THE BEGINNING OF STRIFE
"Pride in their port,
Defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of humankind pass by."
I had written home many times since we left Memphis, and had fully
described all that we had seen and heard, as well as all that had
happened to us, and I had received several letters in reply to mine.
But all had made me a little anxious about my mother's health, and I
knew that she was fretting about our being so far from England. "Death
cannot so completely separate us, Milly," she wrote; "indeed, when I
am dead, I shall often be close to you." She was right. Time and
distance are two sharp swords. Distance cuts apart, and time teaches
forgetfulness.
Now trouble of all kinds is voluble, and has plenty of words, but
happiness was never written down. Happiness is like religion; it is a
mystery, and should not be explained or reasoned about. I find it
difficult to put into words the pictures of the life full of all
things good, which God gave me for the next four years, and I am glad
that it had the little shadows necessary for its full flavor and
strength. For it is a poor, weak happiness that is devoid of small
worries and disagreeables; these things being the tonic bitters
without which we should weary even of our pleasures.
So I had differences of opinion with my hired slaves. I did not
understand the negro woman then, any better than I understand the
Finnish or Irish woman now. I thought right was always right, and that
all women, of whatever race, ought to do right; and Robert's advice
about "making allowances" was not agreeable. Robert himself did not
always deserve, or, at least obtain, my approval; and my friends did
and said things I thought they ought not to do and say. The children
would play down at the creek, soil and tear their dresses, and then be
sure to show themselves when they were not fit to be seen. Sometimes
the dinner was a failure, sometimes the weather was all wrong for my
purposes, sometimes I did not get the letter I was expecting.
For my twenty-sixth birthday Robert had bought me a piano, and it did
not arrive in Austin until two weeks after it was due. I had not
touched a piano for more than a year, and my fingers ached for the
ivory keys. Those two weeks were hard to bear. I forgot all my other
blessings. I knew that if hope brightened life, patience strengthened
it, but I did not want to exercise patience at this time, and I
worried all the pleasure out of the gift before I received it. I was
sorry enough afterwards, but I could not undo the wrong. I had spoiled
the gift by those self-inflicted wounds, which are always lost griefs.
The piano has gone, I know not where, but the memory of my fretful
unreasonableness is still with me, and can still cause me moments of
keen sorrow and chagrin.
On July the second, A.D. 1857, I had a son, and all other joys were
forgotten in the delight of this event. Early in the morning I had
sent Mary and Lilly to the hotel to spend the day with Jenny Smith,
and neither Robert nor I remembered them, till the negro woman, at
eight o'clock at night, reminded us of their absence. Then I laughed
and looked at the boy lying at my side, and Robert laughed and said
that he had "forgotten"; my thoughts flew back to the birth of my
eldest brother at Shipley, and to my jealousy of the attentions he
received. It was my mother then. Now it was I. I looked again at the
boy, but I resolved to be particularly affectionate to the two girls
when they reached home, which they did about nine o'clock, weary and
sleepy, and wondering why they had been neglected so long. Nor were
they any more impressed with their first brother, than my sister Jane
and I had been with ours. Mary asked what he was called; and when I
answered, "His name is to be Calvin," she said, "Oh!" and Lilly said,
"What a queer name!" Then I asked if they did not remember Calvin
Fackler, their father's friend in Memphis, and they went sleepily to
their bed, without any further notice of their new brother.
Soon after this event I received my first copy of _Harper's Weekly_.
It had no illustrations then, but I have never forgotten a story I
read in its pages, called "The White Cat." A few numbers later the
illustrations began--the clever but terrible ones relating to the
Sepoy rebellion. These illustrations were reproduced from a prominent
London paper, and I had no intimation then of a coming day when the
arrival of the regular pictures from London papers at Harper Brothers,
would mean to me a respectable part of my income. These first pictured
scenes of the mutiny had, however, to Robert and myself a powerful
personal interest. Often we recalled the dream which had prevented us
from going to Calcutta, and sent us westward to New York instead. For,
when we cannot be guided by the ordinary course of events, the bars of
the body are unlocked at dark, sleep falleth on the sensitive soul,
and it is warned, or taught by dreams, which are the walking of God
through sleep.
After Calvin's birth I began to be very uneasy about my mother's
health. She no longer spoke of our meeting again; she wrote shorter
and shorter letters, and her clear, fine writing was shaken and
changed. It had always had one marked peculiarity--a frequent
disconnection of letters that should have been united--a signal and
exclusive sign, occultists say, of a spiritual nature ever ready to
detach itself from the material, and endowed with high psychic powers.
