My Beloved South:
Electronic Edition.

Mrs. T. P. O'Connor, d. 1931

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First edition, 1998
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Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1998.

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Call number 917.5 O18m 1914 (Davis Library, UNC-CH)

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Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition, 1998

LC Subject Headings:

• O'Connor, T. P., Mrs., d. 1931.
• Texas -- Social life and customs.
• Southern States -- Social life and customs.

• 1998-12-14,
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To
THOMAS NELSON PAGE

        Each day the memory of the old South becomes more and more a cherished dream. Its bounteous hospitality, its quixotic chivalry, its daring courage, its spotless honour, its poetic understanding, are receding into the heroic past. Therefore, we of the Old Guard must stand together, and do what we can to keep the younger and more practical generation Unforgetting. My pen is freighted with appreciation, but is, alas, inadequate, while already your genius has made "The tender grace of a day that is dead" immortal; and so, after many years of affectionate friendship, I dedicate this book to you.

A FRIENDLY WORD

        "A WANDERING minstrel I, a thing of shreds and patches..." My book is but a reflection of myself; its sole recommendation, - that my bale of cotton grew under warm sunshine, and every thread spun and woven into material is from the old and new South. "I have gathered me a posy of other men's thoughts, only the thread that holds them together is mine." Some of the stories have even been told before, but they belong to me by right of inheritance and Love, so may I not tell them again?

        After many years of absence, when the riches and abundance of my country were displayed to me, it was my ambition to write an informing, practical, statistical book. Such a one as would induce English settlers to set sail for the Southern States. There, English tradition, an ever-green, would extend a fraternal welcome, and with a small capital, or even none at all, except health and strong hands, a Home awaits them.

        But my frank friends discouraged this undertaking. There are so many writers, they said, who know more of the progress, resources, and wealth of the country than you possibly can know. The most you can hope to do, is to make an entertaining South.

        It was the great William Pitt, who, when a man was recommended to him because he talked sense, said: "Anybody can talk sense, Sir; can he talk nonsense?" And if now and then I have struck a rag-time tune -

and who has a better right - underneath the nonsense and plantation songs, one earnest wish has been always in my heart, to bring England and America closer together, and to make them understand each other.

        Men and women in Virginia have said to me, "I love Virginia, and after Virginia - England." For myself, I love America in England, and England in America; they are both my countries, and if a little word of mine has made greater friendliness even for a brief moment between them, my book will not have been written in vain.

         THE WARM SPRINGS,
VIRGINIA.

CONTENTS

• I. THE DUVALS . . . . .1
• II. YOUTH'S GLAD SUCCESS . . . . .21
• III. THE CONQUERING PIONEER . . . . .35
• IV. SAM HOUSTON . . . . .47
• V. ACROSS THE SEA TO MARYLAND . . . . .70
• VI. CHRISTMAS AND OLD MEMORIES . . . . .84
• VII. CHARLES TOWN AND WASHINGTON . . . . .98
• VIII. THE SYMBOL OF THE SOUTH . . . . .117
• IX. HOSPITABLE CHARLESTON . . . . .131
• X. THE CHARM OF CHARLESTON - THE SILVER GARDEN . . . . .147
• XI. IN SAVANNAH . . . . .161
• XII. THE MULES OF GEORGIA . . . . .180
• XIII. THE SUWANEE RIVER . . . . .192
• XIV. THE WOMEN OF NEW ORLEANS . . . . .202
• XV. OLD-WORLD NEW ORLEANS . . . . .220
• XVI. A RUSSIAN ROMEO AND JULIET . . . . .235
• XVII. AN OLD-TIME PLANTATION . . . . .248

  ---

  Page viii

• XVIII. THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER . . . . .267
• XIX. HARRIS DICKSON . . . . .282
• XX. A PRESENT-DAY PLANTATION . . . . .300
• XXI. MY HERO . . . . .316
• XXII. SIR WALTER SCOTT'S RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CIVIL WAR . . . . .327
• XXIII. GALLANT, BRAVE, HEARTY KENTUCKY . . . . .337
• XXIV A VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN . . . . .358
• XXV. A BRAVE LADY . . . . .387
• XXVI. MY HEALING SOUTH . . . . .399

CHAPTER I
THE DUVALS

                        One bright memory - only one;
                        And I walk by the light of its gleaming;
                        It brightens my days, and when days are done
                        It shines in the night o'er my dreaming.
                         Father THOMAS RYAN.

