up and
we all rode together, laughing and singing, at the head of the column.
Our march was usually twenty-five miles, sometimes thirty, in a day. The
General and I foraged at the farms we passed, and bought good butter,
eggs and poultry. He began to collect turkeys for the winter, until we
had enough for a year. Uncle Charley was doing his best to awe Eliza
with his numerous new dishes. Though he was a preacher, he put on that
profession on Sundays as he did his best coat; and if during the week
the fire smoked, or a dog stole some prepared dish that was standing
one side to cool, he expressed himself in tones not loud but deep, and
had as extensive a collection of negro oaths as Texas afforded, which, I
believe, is saying a good deal. My husband, observant as he always was,
wondered what possessed the old fellow when preparing poultry for
dinner. We used slyly to watch him go one side, seize the chicken, and,
while swiftly wringing its neck, mumble some unintelligible words to
himself, then throw down the fowl in a matter-of-fact way, and sit down
to pluck it. We were mystified, and had to get Eliza to explain this
peculiar proceeding that went on day after day. She said that "though
Uncle Charley does swear so powerful, he has a kind of superstition that
poultry has a hereafter." Evidently he thought it was not right to send
them to their last home without what he intended for a funeral oration.
Sometimes he said, as fast as his nimble old tongue could clatter:
"Hark, from the tombs a doleful sound,
Mine ears attend the cry!
Ye living hens, come view the ground
Where you must shortly die."
Once after this my husband, by hiding, contrived to be present, though
unseen, at one of these funeral ceremonies:
"Princes, this clay must be your bed,
In spite of all your towers,
The tall, the wise, the reverend head,
Must lie as low as yours."
He so timed his verses that with one wrench he gave the final turn to
the poor chicken's head as he jerked out the last line. My husband,
perfectly convulsed himself, was in terror for fear Uncle Charley would
have his feelings hurt by seeing us, and hearing my giggling, and I
nearly smothered myself in the attempt to get back to our tent, where
the General threw himself down with shrieks of laughter.
We varied our march by many an exciting race after jack-rabbits. The
chapparral bushes defeated us frequently by making such good
hiding-places for the hare.[D] If we came to a long stretch of open
prairie, and a rabbit lifted his doe-like head above the grass, the
General uttered a wild whoop to his dog, a "Come on!" to me, and off we
dashed. Some of the staff occasionally joined, while our father Custer
bent over his old roan horse, mildly struck him with a spur, and was in
at the death. The ground was excellent for a run--level and grassy. We
had a superb greyhound called Byron, that was devoted to the General,
and after a successful chase it was rewarded with many a demonstration
of affection. He was the most lordly dog, I think, I ever saw--powerful,
with deep chest, and carrying his head in a royal way. When he started
for a run, with his nostrils distended and his delicate ears laid back
on his noble head, each bound sent him flying through the air. He hardly
touched the elastic cushions of his feet to earth, before he again was
spread out like a dark, straight thread. This gathering and leaping must
be seen, to realize how marvelous is the rapidity and how the motion
seems flying, almost, as the ground is scorned except at a sort of
spring bound. He trotted back to the General, if he happened to be in
advance, with the rabbit in his mouth, and, holding back his proud head,
delivered the game only to his chief. The tribute that a woman pays to
beauty in any form, I gave to Byron, but I never cared much for him. A
greyhound's heart could be put into a thimble. Byron cared for the
General as much as his cold soul could for any one, but it was not to be
compared with the dear Ginnie: she was all love, she was almost human.
The dog was in an injured state with me much of the time. In quarters he
resented all my rights. My husband had a great fashion of flinging
himself on the bed, or even on the floor, if it was carpeted. He told me
he believed he must unconsciously have acquired the habit at West
Point, where the zeal of the cadet seems divided between his studies and
an effort to keep the wrinkles out of the regulation white pantaloons,
which, being of duck, are easily creased. What punishment Government
sees fit to inflict for each separate crease, I don't know, but
certainly its embryo soldiers have implanted in them a fear of
consequences, even regarding rumpled linen. As soon as the General
tossed himself on the bed, Byron walked to him and was invited to share
the luxury. "Certainly," my husband used to say, sarcastically; "walk
right up here on this clean white spread, without troubling yourself to
care whether your feet are covered with mud or not. Your Aunt Eliza
wants you to lie on nice white counterpanes; she washes them on purpose
for you." Byron answered this invitation by licking his host's hand, and
turning in the most scornful manner on me, as I uttered a mild protest
regarding his muddy paws. The General quickly remarked that I made
invidious distinctions, as no spread seemed too fine or white for
Ginnie, in my mind, while if Eliza happened to enter, a pair of blazing
eyes and an energetically expressed opinion of Byron ensued, and he
retorted by lifting his upper lip over some of the whitest fangs I ever
saw. The General, still aiding and abetting, asked the dog to let Aunt
Eliza see what an intelligent, knowing animal he was--how soon he
distinguished his friends from his foes. Such an exasperating brute, and
such a tormenting master, were best left alone. But I was tired, and
wanted to lie down, so I told Eliza that if she would stand there, I
would try the broom, a woman's weapon, on his royal highness. Byron
wouldn't move, and growled even at me. Then I quite meekly took what
little place was left, the General's sense of mischief, and his peculiar
fondness for not interfering in a fight, now coming in to keep him
silent. The dog rolled over, and shammed sleep, but soon planting his
feet against my back, which was turned in high dudgeon, he pushed and
pushed, seemingly without premeditation, his dreadful eyes shut, until I
was nearly shoved off. I was conquered, and rose, afraid of the dog and
momentarily irritated at my defeat and his tyranny, while Eliza read a
lesson to the General. She said, "_Now_ see what you've done. You keer
more for that _pesky, sassy_ old hound than you does for Miss Libbie.
Ginnel, I'd be 'shamed, if I was you. What would your mother Custer
think of you now?" But my feelings were not seriously hurt, and the
General, having watched to the last to see how far the brute would carry
his jealousy, gave him a kick that sent him sprawling on the floor,
springing up to restore me to my place and close the colored harangue
that was going on at the foot of the bed. Eliza rarely dignified me with
the honor of being referee in any disputed question. She used to say,
"No matter whether it's right or wrong, Miss Libbie's sho' to side with
the Ginnel." Her droll way of treating him like a big boy away from home
for the first time, always amused him. She threatened to tell his
mother, and brought up that sainted woman in all our encounters, as she
did in the dog episode just mentioned, as if the very name would restore
order at once, and give Eliza her own way in regulating us. But dear
mother Custer had been in the midst of too many happy scuffles, and the
centre of too many friendly fisticuffs among her active, irrepressible
boys, in the old farm-days, for the mention of her name to restore order
in our turbulent household.
FOOTNOTES:
[B] Don Juan was a horse captured by our soldiers during the war, and
bought, as was the custom, by the General, for the appraised value of a
contract horse. It was the horse that ran away with him at the grand
review, and it afterward died in Michigan.
[C] An abbreviation of the General's second name, Armstrong, given him
by his elder sister's children, when they were too young to pronounce
the full name Armstrong.
[D] I never liked hunting when the game was killed, and I was relieved
to find how often the hare rabbit escaped into the thickets.