This diagnosis would be very true in my mother's case: she lived in
the visible, but was always ready for the invisible. Such tendencies,
however, were in her day unrecognized, and those who possessed them
were shy of admitting the fact. The church universally considered all
phenomena it did not promulgate as a new kind of sin. Even John
Wesley's psychic intelligence was regarded as a lapse of his usual
wisdom, and his book embodying it carefully consigned to oblivion. So
Mother told me visions and warnings she never named to Father and
rarely to my sister Jane, who was not mystical in any form. If a
vision or dream was in the Bible, Father and Jane believed it firmly,
if it was not in the Bible, they had serious doubts. And I have always
felt that this want of spiritual confidence between my father and
mother was a great wrong to their love. It wounded it in its noblest
attributes; it denied it expansion in its purest aspirations; it
ignored too often the spiritual bond between them, which, if given its
due regard, is far, far stronger than any tie mere flesh and blood can
form. But we cannot cross a stile till we come to it, and the world is
even now only just beginning to seek after that sixth sense, lost in
the abyss of some great moral fall.
At this time Mother was not fifty-two years old, and an Englishwoman
of that age should be in the plentitude of her beauty and vigor. But
she had worn life away in an unbroken service of love, for which she
was physically most unfit; for, in those days there were no trained
nurses, no anodyne to ease severe pain, except laudanum; no
alleviations, either for the sick, or for those whose affection bound
them to help and comfort the sick. She was not fifty-two and dying,
and she knew it. But many afflictions and one Love had made strong her
faith, and she said in her last letter to me, "I am no longer anxious
about your dear father. The everlasting arms are his support and
refuge. My watch is nearly over, your little sisters must take my
place. They know _who_ will help them. We shall meet again, Milly, but
not in this world, darling, not in this world."
With the Holy Name on her lips, she went away simply and solemnly, as
if fulfilling some religious rite. I received the news of her
departure one day when the house was full of company. I put the letter
in my breast and said no word about it, for it was only to God I could
speak of this sorrow; the common words of sympathy the news would have
evoked, could not have comforted me. Even when Robert's tears mingled
with mine, for he loved her dearly, I was not consoled. For a long
time, daily life felt thin and haggard. I had no mother to write to,
and my heart was troubled because I knew that I might have written to
her oftener. I might have given her hopes that would have made death
easier. Oh, why had I not done these things? For it is not the flowers
on the coffin, but the flowers we strew on the daily life of our dear
ones that show the true affection. And it was too late! O daughters of
good mothers, give while God permits you, the kind words, the smiles
of understanding affection, the little attentions and gifts, that
will brighten your mother's last days. I do not know why I should have
written "daughters of _good_ mothers." God makes no exceptions in his
positive command to "Honor thy Father and thy Mother."
I might have done more! that was the bitter refrain that for a long
time made all my memories of the sweetest, tenderest mother sorrowful.
But she has forgiven me long ago, and the vast breadth and depth of
the river of death is now constantly bridged by our thoughts of each
other. We walk far apart, but when I think of her, I know that she is
thinking of me, and I wave my hand in greeting to her. Does she see
the lifted hand? I believe she does. Why do I believe it? Because the
soul is a diviner, and the things it knows best are the things it was
never told. Whatever it divines, is revealed truth. Whatever it is
told, may either be doubted or received.
For nearly a year after the birth of Calvin, there was not much change
in the domestic life of Austin. The days slipped into weeks and
months, and were, as the waves of the ocean, all alike, and yet all
different. But early in 1859 changes so great were present, that it
was impossible any longer to ignore them. There were bitter disputes
wherever men were congregated, and domestic quarrels on every
hearthstone, while feminine friendships melted away in the heat of
passionate arguments so well seasoned with personalities. There were
now three distinct parties: one for remaining in the Union; a second
which demanded a Southern Confederacy, and a third which wished Texas
to resume her independence and to fly the _Lone Star_ flag again. It
was a quarrel with three sides, and the women universally entered into
it, with so much temper, that I could not help thinking they had all
exercised too much long suffering in the past, and were now glad of a
lawful opportunity to be a little ill-natured.
It may be strange, but it is the truth, that I seldom heard slavery
named as a reason for secession. The average Texan had but a slight
security for his slaves. The journey to the Rio Grande was not long or
difficult for a man bent on freedom, who was sure to be succored and
helped by every party of Indians or Mexicans he met. Arriving at the
river, he had only to walk across some one of its shallow fords, and
touch land on the other side a free man. The number of slaves who
freed themselves by this way was considerable every year, and I heard
many slave owners say that they would be well satisfied to give their
slaves freedom on such terms as the English slave owners obtained.