        IN my wandering life of deepest shadow and occasional sunshine, there is but one thing for which I am altogether devoutly thankful, - I was born and bred in the South, and for generations on both sides of my family my ancestors were Southern people; consequently, without conflict, my qualities and defects are those of my race. For my own personal defects, given me at birth with a free hand by my whimsical fairy godmother, neither my family nor my beloved land is responsible.

        My great-grandfather, Major Duval, fought in the War of the Revolution, and gave goodly sums towards the cause. He married at twenty-three a Miss Pope of Virginia, an heiress of whom he made rather a sudden and theatrical conquest, not later than five minutes after he discovered her. She, a fair-haired, dimpled beauty, wearing a silken hood, a green merino gown,

little calfskin shoes with silver buckles, a black silk apron, and open-work mittens, was walking one golden October afternoon in a primeval forest near the banks of the Shenandoah. In the angle of her round arm lay a big ball of worsted, and the sun slanting down on her glancing needles struck diamond brilliance from their quick activity.

        My great-grandfather, returning from the chase, young, dashing, good-looking, suddenly beheld this vision. He wore the buckskin clothes of the Virginian hunter, and carried his day's trophy of wild turkey, ducks, and rabbits slung across his shoulder. His rifle held one last bullet.

        Quickly advancing to the astonished young lady, he took off his bearskin cap, and making a bow so low that the turkeys touched the ground, he said, "Madame, permit me." Then lifting the ball of worsted from its envied resting-place, he lightly tossed it high into the air, shot the bullet straight through its heart, and as it came down caught it and placed it, smoking with powder and with love, in her apron pocket.

        The dimples all appeared as she said, "Sir, you can shoot and hit the mark."

        He bowed again and answered, "So can Cupid, and I hope," - pointing to her fluttering heart - "in the right direction."

        The young lady, a very distant cousin whom he had never met, was from Richmond, visiting an aunt on an adjoining plantation. He walked home with her, in the mellow sunshine of an Indian summer afternoon, through the wonderful scarlet and gold forests of the early Virginia autumn, leaving on the doorstep of the wide plantation house his day's hunt as his first love offering.

        The next day he re-appeared, brave in satin small-clothes and lace ruffles, the queue of his fair hair tied with a silken ribbon, and offered himself with proper dignity as suitor for her hand. A month later they were married and lived happy ever afterwards.

        I have an idea that my great-grandmother was the more interesting of the two (the Popes are an intellectual, fascinating family), and when she died so intense was her husband's grief that finally nature mercifully relieved him with a gentle absent-minded forgetfulness.

        When his children grew up, he sold his winter home in Richmond and afterwards lived entirely on his plantation, devoting the long summer days to bass fishing in the Shenandoah, which is no mean sport, as bass are wary and valorous fighters. Indeed, a mature father or bachelor fish of middle age and accumulated wisdom is seldom caught; the reckless youngsters who disregard the admonitions of their seniors are the only fish to be inveigled by the most tempting bait. Finally my great-grandfather gave up even this sport, and spent his days on the wide balcony which faced the virgin forest where he first saw the merry coquettish face of my great-grandmother. He read the Richmond newspaper from beginning to end, and gave it to a small darkey standing in attendance. This boy ran round the house, and handed him back the same paper, which "the good Major Duval" read all over again with reminiscent but deep satisfaction. It was evidently from this ancestor that my quite imbecile forgetfulness comes.

        The old miniatures and portraits give him a round face, baby-like pink-and-white skin, fair hair, blue eyes, and the most friendly and engaging expression. How inevitably hereditary traits appear even in the

third and fourth generation. My beautiful grandson of five said to me after a French lesson the other day: "Damma, isn't it sad that one so young as I should have such a bad memory?" And immediately the picture of his Virginia ancestor, sitting on a wide vine-clad balcony and reading quite happily a newspaper for the fourth time, suggested itself to me.

