PLANS FOR TEXAS
It was a pretty little grove in which the Happy Hexagons met to study
and to talk Texas. Nor were they the only ones that met there. Though
Harold Day, Alma Lane's cousin, was not to be of the Texas party, the
girls invited him to meet with them, as he was Texas-born, and was one
of Genevieve's first friends in Sunbridge. On the outskirts of the magic
circle, sundry smaller brothers and sisters and cousins of the members
hung adoringly. Even grown men and women came sometimes, and stood
apart, looking on with what the Happy Hexagons chose to think were
admiring, awestruck eyes--which was not a little flattering, though
quite natural and proper, decided the club. For, of course, not every
one could go to Texas, to be sure!
At the beginning, at least, of each meeting, affairs were conducted with
the seriousness due to so important a subject. In impressive silence the
club seated itself in a circle; and solemnly Cordelia Wilson, the
treasurer, opened the meeting, being (according to Tilly) a "perfect
image of her uncle in the pulpit."
"Fellow members, once more we find ourselves gathered together for the
purpose of the study of Texas," she would begin invariably. And then
perhaps: "We will listen to Miss Bertha Brown, please. Miss Brown, what
new thing--I mean, what new features have you discovered about Texas?"
If Miss Brown had something to say--and of course she did have something
(she would have been disgraced, otherwise)--she said it. Then each in
turn was asked, after which the discussion was open to all.
They were lively meetings. No wonder small brothers and sisters and
cousins hung entranced on every word. No wonder, too, that at last, one
day, quite carried away with the enthusiasm of the moment, they made so
bold as to have something to say on their own account. It happened like
this:
"Texas is the largest state in the Union," announced Bertha Brown, who
had been called on first. "It has an area about one twelfth as large as
that of the whole United States. If all the population of the country
were placed there, the state would not be as thickly settled as the
eastern shore of Massachusetts is. Six different flags have waved over
it since its discovery two hundred years ago: France, Spain, Mexico,
Republic of Texas, Confederate States of America, and the Star Spangled
Banner."
"Pooh! I said most of that two days ago," muttered Tilly, not under
breath.
"Well, I can't help it," pouted Bertha; "there isn't very much new left
to say, Tilly Mack, and you know it. Besides, I didn't have a minute's
time this morning to look up a single thing."
"Order--order in the court," rapped Cordelia, sharply.
"Oh, but it doesn't matter a bit if we do say the same things,"
protested Alma Lane, quickly. (Alma was always trying to make peace
between combatants.) "I'm sure we shall remember it all the better if we
do repeat it."
"Of course we shall," agreed Cordelia, promptly. "Now, Alma--I mean Miss
Lane--" (this title-giving was brand-new, having been introduced as a
special mark of dignity fitting to the occasion; and it was not easy to
remember!)--"perhaps you will tell us what you have found out."
"Well, the climate is healthful," began Alma, hopefully. "Texas is less
subject to malarial diseases than any of the other states on the Gulf of
Mexico. September is the most rainy month; December the least. The mean
annual temperature near the mouth of the Rio Grande is 72 deg.; while along
the Red River the mean annual temperature is only 80 deg.. In the
northwestern part of the state the mean annual--"
"Alma, please," begged Tilly, in mock horror, raising both her hands,
"_please_ don't give us any more of those mean annual temperatures. I'm
sure if they can be any _meaner_ than the temperature right here to-day
is," she sighed, as she fell to fanning herself vigorously, "I don't
want to know what it is!"
"Tilly!" gasped Cordelia, in shocked disapproval. "What would Genevieve
say!"
Tilly shrugged her shoulders.
"Say? She wouldn't say anything--she couldn't," declared Tilly,
unexpectedly, "because she'd be laughing at us so for digging into Texas
like this and unearthing all its poor little secrets!"
"But, Tilly, I think we ought to study it," reproved Cordelia,
majestically, above the laugh that followed Tilly's speech. "Elsie--I
mean, Miss Martin,--what did you find out to-day?"
Elsie wrinkled her nose in a laughing grimace at Tilly, then began to
speak in an exaggeratedly solemn tone of voice.
"I find Texas is so large, and contains so great a variety of soil, and
climate, that any product of the United States can be grown within its
limits. It is a leader on cotton. Corn, wheat, rice, peanuts, sugar cane
and potatoes are also grown, besides tobacco."
"And watermelons, Elsie," cut in Bertha Brown. "I found in a paper that
just last year Texas grew 140,000,000 watermelons."
"I was coming to the watermelons," observed Elsie, with dignity.