What really excited them was the question of state rights. They were
furious with the United States Government's interference in their
state's social and domestic arrangements. They would not admit its
right to do so, and were mad as their own prairie bulls, when
compulsion was named. I heard arguments like these, both from men and
women constantly; they talked of nothing else, and the last social
gathering at my house was like a political arena.
So I was not sorry when on April the sixteenth, my daughter Alice was
born, and I could retire for a few weeks into comparative solitude,
and peace. Robert brought me the news from the Capitol every day, and
it was as uncertain and changeable as the wind. One day war was
inevitable, and Houston was coming from Washington to lead the
Unionist party; and perhaps the next day it was the pen, and not the
sword, that would settle the matter. I began to grow indifferent. "The
quarrel is all bluster," I said to Robert, "and their talk of war will
fizzle out, some way or other, into a question of dollars and cents."
And I was vexed because Robert shook his head at my opinion, and
replied, "Well, Milly, I heard George Durham say something like that
this morning, and an old Texan in the crowd told him he was all wrong.
'We are against seceding just now,' he said, 'but we shall be drug
into it, and then we'll be so all-fired mad, we'll fight like a lobos
wolf, who, the longer he fights, the better he fights.'"
"You always look at the dark side, Robert," I complained; and he
sighed and answered wearily, "It is generally the right side, Milly."
One night, after a long, anxious day, I was conscious of that peculiar
disturbance of heart and body, which warns of latent enmity or coming
danger. My flagging soul felt
"As if it were a body in a body,
And not a mounting essence of fire."
and though Robert was near me, I thought myself the most forlorn of
women. All the sorrow of the world seemed to surround me, unseen, yet
full of motion, and the terror of the dark grew, and my soul trembled
in all her senses. Then I fell asleep--the dreary sleep of an unhappy,
fearful woman. I was on a vast plain, dark and lonely, with the black
clouds low over it, and the rain falling in a heavy, sullen downpour;
and, as I stood with clasped hands, but without the power to pray, a
great white arch grew out of the darkness. It seemed high as heaven,
and wide as the horizon, and I wondered at its beauty and majesty.
But, as I looked, I saw a black line down the center of it grow to a
visible break, and this break grow wider and wider, until one-half of
the arch fell to the ground, amid groans and cries, far off, but
terrible. At the same moment I saw a _Presence_ of great height, dim
and shadowy, standing beside the ruined arch, and he cried for the
_birds of prey_ in a voice that filled all space. Turning north, and
south, and east, and west, he cried, "_Come! and I will give you flesh
to eat!_"
From this dream I awoke in a maze of awe and wonder. I rose and went
to the open door, and stood leaning against its lintel, carefully
thinking over every detail of what I had seen and heard. It was hardly
dawn, and that most pathetic of all objects, the waning moon, was
sinking low to the horizon, and the whole world was wrapped in a gray
mystery. For a few moments I saw Nature in those ineffable moments
when she was asleep--so still, so cool, so soft and vapory in all her
tints--her very face shrouded in a mist-like veil. I turned to Robert;
he also was asleep, but I felt that I must tell him the message given
me, while the spirit of it was still on me. I awakened him, and he
listened in silence to what I had to say; but when I ceased speaking,
he sighed and answered,
"It is war, then, Milly, and may God help us!"
"It is war, long and cruel war, Robert. What shall we do? Will you
return to England? You know Sister Mary told us in her last letter,
that your mother wished you to come home, and would do all she could
to help you."
"Nothing could induce me to go back to Scotland," he answered
positively.
"Then where shall we go?" I asked.
"Let us remain here, in Austin. I like the people, and I like the
country. I am willing to share its fortune, war or peace--if you will
share it with me."
"Robert!" I said fervently, "your country is my country, and your
friends are my friends."
"Well, then, dear, we have been warned, and we must not neglect the
warning. We must make all the preparation possible."
"You must have a good deal of money saved, Robert?" I asked.
"No, Milly, I have not. I have invested all the extra money I made in
land," he answered. "I was working for our own little plantation some
day."
Then I asked if, in the changes likely to occur, he would be in danger
of losing his position in the comptroller's office, and he said, "It
is possible. The United States Government has been kind and generous
to me," he added, "and I have no intention of taking any oath against
it."
"But if Texas should become a republic again?"
"She will not. Her enormous wealth is yet undeveloped. She has no
money to carry on a government. I know that positively."
We sat talking of probabilities until the dawn grew to sun-rising, and
then we rode out to Mr. Illingworth's place, and had our cup of coffee
with him and his wife. And one of the first things he said was, "I
tell you, Barr, there will be a turning up and out in the government
offices when Houston comes home."
"He is coming, then?" asked Robert.