        Another Miss Pope, a kinswoman of mine, married and came to Texas to live. She was tall and dark, with jet-black hair, pearl-white teeth, a touch of dark down on her upper lip, and the most enchanting speaking voice I have ever heard. It was like golden velvet, and she talked with great brilliancy and a wealth of information on every conceivable subject, for she lived in books and not in the life around her. To that she was extremely indifferent, and had the reputation of being a humorously bad housekeeper.

        My mother, with her sense of order and Spartan-like cleanliness, frankly disapproved of her, but my father loved her, and, as she was not his wife, forgave her disorder.

        One afternoon when I was a very little girl my father drove out to see her, taking me with him. She lived a few miles from Austin and a little creek ran through the garden, so the flowers were glorious and plentiful, being always supplied with water. The wide hall was hung with family portraits, but the floor looked like a village street, literally covered with dried mud in little footprints, as if animals had wandered in and out at will.

        The negro maid said Miss Anna was sick, but would the Judge and Miss Betty go right in. And we were shown into an immense bedroom opposite the drawing-room. A slight fever had given her a colour and she looked very handsome with her dark hair wandering

over the pillow in two long thick plaits. Beside her stood a small table piled with books; some had toppled on to the bed, and there were books on the window-seat and on the sofa, and my father relieved the chair he was to sit upon of quite a small library.

        He had first selected a large puffy-looking rocker, but our hostess smilingly admonished him: "Don't take that chair, Judge, or you will sit on the new baby." Then, seeing my eager look of interest, she said: "Go over and look at him, Betty," and tiptoeing over to the soft white bundle, I found that it was an adorable three-months-old fat baby, sound asleep.

        Then she began to talk, and though I was too little really to understand, the soft musical many-toned voice thrilled me with pleasure. After a while a stirring was heard under the bed, and an obese familiar sleepy pig made his appearance. He walked into the centre of the room, squealed loudly, stood for a moment, then trotted leisurely through the doorway, down the hall and out into the garden. She dreamily regarded but made no comment on the pig. Her rich honeyed tones continued unfalteringly. I was told afterwards that she was giving the last lines of Keats's Ode to the Nightingale. The pig, however, disturbed the child, who cried, and my father, loving babies like a woman, lifted the new man in his arms, hushed him, and began to walk the floor.

        Presently a pet peacock, the hardest bird in the world to tame, with his tail magnificently spread, stood in the doorway, advanced proudly into the room, but gave a loud shriek at seeing a stranger and fled down the hall, while no comment was made on him. It seemed to me that I was in a wonderful fairy dream, with such lovely things happening - a beautiful lady

with long plaits, a soft pink baby, a peacock and a pig. Oh! I thought, if my home was only like this, how happy I should be.

        My father's voice brought me back from my dreams. He was saying, "Where is your pretty Yankee governess?" Mrs. Berkeley answered with a merry twinkle in her eye, "Gone. That's the third, Judge, and I am going to have a new petition added to the Litany, 'And from governesses, good Lord deliver us.' " This seemed to me a most beautiful sentiment, for I, too, wished to be delivered from governesses. I was too young to know that good-looking George Berkeley suffered from an impressionable nature. But eventually his wife, eight children, and later a strong-minded and elderly German governess, transformed him into a most exemplary husband.

        My grandfather, Governor William Peyton Duval, was a son of the good Major Duval. His boyhood was spent in Richmond, Virginia. The house was kept by Aunt Barbara, a negro woman who was almost white. A strong character, quick-witted and capable, she had taught herself to read and write, an almost unheard-of accomplishment for a negro in those far-away days, and she was painfully thrifty, locking up everything in the establishment, and carrying a huge bunch of keys at her belt. One of them was the key to the pantry, where she spent twenty minutes every morning with a little negro to dip out sugar, coffee, tea, flour, raisins, currants, citron, butter, lard and meal. And never did her lynx eyes relax their vigilance, so there were no peculiar secret cakes from pickings in the pantry to be stealthily cooked in the cabins at nightfall, as often occurred in a Southern home.