"Wish I were--I dote on watermelons!" pouted Tilly in an audible aside
that brought a chuckle of appreciation from Harold Day.
Cordelia gave her a reproachful look. Elsie went on, her chin a little
higher.
"Texas is the greatest producer of honey in the United States. As for
the cattle--prior to 1775 there were vast ranches all over Southwestern
Texas, and herds of hundreds of wild cattle were gathered and driven to
New Orleans. I found some figures that told the number of animals in
1892, or about then. I'll give them. They're old now, of course, but
they'll do to show what a lot of animals there were there then."
Elsie paused to take breath, but for only a moment.
"There were 7,500,000 head of cattle, 5,000,000 sheep, and 1,210,000
horses, besides more than 2,321,000 hogs."
There was a sudden giggle from Tilly--an explosive giggle that brought
every amazed eye upon her.
"Well, really, Tilly," disapproved Elsie, aggrievedly, "I'm sure I don't
see _what_ there was so very funny in that!"
"There wasn't," choked Tilly; "only I was thinking, what an awful noise
it would be if all those 2,321,000 hogs got under the gate at once."
"Tilly!" scolded Cordelia; but she laughed.
She could not help it. They all laughed. Even the little boys and girls
on the outskirts giggled shrilly, and stole the opportunity to draw
nearer to the magic circle. Almost at once, however, Cordelia regained
her dignity.
"Miss Mack, we'll hear from you, please--seriously, I mean. You haven't
told us yet what you've found."
Tilly flushed a little.
"I didn't find anything."
"Why, Tilly Mack!" cried a chorus of condemning voices.
"Well, I didn't," defended Tilly. "In the first place I've told
everything I can think of: trees, fruits, history, and everything; and
this morning I just had to go to Mrs. Miller's for a fitting."
"Oh, Tilly, _another_ new dress?" demanded Elsie Martin, her voice a
pathetic wail of wistfulness.
"But there are still so many things," argued Cordelia, her grave eyes
fixed on Tilly, "so many things to learn that--" She was interrupted by
an eager little voice from the outskirts.
"I've got something, please, Cordelia. Mayn't I tell it? It's a
brand-newest thing. Nobody's said it once!"
Cordelia turned to confront her ten-year-old cousin, Edith.
"Why, Edith!"
"And I have, too," piped up Edith's brother, Fred, with shrill
earnestness. (Fred was eight.) "And mine's new, too."
Cordelia frowned thoughtfully.
"But, children, you don't belong to the club. Only members can talk, you
know."
"Pooh! let's hear it, Cordelia," shrugged Tilly. "I'm sure if it's
_new_, we need it--of all the old chestnuts we've heard to-day!"
"Well," agreed Cordelia, "what is it, Edith? You spoke first."
"It's gypsies," announced the small girl, triumphantly.
"Gypsies!" chorused the Happy Hexagons in open unbelief.
"Yes. There's lots of 'em there--more than 'most anywhere else in the
world."
The girls looked at each other with puzzled eyes.
"Why, I never heard Genevieve say anything about gypsies," ventured
Tilly.
"Well, they're there, anyhow," maintained Edith; "I read it."
"You read it! Where?" demanded Cordelia.
"In father's big sac'l'pedia." Edith's voice sounded grieved, but
triumphant. "I was up in auntie's room, and I saw it. It was open on her
bed, and I read it. It said there was coal and iron and silver, and lots
and lots of gypsies."
There was a breathless hush, followed suddenly by a shrieking laugh from
Tilly.
"Oh, girls, girls!" she gasped. "That blessed child means 'gypsum.' I
saw that in papa's encyclopedia just the other day."
"But what is gypsum?" demanded Alma Lane.
"Mercy! don't ask me," shuddered Tilly. "I looked it up in the
dictionary, but it only said it was a whole lot of worse names. All I
could make out was that it had crystals, and was used for dressing for
soils, and for plaster of Paris. _Gypsies!_ Oh, Edith, Edith, what a
circus you are!" she chuckled, going into another gale of laughter.
It was Fred's injured tones that filled the first pause in the general
hubbub that followed Tilly's explanation.
"You haven't heard mine, yet," he challenged. "Mine's right!"
"Well?" questioned Cordelia, wiping her eyes. (Even Cordelia had laughed
till she cried.) "What is yours, Fred?"
"It's boats. There hasn't one of you said a single thing about the boats
you were going to ride in."
"Boats!" cried the girls in a second chorus of unbelief.