"Yes. You will see him some morning soon, sitting in front of Tong's
grocery, looking like a lion, and wearing a Serape Saltillero[3] like
a royal mantle. I can't help admiring the man, though I do not like
him. In a far-off way he reminds me of Oliver Cromwell."
"Where is he now?"
"In some small room in a Washington hotel, faithfully attending every
session of the Senate, and every meeting of the Baptist church, and
unceasingly whittling hearts and anchors, and other such toys out of a
bit of pine wood."
"Whittling in church, and the Senate House?"
"In both places, in every place, and you will see him soon whittling
in front of Tong's grocery."
We did not see him until the fall, when he ran for the governorship of
Texas against his old enemy, Governor Runnels, whom he quickly talked
out of political existence, and then seated himself in the Governor's
chair. I do not intend to trouble my readers with the political events
of that date, excepting as they affected my own life; and, although
General Houston is the grandest and most picturesque figure in
American history, I shall refrain myself from magnifying either his
exploits, character, or personality. Are they not written in the books
of the historians, and in my own novel, "Remember the Alamo"? However,
for a short space it will be necessary to note the conditions of
affairs in Austin; for it was then the background of my story, but I
shall do this without prejudice, and without unnecessary length of
words.
An immense crowd came into Austin to witness Houston's inauguration,
and for long it did not altogether leave the city. The sweet, quiet,
flower-scented streets were no longer haunted on moonlight nights by
white-robed girls, and lovers singing "Juanita" to their tinkling
guitars. They were full of rangers and frontiersmen, of deserting
United States soldiers, waiting to join the Confederate army, and of
little squads of Lipan or Tonkaway Indians, who were the spies and
scouts of the United States army in their constant warfare against the
cruel and hostile Comanche and Apache tribes. Yet a very handsome
party of Apaches, under the watchful eyes of an Indian agent, visited
Houston; for, over all Indians, Houston had an extraordinary
influence. I do not remember being told that they had come with offers
of peace and alliance, but I think they would not have been permitted
to enter Austin under any other pretext. For there was speaking, and
often quarreling at every gathering point, and not unfrequently the
warning sound of a rifle or pistol shot. And, if a real scrimmage had
arisen among the white men of the three parties, it would have been an
enjoyable circumstance to either Apache or Comanche.
So I also kept quietly at home, teaching my two eldest girls and a few
others, for about three hours daily. I did not in any respect keep a
school as I did in Chicago, but I had always about four or five girls
whose education I looked a little after. I did this first, for the
sake of teaching, which was then, as it is to this day, a delight to
me, provided I have a bright, eager scholar. Secondly, I retained my
friends of all parties through their daughters. Thirdly, I loved then,
as I do yet, the company of girls. I was their confidant and friend,
as well as their teacher. They brought me intelligence from all
quarters, and they told me their sweet, little personal secrets. I
have never forgotten some of these girls, and they have never
forgotten me.
Thus I passed three or four hours every day in a manner I particularly
liked, and for the rest it went in looking after my dear children's
physical necessities, in humoring and pleasing Robert, and seeing that
his special comforts were attended to, and in bearing, as well as
human nature could do, the laziness, ignorance, and cunning diableries
of the negroes in the kitchen. There was little visiting, the proud,
retiring nature of the Southern woman showing itself as soon as
strangers and crowds became common in Austin. In these days the pretty
young girls in their white frocks and white sunbonnets vanished from
the streets; and the men who strutted about them, or loafed on chairs
a-tilt under the trees, moving round with the shadow all day, showed
plainly the daily deterioration of masculine humanity left to its own
devices and desires.
Houston's complete defeat of Runnels was considered a great triumph
for the Unionist party, and his influence undoubtedly put off
secession for another year. This was the year 1860, during the whole
of which there was the same restless looking forward to the war, every
one felt was inevitable, if Mr. Lincoln was elected President. I kept
quietly at home. Robert brought me the news and not infrequently a
visitor whom he thought would interest me. One afternoon he wrote,
saying, "The Indian agent and three of the chiefs in town will take
supper with us," and I was asked to set a plentiful table. In this
visit I took the greatest possible interest. I brought out my best
damask, and the richly gilded china that Robert's mother had given me
for a wedding present. She regarded it as almost too splendid to use,
and I could not help a little laugh, when I imagined her sensations,
if she could see these half-clothed savages drinking tea out of them.
Then I regretfully sighed, "Poor Mother!" For my heart had turned a
little towards her, since she had wished Robert to come home. I
adorned the table with flowers, and saw that chicken in every form was
prepared, and cakes, and pies in profusion. The party arrived
promptly, and I was introduced to the members who composed it. The
agent was a charming young man, full of all kinds of information, but
in the Indians I was much disappointed.