        I remember at the tender age of seven partaking of

an odd little cake made of rice, two raisins, one almond, a cucumber pickle, a few tea leaves, two lumps of sugar, a pinch of flour, and an amber morsel of citron. Baked in wood ashes on the hearth of Mammy's cabin, it seemed to me a delicious, though peculiar morsel. These were the gleanings of Henrietta, my little negro maid and playmate, who dipped for my mother when she unlocked her pantry in the morning. Not always observant, my mother gave Henrietta an opportunity to "borrow" with her lightning quick fingers.

        Aunt Barbara knew the negroes and trusted none of them. Even the wearing apparel of the Quality was kept under lock and key. At half-past seven in the morning the body servants of the gentlemen were supposed to stand before an immense blue press, and Aunt Barbara counted out under-linen, socks, white waistcoats, and pocket handkerchiefs. If a lagging valet appeared at a quarter to eight he returned empty-handed to his master, who gave him such a dressing down that the next morning he waited beforetime for the unlocking of the press. In this way the house was spotlessly clean, the linen in order, and the lax easygoing ways inherent in Southern people were counteracted by vigilant management.

        My great-grandfather always had family prayers, and each person present was expected to repeat a verse from Scripture. The Bible was the dearest and most revered book on earth to Aunt Barbara. Any chapter, any verse was suitable for her delivery. And each morning the family waited expectantly on her selection, which varied from the New Testament to Deuteronomy or the book of Job. One unlucky day for my grandfather, an exuberant boy of fourteen, Aunt Barbara fixed a piercing eye on him and said in a sonorous voice,

"Remember Lot's wife." An explosion of laughter followed and from that moment she was a sworn and somewhat unjust enemy to him.

        A brother-in-law of my great-grandfather's had been to Spain and was much impressed by the Spanish mules. He said the prettiest sight in Madrid was a lovely coquettish woman, a rose under each ear, a white lace mantilla thrown over her head, sitting in an open carriage driven by a picturesque coachman clad in scarlet, and drawn by jet-black mules made splendid by gay and jingling harness. So he brought back from Barcelona a number of Jacks, thinking to mingle the blood of Virginia thoroughbreds with that of Spanish plebeians, but horses in that part of the country were of the purest pedigree. All their owners scorned the idea of mules, never mind their strength or their powers of endurance. So the big-headed, noisy Jacks were turned loose about the fields and grew fat and saucy from having too much grass and too little exercise.

        One day my grandfather was startled by a strange mighty braying. At first he was frightened; then he saw an animal looking at him with faithful eyes and as he said, "A sort of horse look," encouraging to friendship. He tried to mount the discovery, when deftly and quickly, the rider was thrown high in the air, and the horse-like beast with triumphant heehaws galloped off in the distance. Jack, however, was later caught and ridden every day, and finally young Duval learned the dexterity of the rancher in keeping his seat. The other boys of the neighbourhood soon followed his example and the Jacks rapidly grew thinner by hard exercise.

        In October he and half a dozen lads planned an excursion, starting at earliest dawn to gather nuts. For this purpose a big Jack was corralled the night before

and placed in the "smoke-house." A little one-roomed log cabin, with a thin odoriferous line of smoke rising from the chimney, and slowly making delicious hams and tongues, was to be found on every well-appointed Southern place. The next morning the unlucky boy overslept himself, and Aunt Barbara, up at daylight, dressed in stiffly starched purple calico, a gorgeous plaid head handkerchief, wide half-hoops of gold dangling from her ears, and all her keys jingling at her side, proceeded to the smoke-house and unlocked the door. She had slept ill the night before and dreamed of the devil. Suddenly, lurid eyes confronted hers, a wide mouth opened, showing great teeth, a huge voice emitted a brazen, horrid sound, and Aunt Barbara was knocked down, trampled upon, and thrown into a fit.

