It took our first colored cook, a huge, strapping creature, who
seemed a very giant in strength and stature, three days to scrub our
tiny kitchen floor; and his ideas, one of which was that he should
sleep until nine o’clock in the morning, nor did he awaken then
unless called, were not to be changed to suit our convenience.
I remember so well our first breakfast! Rice batter cakes had been
ordered; but the strangest looking and queerest tasting dish was
produced, which, when questioned, the cook admitted was simply rice
and molasses mixed together and fried in much grease.
Our last colored cook was so surly I was afraid of him, and rejoiced
when he was finally replaced by a white man. On leaving us he
moved to the little town of Brackett, and after only a few days had
passed, murdered a woman, and to hide his guilt burned the house.
Circumstantial evidence was so strong that he was captured and
imprisoned in the little jail, which, constructed of heavy stone,
was the only decent building in town. The murdered woman had been
the widow of a white soldier, and his comrades-in-arms determined
to avenge her. So, one night, under cover of the darkness, a number
stormed the jail. Though well guarded, and the thick doors seemingly
impregnable, they effected an entrance.
Meantime the garrison was greatly alarmed, for the town was so
near we could hear the firing and tumult. The ladies were doubly
frightened, because each one’s husband had been summoned to march at
the head of his troops and quell the disturbance.
All were terrified, scarcely knowing what had happened, and the
volume of sound that reached our ears made us dread untold dangers.
We were frightened at having been left alone, and more alarmed for
our husbands, because, in the promiscuous firing which began the
moment the troops reached town, we knew not what shot had or might
hit one of them.
Altogether we were panic-stricken, and moments seemed hours until
the troops returned, which they did very soon, and without a single
officer or soldier having been injured, although the shots were
numerous enough to have killed an army.
The jail had been forced before the arrival of the troops; but the
soldiers, though carefully searching every cell, had been unable to
find the prisoner, and, after vowing vengeance on the authorities for
having removed him, assembled outside, where they vented their wrath
and disappointment by firing against the heavy stone building. When
the cavalry reached the scene, and in their turn began to fire, every
man disappeared, escaping under cover of the darkness and confusion,
and found his way back to the fort, where at roll-call all answered
to their names as innocently as possible.
The officers were inclined to condone the offense, both from sympathy
with the murdered woman’s friends, and also because the murderer was
such a despicable coward, as was proved not only by his taking a
woman’s life, but also in his behavior afterward.
The first officer who entered the jail was Mr. Boyd, who was at
once told by the sheriff that the murderer was secreted on its
roof, which, unknown to outsiders, had a stone coping six feet high
that well concealed him. A more pitiable object was never seen; for
expecting every moment would be his last he was praying and groaning
in true darkey fashion, and had the tumult outside been less would
have been quickly discovered.
Mr. Boyd tried to calm him, but it was useless; the man was so
thoroughly frightened he could not be silenced, but kept calling on
the good Lord for protection, and throwing himself about with the
most grotesque contortions of face and figure.
The sequel proved the soldiers to have been right in not trusting to
the course of law, for in Texas no crime but that of horse-stealing
is considered deserving of hanging; the murderer was only imprisoned,
but fortunately for himself was taken to another county.
On this occasion Mr. Boyd interviewed a murderer to whose tender
mercies his own family had been exposed, and after that I was allowed
to have a white cook; for although they sometimes indulged in
dissipation, colored men and women did the same, and there is no such
fear known on earth as that a woman experiences when confronted by a
drunken negro.
The cavalry stationed at Fort Clark previous to our arrival had been
colored, though the infantry, which composed half the post, was white.
Never having been South before, we had much to learn before a home
feeling was possible. The level country seemed strange after having
lived among lovely mountains, and we had a new set of insects to
deal with. I had thought nothing could be worse than my first
enemies, the wasps, but soon found the immense roaches with which
our house was actually crammed much more disagreeable. They not only
covered the kitchen floor until it was black, but actually flew
around our heads, and even invaded the bedrooms up-stairs until life
seemed intolerable. A thorough system of cleaning and scrubbing was
instituted; for they love dirt, which was, in fact, the original
cause of such an undue supply. We tried borax and all other known
remedies, and in time greatly lessened their numbers.
A picnic in Texas was simply impossible on account of the red bugs
and wood-ticks, which were not only countless and disagreeable, but
so poisonous that I knew an officer, who had been obliged to camp out
on the ground, suffer so severely from their attentions that hospital
treatment was necessary for weeks. The sores caused by these insects
are frequently very painful, because they bury themselves beneath the
skin, and actually have to be dug out.
The larger vermin, scorpions, tarantulas, centipeds, and snakes I did
not mind; for they never molested us, and, like the really weighty
trials of life, were more easily endured than minor ones. I speak
from actual experience, having lived out of doors during our five
years residence in Texas, and allowed my children to enjoy themselves
in the same way, both because I deemed it necessary to health, and
because observation had convinced me that those ladies who did
otherwise suffered indescribably from fear; while to us, after we had
settled down, every moment was a joy in spite of heat and vermin.