They were uncivil, self-centered, and could speak no English. And they
did not know how to eat the good things provided for them, for they
ate and drank every item of the meal _by itself_--vegetables alone,
meat alone, bread alone, and the only dish that appeared to please
them, was some cream and white of egg savored with vanilla and whipped
as stiff as possible. They laughed over this delicacy, exchanged
grunts of satisfaction, and handed me their glasses to be refilled.
After supper I played and sang for them. They watched me curiously,
but without pleasure, and were more interested in finding out where
the music came from than in the music itself. So Robert opened the
instrument, let them inspect the interior to see how the hammers
struck the wires, and they watched with fear and wonder, and exchanged
looks and interjections that expressed these emotions. To me there was
something pathetic, and yet obscene, in this shameless exhibition of
big, strong men clad like warriors, showing the fear and wonder of
little children. I told Robert to bring no more friendly savages to
see me, and that night I prayed with all my heart for any white woman
who might fall into their power.
During the summer of this year, 1860, there was a sudden lull in
events, but it was only the lull of warriors breathlessly watching. On
the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency, they sprang as one man
to arms. Secession was now certain, and Houston found himself
compelled to summon a general convention, which met in Austin on the
twenty-seventh of January, 1861. It submitted secession to a popular
vote, and adjourned. I was present at this decision, and wondered at
the crowd of excited men submitting to the delay.
"We are _laggards_! _Laggards_ in duty!" cried an old frontiersman;
and Houston replied with calm dignity,
"Sir, we are acting as trustees for posterity. It becomes us to do all
things decently, and in order."
A loud, confused rattle of side arms was the only audible reply. It
might have been an assent to Houston's opinion, but it was more likely
to be a promise, that the duty would be fully redeemed.
I did not wonder at the old man calling Texans "laggards," for,
immediately after the election of Mr. Lincoln, South Carolina seceded;
Mississippi followed her in three weeks; Florida went out on January
the tenth, 1861; Alabama, on January the eleventh; Georgia, on January
the nineteenth; Louisiana, on January the twenty-fifth; so that, when
Houston called the Texas convention, six states had already made
preparations for meeting on February the fourth, at Montgomery,
Alabama, to organize a provisional Congress of Confederate States.
Robert told me that, in a conversation in the Governor's office, some
one spoke scornfully of this meeting, and Houston replied,
"Sir, it is an unlawful meeting, but it cannot be a contemptible one,
with such men as ex-President Tyler, Roger A. Pryor, and our own
Wigfall leading it."
"Is that all, Robert?" I asked, for I was always delighted to hear
anything about Houston.
"Very nearly. Some one added, 'There is Jefferson Davis, also.'"
"Oh! What did Houston say?"
"He said, 'I know Jefferson Davis, and I did not mention him, because
I know him. He is proud as Lucifer and cold as a lizard.'"
Then I had one of those unreasonable certainties, that are all-convincing
to the people who have them, and sheer foolishness to all ignorant of
their irresistible testimony; and I said, "Houston is right; my lips
shiver if they utter his name. He will bring ill-luck to any cause."
On the eighteenth of February, General Twiggs, the United States
commandant, surrendered to Houston all the national forces in
Texas--twenty-five hundred men, and national property valued at
$1,200,000. Five days afterwards, the vote on secession was taken.
There were forty thousand for secession and fourteen thousand against
it. These were anxious, eager days, and it was impossible to avoid
catching the popular fever. The convention met again on the second of
March, and on the fifth it at once adopted measures for entering the
Southern Confederacy, to which new government all state officers were
commanded to take the oath of allegiance on the fourteenth of March.
With two friends I went to the Capitol to witness the ceremony, and,
as we had seats in the front of the gallery, we looked down directly
upon a desk just below us, on which the Ordinance of Secession was
spread out. One of my companions was a most passionate Unionist, and
she pointed out the document with an unspeakable scorn and contempt.
The House was crowded; it was really electrified with the fiery
radiations of men tingling with passion, and glowing and burning with
the anticipation of revengeful battle. And the air was full of the
stirring clamor of a multitude of voices--angry, triumphant, scornful,
with an occasional oath or epithet of contempt.
But when Houston appeared there was a sudden silence. It was the
homage involuntarily paid to the man himself, not to his office.