        In those days when kindred and hospitality were part of the religion of the South, no household was composed of only the immediate family. My great-grandfather's brother-in-law, an irritable little man, lived with him, and he soon ferreted out the author of Aunt Barbara's illness, and not satisfied with giving the boy one beating he thrashed him every time she had a fresh fit. This treatment developed in my grandfather a determination to leave home. He said to his father: "I am going to Kentucky. I am too old to be thrashed, and no house is big enough to hold both Uncle John and me." His father answered, very quietly: "Then you had better go, for John is our kin; I cannot ask him to leave my house."

        Young Duval loyally said, "I don't expect you to, sir, I will leave the house to him."

        He began then to develop his fine character of sustained courage and dogged resolution. The winter

passed without his speaking again of leaving home, but he kept to his determination.

        Aunt Barbara, quite recovered, saw a change in her boy, and was most attentive to him, saying, "I did n't mind, honey. I knowed you did n't mean to hurt old Barbara. I jus' wants you to run roun' an' laugh like you use ter. You studies too much to suit me. What you thinkin' 'bout, chile?"

        "Aunt Barbara," said the boy, "I'm going to Kentucky next month."

        "Now," said Aunt Barbara, quite ashey-looking, "who ever heard de beat ob dat? Ain't Virginia, where you wuz born an' raised, good enough for you? An' (breaking down) I wuz wid yo' ma when you wuz born. I held you in dese arms when you wuz a hour old. I knows I bin strict wid you, I bleeged to be, but you jus' like my own chile. Oh, honey, don't go 'way. Jus' go out on de common an' ketch dat brayin' jackass, an' I promise you, he kin stay a week in de smoke-house."

        Aunt Barbara began to cry and these two were friends again. But the steady look never left the boy's face, and in May, when the trees were green and the flowers in blossom, he said to his father, "I am leaving for Kentucky to-day. Will you give me an outfit, sir?"

        His father looked disappointed and said, "I thought you had given up that foolish idea," but opening a desk, he took out a long green silk knitted purse, filled with gold, and handed it to the boy.

        "Thank you," said the lad, "and of course I will take my servant and my horse."

        "No," said the father, "you don't know how to take care of yourself. You are not to be trusted with a slave and a saddle-horse. If you go, you go alone."

        "Then," the boy said proudly, "I will make my way as best I can."

        Probably his father thought hardships and discomforts would soon bring him back to Virginia. His only sister, a sweet little girl, clung round his neck in tears, and he had to gulp back a few of his own, which he managed to do.

        "When are you coming back?" said his little sister, when at last he was ready to start.

        "Never, by heaven," he said, "until I come back a Member of Congress from Kentucky."

        And he fulfilled that promise. The little sister grew up, married, went to Texas to live, and became the mother of five sons. They all fought in the Confederate army and not one returned to the broken-hearted mother. Her eldest son, William Howard, a very brilliant and attractive young lawyer, studied law with my father. He was one of the first officers killed at Fort Sumter.

        On the way to Kentucky the lad had the first opportunity of showing the true metal of his fine courage. He had stopped at an eating-house and heard two rough men say he was probably a runaway apprentice and should be stopped. After he had finished his dinner he went quietly out of the back door, but thinking it cowardly to steal away, he turned and walked boldly to the front door.

        "Where are you going, boy?" said one of the men.

        "That's none of your business," said the boy.

        "Yes, it is," said the man, "you're a runaway." And he came forward to seize him, but the lad whipped out his pistol, and pointing it said, "If you lay a hand upon me I'll shoot you!" The man stepped back very

quickly and his companion said, "He's dangerous, let him alone."

        After this he was afraid of civilisation and tried camping out at night, and stopping at inns for his meals during the day. At Brownsville he arrived tired, soiled, and looking like a young tramp. The proprietor of the inn demurred at receiving him, but his wife discerning that he was a gentleman in spite of his dusty appearance said gently, "Have you a mother?"

        "No," said the boy, "my mother is dead."

        "Ah, that 's the trouble," she said to her husband, "we are told to care for orphans. Come in, and welcome."