"Oh, you needn't try to talk me out of that," bristled the boy. "I
_know_ what _I'm_ talking about. Old Mr. Hodges told me himself. He's
been in 'em. He said that years and years ago, when he was a little boy
like me, he and his father and mother went 'way across the state of
Texas in a prairie schooner; and I asked father that night what a
schooner was, and he said it was a boat. Well, he did!" maintained Fred,
a little angrily, as a shout of laughter rose from the girls.
"And so 'tis a boat--some kinds of schooners," Harold Day soothed the
boy quickly, rising to his feet, and putting a friendly arm about the
small heaving shoulders. "Come on, son, let's you and I go over to the
house. I've got a dandy picture of a prairie schooner over there, and
we'll hunt it up and see just what it looks like." And with a
ceremonious "Good day, ladies!" and an elaborate flourish of his hat
toward the Happy Hexagons, Harold drew the boy more closely into the
circle of his arm and turned away.
It was the signal for a general breaking up of the club meeting.
Cordelia, only, looked a little anxiously after the two boys, as she
complained:
"Harold never tells a thing that he knows about Texas, and he must know
a lot of things, even if he did leave there when he was a tiny little
baby!"
"Don't you fret, Cordy," retorted Tilly. (Cordelia did not like to be
called "Cordy," and Tilly knew it.) "Harold Day will talk Texas all
right after Genevieve gets back. Besides, you couldn't expect a boy to
join in with a girls' club like us, just as if he were another
girl--specially as he isn't going to Texas, anyway."
"Well, all he ever does is just to sit and look bored--except when
Tilly gets in some of her digs," chuckled Bertha.
"Glad I'm good for something, if nothing but to stir up Harold, then,"
laughed Tilly, as she turned away to answer Elsie Martin's anxious:
"Tilly, what color is the new dress? Is it red?"
It was the next day that the letter came from Genevieve. Cordelia
brought it to the club meeting that afternoon; and so full of importance
and excitement was she that for once she quite forgot to open the
meeting with her usual ceremony.
"Girls, girls, just listen to this!" she began breathlessly.
The Happy Hexagons opened wide their eyes. Never before had they seen
the usually placid Cordelia like this.
"Why, Cordelia, you're almost girlish!" observed Tilly, cheerfully.
Cordelia did not seem even to hear this gibe.
"It's a letter from Genevieve," she panted, as she hurriedly spread open
the sheet of note paper in her hand.
"Dear Cordelia, and the whole Club," read
Cordelia, excitedly. "I came up yesterday from New
Jersey with the Hardings for two days in New York.
I have been to see the animals at the Zoo all the
afternoon, and I'm going to see the Hippodrome
this evening. That sounds like another animal but
it isn't one, they say. It's a place all lights
and music and crowds, and with a stage 'most as
big as Texas itself, with scores of real horses
and cowboys riding all over it.
"I am having a perfectly beautiful time, but I
just can't wait to see my own beloved home on the
big prairie, and have you all there with me. I
sha'n't see it quite so soon though, for father
has been delayed about some of his business, and
he can't come for me quite so soon as he expected.
He says we sha'n't get away from Sunbridge until
the fifth; but he's engaged five sections in a
sleeper leaving Boston at eight P. M. So we'll go
then sure.
"Mrs. Harding is calling me. Good-by till I see
you. We're coming the third. With heaps of love to
everybody, Your own
"GENEVIEVE HARTLEY."
"Well, I like that," bridled Tilly. "Just think--not go until the
fifth!"
"Oh, but just think of going at all," comforted Alma Lane, hurriedly;
"and in sleepers, too! Sleepers are loads of fun. I rode in one fifty
miles, once--it wasn't in the night, though."
"I rode in one at night!" Tilly's voice rose dominant, triumphant.
"My stars!"
"When?"
"Where?"
"What was it like?"
"Was it fun?"
"Why didn't you tell us?"
Tilly laughed in keen enjoyment of the commotion she had created.
"Don't you wish you knew?" she teased. "Just you wait and see!"
"Yes, but, Tilly, do they lay you down on a little narrow shelf,
really?" worried Cordelia.
"I sha'n't take off a single thing, anyhow," announced Bertha, with
decision, "not even my shoes. I'm just sure there'll be an accident!"
Tilly laughed merrily.
"A fine traveler you'll make, Bertha," she scoffed. "Sleepers are made
to sleep in, young lady--not to lie awake and worry in, for fear
there'll be an accident and you'll lose your shoes. As for you, Cordy,
and the shelf you're fretting over--there are shelves, in a way; but you
lay yourself down on them, my child. Nobody else does it for you."
"Thank you," returned Cordelia, a little stiffly. Cordelia did not like
to be called "my child"--specially by Tilly, who was not quite sixteen,
and who was the youngest member of the club.