Firmly and clearly, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the
Confederate States; but the Lieutenant-Governor, a certain Edward
Clarke, was eager to do so. He was an insignificant creature, whose
airy conceit was a direct insult to Houston's sad countenance and
dignified manner; and I remember well how contemptible he appeared, as
spry and pert, he stepped up to the bar of the House to take the
oath. Just as he reached the desk, on which the Ordinance of Secession
lay, my Unionist friend, a bright, clever girl, of about sixteen years
old, leaned forward and spit directly on the centre of it. There was a
little soft laughter from the women sympathizers who saw the action,
and Clarke's handkerchief lay for a moment on the historical
parchment, but there was no remark, and the incident caused not the
slightest interruption.
"Why did you do that, Lucille?" I asked.
"To express my opinion. Did you see Clarke's handkerchief?"
"Yes."
"Then I suppose he got what I sent. And it is in Clarke's handkerchief!
In Clarke's pocket! Poor spittle! _What an ignominy!_"
Two days afterwards Clarke was made Governor in place of Houston.
Changes in all the government offices were likely to follow, and I
could not help feeling anxious concerning Robert's position. About
certain things he could be so stubborn. Men are made that way. They
have prejudices, and they call them principles, and then--sink or
swim, they stick to them.
Now an unreasonable detestation of slavery was one of Robert's
prejudices or principles. He would not allow that under any
circumstance it could be right, and all his sympathies were with the
slave. The majority of our small matrimonial frets were on this
subject. If he had been compelled to tew with, and to bear every hour
of the day the thieving, lying, and laziness of the three in our
kitchen, his pity for their condition would have been much modified. I
used to tell him this whenever the subject came up, but I could not
make him understand my position, because he lifted his argument out of
the personalities in our kitchen, and laid all their sins on the
condition of slavery. If he had been an unmarried man, I am sure he
would have gone to the Union army, but, being caught by circumstances
in a southern city, where he had been generously and kindly treated,
he felt, I think, much like Naaman, the Syrian, when he begged God's
pardon because circumstances compelled him to bow down in the house of
Rimmon.
But, if the question of slavery became a test question, there was no
telling what might happen, especially if it became a case of
conscience, for Scotchmen have an historical record for enjoying
"persecution for righteousness' sake." Then there was his English
citizenship. He had always refused to give it up, and how could he
expect a new government to pass by his allegiance, for the sake of his
financial knowledge. These questions troubled me much, as I sat sewing
through the long, sweet spring days.
One morning I walked to Henrick's store very early. They were just
opening it, and I sat down and waited. Suddenly through the clear,
cool air came the sound of military music, and the tramp of marching
men. It was the Second Texas, mustering for their march to the seat of
war. What a sight it was! Not one man in it weighed under one hundred
and eighty pounds, and the majority made the scale beam kick at two
hundred pounds. They were all very tall, wiry men, with not one ounce
of superfluous flesh on their big frames--straight as their own gun
barrels, with up-head carriage and full of that kind of spirit we call
"mettle" in a horse. My eyes filled with tears, and involuntarily I
prayed for the men as they passed. Alas, the Second Texas has a record
unsurpassed for bravery and misfortune! Its fine young captain was
killed at Corinth, and not a single man ever returned to Texas. Some
years after all of this splendid band of men had passed from life and
almost from memory, I had an opportunity of reading a letter which
contained the following passage,
"On the second night of the fight at Gettysburg, I was roused from
my sleep to help a friend look for his missing comrade. We went to
the battlefield and stepping among the shattered wrecks of
humanity, we turned up the dead faces to the moonlight. Suddenly
we heard a broken voice muttering, '_Second Texas! Second Texas!_'
It was the man we wanted. A cruel minie ball had ploughed out both
his eyes, and he was otherwise fatally wounded. He was almost
dead, and among the last of the gallant company, that I had
watched march so proudly and joyfully to meet their fate."
I came home from Henrick's store much depressed. The brooding
calamities of the Second Texas had affected me. I felt the doom that
hung over them, though I would not entertain it. Near home I met two
girls whom I knew. Their brothers were in the company; they had driven
them into it, and they were now crying because they had succeeded in
doing so. "What unreasonable creatures women are!" I thought. However,
in a great many cases, it was the women of a family who compelled the
men to enlist as soldiers, by a course of moral suasion no man with
any feeling could endure. They would not eat with them, speak to them,
or listen if spoken to. They ignored all their personal necessities,
or met them with constant tears and voiceless reproaches, and what man
could bear his family weeping over him, as if he was already dead to
their love and respect? The middle-aged, and the old men needed no
such treatment; they were generally hot and ready to fight for their
ideas. The young fellows wanted a tangible fact, and the saving of
their slaves did not tempt them easily to risk their own lives.