        After resting with this good lady a few days, the boy continued his journey upon a flat-bottomed boat from Wheeling, which slowly, floated down the Ohio. The river in those days, overhung on either side by primeval forest and almost impenetrable canebrakes, was filled with game of all sorts. Deer and bear unafraid swam across the river, and bronze flocks of wild turkeys sailed slowly overhead. Cincinnati, that most populous queen of the West, was only a straggling group of log cabins, and Louisville was scarcely settled. Where the Green River and the Ohio meet, the boy landed and started his march for the interior of Kentucky.

        He had relations in Lexington, but he did not make himself known to them, for his pride was wounded. He wanted to show his father what independence could accomplish. He camped at night by beautiful crystal streams and shot turkey, smaller birds, and squirrels by day, roasting them by fires made of underbrush and dry forest wood.

        His first taste of the real hunter's silent joy was

when he came upon a pack of wolves devouring the carcass of a deer. One big greedy fellow ate more than the others, snapping and snarling when they came too near, and the boy said to himself, "A prize, that leader of the pack, I shall try for him." He loaded his rifle and shot him twice while the other wolves ran yelping away. Then, he said, a feeling of triumph came over him as though he were lord of all that leafy forest. But the deer, even when quite near him, he could never bring down. They seemed ever running. A whole herd had just gone by in a wild scamper and he was gazing longingly after them when he heard a voice say, "What are you after, Sonny?"

        "Those deer," said the boy; "are they ever still?"

        "Reckon you're a bit green, sonny; where are you from?"

        "Richmond," said the boy.

        "What, not Richmond of my old Virginny?"

        "Yes, I am," said the boy.

        "And how," said the man, "did you git here?"

        "I came down the Ohio and landed at Green River," said the boy.

        "All by your lone self?"

        "Yes," said the boy, "I am by myself."

        "Where be you goin'?" said the man.

        "I'm going to hunt," said the boy.

        "Then," said the backwoodsman, looking at him kindly, "come along er me, I'll make a hunter out of you. Me and my wife don't live fur from here. Killed anything?"

        "Yes," said the boy, "wild turkeys and squirrels."

        "But," said the man, "can't come it on a deer - you must step like a panther on padded feet to do that. Nary a twig must n't crackle under yo' feet. Deers is

got the quickest ears in the forest. You have to creep up on 'em, and then sometimes they gits away."

        Bill Smithers lived with his wife and baby in a log cabin with no chimney, but just a square hole for the smoke to escape. While the trees were being girdled preparatory to clearing the land, the food consisted of fish from the brooks, game from the forests, and luscious berries. This generous woodsman was the boy's first teacher in hunting and woodcraft, making, my grandfather said, all of his boyish dreams come true. The forests with giant trees were magnificent, the wide prairies, covered with wild flowers, were fragrant blossoming gardens. The woods were rich in wild strawberries and blackberries, for nature in Kentucky was then, as now, prodigal of her bounty.

        But he did not stay long with Smithers, finding a solitary bachelor called Miller, a famous hunter, who was glad to have a willing apprentice. Under him he became a good shot, and past master of the ways and secrets of the wilderness. The buffalo were in Kentucky then, and had just begun to migrate for safety to the West. The boy's first success in big game hunting was to kill a bear. He, two brothers, and a dog were out together. Seeing the shaggy beast climbing a tree, he sent a shot near his heart. Bruin fell to the ground and the dog, giving a joyous bark, ran up to investigate. The bear, with one last effort, clasped the dog round its neck. They died together. My grandfather said the two simple-hearted hunters buried their friend, crying like children.

        The hunters lived far apart. They wanted elbow room, and only occasionally came together, when they sat for hours silently smoking like Indians. But the light of the big fires at night warmed them at last into

story-telling. The young Virginian, a good listener, with his frankness, courage, good-humour and adaptability, soon became a great favourite, especially with his host, who loved him like a son.

        There was one event my Aunt Elizabeth said my grandfather loved to describe - a dance at the house of a famous fiddler, Bob Mosely. The only suit of clothes the young man possessed was his leather breeches and coat, which were soiled with hunting grease. He thought that with a good scouring they might be made to serve for the party, so he carried them to a stream, washed them, and hung them to dry, while he rested himself on the bank of the river. But the sticks upon which the clothes were stretched toppled and fell into the river, carrying their burden with them, and there the young man was left for the remainder of the afternoon to fashion, like Adam, a garment of leaves in which to go home.