"But, Tilly, are--are sleepers nice, daytimes?" asked Edith Wilson, who,
as usual, was hovering near. "I should think they'd be lovely for
nights--but I wouldn't like to have to lie down all day!"
Tilly laughed so hard at this that Edith grew red of face indeed before
Alma patched matters up and made peace.
It was the trip to Texas that was the all-absorbing topic of discussion
that day; and it was the trip to Texas that Cordelia Wilson was thinking
of as she walked slowly home that night after leaving the girls at the
corner.
"I wonder--" she began just under her breath; then stopped short. An old
man, known as "Uncle Bill Hodges," stood directly in her path.
"Miss Cordelia, I--I want to speak to ye, just a minute," he stammered.
"Yes, sir." Cordelia smiled politely.
The old man threw a suspicious glance over his shoulder, then came a
step nearer.
"I ain't tellin' this everywhere, Miss Cordelia, and I don't want you to
say nothin'. You're goin' to Texas, they tell me."
"Yes, Mr. Hodges, I am." Cordelia tried to make her voice sound properly
humble, but pride would vibrate through it.
"Well, I--" The man hesitated, looked around again suspiciously, then
blurted out a storm of words with the rush of desperation. "I--years
ago, Miss Cordelia, I let a man in Boston have a lot of money. He said
'twas goin' into an oil well out in Texas, and that when it came back
there'd be a lot more with it a-comin' to me. So I let him have it. I
liked Texas, anyhow--I'd been there as a boy."
"Yes," nodded Cordelia, smiling as she remembered the prairie schooner
that was Fred's "boat."
"Well, for a while I did get money--dividends, he called 'em. Then it
all stopped off short. They shut the man up in prison, and closed the
office. And there's all my money! They do be sayin', too, that there
ain't no such place as this oil well there--that is, not the way he said
it was--so big and fine and promisin'. Well, now, of course I can't go
to see, Miss Cordelia--an old man like me, all the way to Texas. But you
are goin'. So I thought I'd just ask you to look around a little if you
happened to hear anything about this well. Maybe you could go and see
it, and then tell me. I've written down the name on this paper,"
finished the man, thrusting his trembling fingers into his pocket, and
bringing out a small piece of not over-clean paper.
"Why, of--of course, Mr. Hodges," promised Cordelia, doubtfully, as she
took the paper. "I'd love to do anything I could for you--anything! Only
I'm afraid I don't know much about oil wells, you see. Do they look just
like--water wells, with a pump or a bucket? Bertha's aunt has one of
those on her farm."
"I don't know, child, I don't know," murmured the old man, shaking his
head sadly, as he turned away. "Sometimes I think there ain't any such
things, anyhow. But you'll do your best, I know. I can trust _you_!"
"Why, of course," returned Cordelia, earnestly, slipping the bit of
paper into the envelope of Genevieve's letter in her hand.
In her own room that night Cordelia Wilson got out her list marked
"Things to do in Texas," and studied it with troubled eyes. She had now
one more item to add to it--and it was already so long!
She had started the list for her own benefit. Then had come the request
from queer old Hermit Joe to be on the lookout for his son who had gone
years ago to Texas. After that, commissions for others followed rapidly.
So many people had so many things they wanted her to do in Texas!--and
nobody wanted them talked about in Sunbridge.
Slowly, with careful precision, she wrote down this last one. Then, a
little dubiously, she read over the list.
See the blue bonnet--the Texas state flower. Find out if it really is
shaped like a bonnet.
Bring home a piece of prairie grass.
See a real buffalo.
Find Hermit Joe's son, John, who ran away to Texas twenty years ago.
See an Osage orange hedge.
See a broncho bursted (obviously changed over from "busted").
Find out for Mrs. Miller if cowboys do shoot at sight, and yell always
without just and due provocation.
See a mesquite tree.
Inquire if any one has seen Mrs. Snow's daughter, Lizzie, who ran away
with a Texas man named Higgins.
Pick a fig.
See a rice canal.
Find out what has become of Mrs. Granger's cousin, Lester Goodwin, who
went to Texas fourteen years ago.
See cotton growing and pick a cotton boll, called "Texas Roses."
See peanuts growing.
Inquire for James Hunt, brother of Miss Sally Hunt.
See a real Indian.
Look at oil well for Mr. Hodges, and see if there is any there.
* * * * *
"Now if I can just fix all those people's names in my mind," mused
Cordelia, aloud; "and seems as if I might--there are only four. John
Sanborn, Lizzie Higgins, Lester Goodwin, and James Hunt," she chanted
over and over again. She was still droning the same refrain when she
fell asleep that night.