On April the fifteenth, 1861, my daughter Ethel was born. She was the
loveliest babe I ever saw, and I was so proud of her beauty, I could
hardly bear her out of my sight. Before she was two months old, she
showed every sign of a loving and joyous disposition. If I came into
the room she stretched out her arms to me; if I took her to my breast
she reached up her hand to my mouth to be kissed. She smiled and loved
every hour away, and the whole household delighted in her. Robert
could refuse her nothing; no matter how busy he was, if she sought his
attention, he left all and took her in his arms. I forgot the war, I
forgot all my anxieties, I let the negroes take their own way, I was
content for many weeks to nurse my lovely child, and dream of the
grand future she was sure to have.
Yet during this apparently peaceful pause in my life, the changes I
feared were taking place. The new Governor was dismissing as far as he
could all Houston's friends, and Robert had been advised to resign
before his sentiments concerning slavery, state rights, and his own
citizenship came to question.
"As things stand," Mr. Durham said to him, "your good will is taken
for granted. You have been prudent, and no one has been curious
enough to make inquiries. Better retire for a while; you will be
wanted when things are more settled."
So Robert "retired," but he did not tell me so, until Ethel was two
months old and I was in more radiant health and spirits than I had
been for some months. Of course I was shocked at first, but easily
convinced all had been done for the best, especially as Robert had all
the private accounting business he could do, and he had never yet
failed me. In all the changes I had seen, I had never wanted anything
necessary for comfort. So I said cheerfully to myself, "God and Robert
are a multitude," and my bread will be given, and my water sure.
The summer came on hot and early, and was accompanied by a great
drought. Pitiful tales came into town of the suffering for water at
outlying farms, the creeks having dried up, and even the larger rivers
showing great depletion. Then the cattle and game began to die of
thirst, and of some awful disease called "black tongue." Thousands lay
dead upon the prairies, which were full of deep and wide fissures,
made by the cracking and parting of the hot, dry earth.
The suffering so close at hand made me indifferent to what was going
on at a distance, and also all through that long, terrible summer, I
was aware that Robert was practicing a very strict personal economy.
So I was sure that he was not making as much money as he expected to
make, and when he asked me, one day, if I could manage with two
servants, I was prepared to answer,
"Dear, I can do with one, if it is necessary." And I was troubled when
he thankfully accepted my offer.
To be poor! That was a condition I had never considered, so I thought
it over. We could never want food in Texas, unless the enemy should
drive his cannon wheels over our prairies, and make our old pine woods
wink with bayonets. Then, indeed, the corn and the wheat and the
cattle might be insufficient for us and for them, but this event
seemed far off, and unlikely. Our clothing was in far less plentiful
case. My own once abundant wardrobe was considerably worn and
lessened. Robert's had suffered the same change, and the children's
garments wanted a constant replacing. But then, every one was in the
same condition; we should be no poorer than others. A poverty that is
universal may be cheerfully borne; it is an individual poverty that is
painful and humiliating.
Slowly, so slowly, the hot blistering summer passed away. It was all I
could do, to look a little after my five children. I dressed myself
and them in the coolest manner, and the younger ones refused anything
like shoes and stockings; but that was a common fashion for Texan
children in hot weather. I have seen them step from handsome carriages
barefooted, and envied them. People must live day after day where the
thermometer basks anywhere between 105 degrees and 115 degrees, to
know what a luxury naked feet are--nay, what a necessity for a large
part of the time.
Not a drop of rain had fallen for many weeks, and, when the drought
was broken, it was by a violent storm. It came up unexpectedly one
clear, hot afternoon, when all the world seemed to stand still. The
children could not play. I had laid Ethel in her cot, and was sitting
motionless beside her. The negroes in the kitchen were sleeping
instead of quarreling, and, though Robert and I exchanged a weary
smile occasionally, it was far too hot to talk.
Suddenly, the sky changed from blue to red, to slate color, and
then to a dense blackness, even to the zenith. The heavens seemed
about to plunge down upon the earth, and the air became so tenuous,
that we sighed as men do, on the top of a high mountain. Then on the
horizon there appeared a narrow, brassy zone, and it widened and
widened, as it grew upward, and with it came the fierce rush and moan
of mighty winds, slinging hail-stones and great rain-drops, from far
heights--swaying, pelting, rushing masses of rain fell, seeming to
displace the very atmosphere. But, Oh, the joy we felt! I cried for
pure thankfulness, and Robert went to a shaded corner of the piazza,
and let the rain pour down upon him.
When the storm was over, there was a new world--a fresh, cool,
rejoicing world. It looked as happy as if just made, and the children
were eager to get out and play in the little ponds. Robert and I soon
rallied. The drop in the temperature was all Robert needed, and I had
in those days a wonderful power--not yet quite exhausted--of
recuperation. If a trouble was lifted ever so little, I threw it from
me; if a sickness took but a right turn, I went surely on to recovery.