One evening a lady caller started frantically for the door
immediately after having entered. The cause of her terror was a
huge tarantula or spider of the most deadly sort, black, ugly, and
venomous, which measured fully three inches around the body. I picked
up a heavy basket and killed it. She called me very brave; but I
thought greater bravery would have been required to permit it to
live, when perhaps it might bite one of my children.
Our first winter at Fort Clark was delightful. All had comfortable
double houses; and I felt very proud because of the bright, pretty
carpets and lace curtains that had been sent from the East. The
troops were called out only occasionally for Indian raids, but never
went farther than the river which divides Texas from Mexico.
We enjoyed the game, which was so plentiful that delicious wild
turkey could be enjoyed every day if desired. The one vegetable that
grew almost spontaneously was sweet potato, which we luxuriated in
for months, as it improved by keeping.
I scoured the country on horseback in all directions, and found a
rare charm in those boundless prairies, carpeted with gray grass so
thick the horse’s hoofs sank far out of sight, which made the pace an
exhilarating bound. A stream, which rose from the clear spring that
supplied us with water, flowed for miles amid groves of wild oak and
pecan trees which it was my delight to explore.
We hunted jack rabbits a good deal. They were so numerous as to
destroy all hopes of the gardens in which the early freshets had
allowed us to indulge. A lady just from the East was appalled when I
said that each small head of cabbage cost a dollar, and was really
worth it; for the man who had sufficient enterprise to evade rabbits,
and build walls against freshets, must also examine each cabbage leaf
three times a day in order to destroy the ever encroaching worm or
bug. This will not seem exaggerated to any one who has ever gardened
under similar conditions.
Our little streams were beautiful, and so well stocked with delicious
bass and trout that the children used to beg to picnic: after a day
thus spent, it would take hours of diligent search to find the dozens
of wood-ticks and tiny red insects which covered their clothing and
buried themselves in their tender flesh. Sometimes one would escape
notice, and be afterward found with head imbedded beneath the skin,
and body distended to treble its original size.
Those torments made scouting in Texas a thing to be dreaded; and yet,
after the first year of quiet, our cavalry were kept in the field
nine months out of twelve. Though encamped most of the time on the
banks of a stream only seven miles distant, yet none the less they
were separated from us, and as the officers’ wives said, “Compelled
us to keep up two messes, and incur great expense, besides being
lonely and forlorn.”
The sun’s scorching heat made it impossible to raise any flowers,
for if plants grew and budded the fierce heat would burn the outer
petals so blossoms never fully opened. Only one plant, the Madeira
vine, throve there, and it was esteemed a special luxury; for as
the post was located on a high limestone ridge, and the houses were
built of limestone, the white glare was something to be dreaded.
Those luxuriant green vines covered our porches so closely as to form
perfect little arbors, and enabled us to enjoy out-of-door life.
At least two hammocks were swung on every veranda, and they were
occupied most of the time, for the air was so hot and lifeless that
effort was impossible.
Only one of the five summers we passed at Fort Clark was cool and
comfortable. That year the rainy season commenced late and lasted
throughout the summer. The other four were so fearfully hot and
uncomfortable that we were much exhausted when cooler weather arrived.
Nevertheless, strange as it may seem, after we had once become
accustomed to the life and that routine which alone makes existence
in warm countries endurable, we were satisfied.
During the day our costumes were the lightest and airiest that
could be devised. But when evening came—and no woman ever ventured
out-of-doors until after sunset—we arrayed ourselves in pretty white
dresses, and started forth to enjoy the breeze, whose never-failing,
grateful presence was compensation for the day’s intense heat.
In that clear atmosphere the tiniest arc of a moon gives more light
than does a full one under other conditions; so by the time its
greatest splendor was reached, nothing on earth could have surpassed
the perfect beauty of those southern nights. The air was soft and
balmy, and every one rejoiced to find respite from the sun’s extreme
heat. Indeed, the change was so grateful that we fell into a habit of
almost turning night into day in our unwillingness to leave a scene
of such enchantment.
Even our unsheltered, gray parade ground, on which grass absolutely
refused to grow, was softened by the moon’s mellow rays into a
semblance of all we desired it to be; and when, night after night,
our glorious band played entrancing strains of sweet music on the
luminous spot, we felt that life in the tropics was not so very
unendurable after all.
Our limestone houses, which in the daytime could not be looked
upon because of the blinding glare, were toned by the moon’s magic
influence into poetic beauty, with their shading vines and groups of
dainty ladies in white, and gallant officers in uniform.
I became wedded, heart and soul, to that part of our life, which made
me quite willing to live and die in Texas, despite many more prosaic
drawbacks.