So as soon as the breathless heat was broken, I began to think of my
house and my duties. The children's lessons had been long neglected,
and my work basket was full to overflowing with garments to make and
to mend.
Very quickly I was so busy that I had no time for public affairs, and
then the war dragged on so long, that my enthusiasm was a little
cooled. Also I was troubled somewhat by Robert's continued lack of
employment. Food and clothing was dearer, and money scarcer than I had
ever before known them, and Robert had become impatient and was
entertaining a quite impossible idea--he wanted to rent a farm and get
away from the fret and friction of the times. I pointed out the fact
that neither of us knew anything about farming, and that Texas farming
was _special_ in every department. But in those days it was generally
supposed that any man could naturally farm, just as it was expected
that every girl naturally knew how to cook and to keep house. At any
rate, the idea had taken possession of him, and not even the
probability of prowling savages was alarming.
"All that come near the settlements are friendly," he said, "or if not
they are too much afraid of the Rangers to misbehave themselves."
"But, Robert," I answered, "very few of them think killing white women
and children 'misbehavior.'"
There is however no use in talking to a Scotchman who has made up his
mind. God Almighty alone can change it, so I took to praying. Perhaps
it was not very loyal to pray against my husband's plans, but
circumstances alter cases, and this farming scheme was a case that had
to be altered.
Events which no one had foreseen put a stop to this discussion at
least for a time. In the soft, hazy days of a beautiful November, a
single word was whispered which sent terror to every heart. It was a
new word--the designation of what was then thought to be a new
disease, which had been ravaging portions of the Old World, and had
finally appeared in the New. I had seen it described in _Harper's
Weekly_, and other New York papers, and I was afraid as soon as I
heard of it. Robert came home one day and told me Mrs. Carron's eldest
daughter was dead, and her other daughter dying. Every hour its
victims seemed to increase, and by December all of my friends had lost
one or more of their families. I remained closely at home, and kept my
children near me. Though they did not know it, I watched them day and
night.
On the eighth of December near midnight, I noticed that Ethel had
difficulty in nursing and appeared in great distress, and I sent for
the doctor with fear and trembling.
"_Diphtheria!_" he said; and the awful word pierced my ears like a
dart, and my spirit quailed and trembled within me. For no cure and no
alleviations had then been found for the terrible malady, and indeed
many people in Austin contended that the epidemic from which we
suffered, was not diphtheria, but the same throat disease which had
slain the deer and cattle by thousands during the summer.
In the chill gray dawn of the ninth, as the suffering babe lay
apparently unconscious on my knees, the Angel of Death passed by, and
gave me the sign I feared but expected--a warning not unkind but
inexorable. The next twenty-four hours are indescribable by any words
in any language. A little before they ended, the doctor led me into
another room. Then I fell on my face at the feet of the Merciful One,
and with passionate tears and outcry pleaded for her release--only
that the cruel agony might cease--only that--dear, and lovely, and
loving as she was, I gave her freely back. I asked now only for her
death. I asked Christ to remember his own passion and pity her. I
asked all the holy angels who heard me praying to pray with me. If a
mortal can take the kingdom of heaven by storm, surely my will to do
so at that hour stood for the deed. Breathless, tearless, speechless,
I lay at last at His Mercy. And it faileth not! In a few minutes
Robert entered. He looked as men look who come out of the Valley of
the Shadow of Death. I thought he also was dying. I stood up and
looked anxiously into his face, and he drew me to his heart, and said
softly, "All is over, Milly. She has gone."
What I suffered for many weeks only God knows, but at last he took
pity on my grief, and comforted me. One night Robert had gone to some
public meeting, the children were asleep, and I was walking up and
down the parlor floor, whispering to my heart my dead baby's name.
There was a lamp on a small marble table which I had pushed aside, in
order to get the full length of the room for my restless feet. On this
table there were a few books, and one small one was lying open, face
down upon the marble. Without thought I lifted it, and finding a leaf
crumpled, I mechanically began to straighten it. In doing so, my eyes
fell on two lines; from the rest of the page they stood out as if
illumined, and this was the message they brought me,
"Weep not for her, she is an angel now,
And treads the sapphire floors of Paradise."
I saw nothing but these two lines. I wanted nothing more. They held a
strange and heavenly comfort for me. I kissed them reverently and put
the book in my bosom. Later I saw that they were part of a poem by a
prominent writer for _Blackwood's Magazine_, called Moir, a name well
known in the early part of the nineteenth century, and always dear to
my memory. I never learned the whole poem; I just took with a grateful
heart the two lines given me.