        Old Miller was horrified when he saw his young friend's misfortune and heard that he could not attend the dance. He said, "You'll not only go, but you shall be the best dressed of all the boys." He then began to work day and night and made a soft deerskin hunting shirt, fringed on the shoulders, with leggings of the same skin fringed from top to bottom. Wearing these splendid garments and a raccoon cap with two tails floating out behind, he presented a very fine figure indeed. All the hunters were garbed in the same sort of clothes and the girls wore doeskin dresses.

        About three o'clock in the afternoon when the party was at its height, the two Misses Schultz made a stage entrance, with red ribbons and tiny looking-glasses hung round their necks, which a stray pedlar had given them in gratitude for a few days' hospitality. The

simple people at the party had never seen looking-glasses before, and the girls, Sukey and Patty Schultz, were such belles that the other girls jealously threatened to go home. Young Duval, gifted with tact, explained in flattering words the situation to the Misses Schultz, telling them that their charms and looking-glasses combined would break up the party, and begged them to allow him to hang the ribbons and ornaments on the wall until the dance ended. When this was done, peace was at once restored.

        About this time the young hunter grew dissatisfied and restless. His mind began to crave intellectual food. A famous woodsman came to him and said: "A bunch of us are going West. Kentuck's too crowded. Neighbours are only fourteen miles off and I have n't breathing room. Will you join us, Duval?" This induced the boy to go through a self-examination. He asked himself: "Am I going to remain a hunter all my days? No, the woods are for the true woodsman who desires no other life. My people have always belonged to the world. I must get back to it."

        The question then arose as to what he should do. He decided on the profession of law. He felt that if he had wasted time in the great forests, he had nevertheless laid up a store of health, strength, cheerfulness, and quickness of vision in observing the human and animal species. He knew he had dogged determination when he undertook a task. He always said that if a man with ordinary capacity worked unswervingly, heart and soul, at anything, he could succeed in it.

        He still had his silken purse filled with gold, and he could sell his pile of beaver and other skins and the fine horse which he had obtained in exchange for furs. With this money he calculated to live until he was

admitted to the Bar. When he spoke to Miller, the old man was deeply grieved. He could understand but one life, that of the hunter, but he loved the boy too well to discourage him.

        The following day the young man rode to Bardstown, stopped at a small inn over night, and found a family who would take him to board for a dollar and a half a week. The next morning he intended riding back to Miller's to get his little fortune of five hundred dollars, and was waiting on the hotel piazza for his horse to be brought round to him when he saw sitting in the parlour a vision of loveliness. A young girl was there, fair as alabaster, with thick auburn hair, deep blue eyes, tall, slender, and dressed all in white. After the sunburnt, rosy-cheeked maids of the woods this girl seemed something delicate and unreal. He longed to speak to her, but did, not dare. Then he longed still more, with all his clean young blood aflame, to kiss her. "Just once," he said, "it will be a memory of bliss to carry with me all through life, and if I don't get it I shall certainly die of longing." He stepped into the room. She was looking dreamily out of the window, when he walked up behind her, touched her gently on the shoulder, and she looked up. He stooped and kissed her on the mouth, then made a rush for the door, ran across the balcony, down the steps, vaulted lightly to his saddle, lifted his hat, made her a low bow and dashed off madly to the woods.

        When he got to the log cabin he sold his horse and walked back to Bardstown, where he settled himself and began to study law. He read sixteen and eighteen hours out of the twenty-four and sometimes all night as well as all day. He found he had so much to study besides law. He grew serious and morose with incessant

work and the sudden change from outdoor life to continual confinement. But he kept doggedly on for a year, and then there came a slight interruption, for one day while taking a walk he passed on the street the only girl he had ever kissed. His heart gave two or three quick thumps and for days the little beauty's face came obstinately between him and his books, but he studied harder than ever and took no more walks.

        One cold rainy evening the young student had gone to the bar of the inn and was sitting by the fire when a gentleman, tall, distinguished looking and handsomely dressed, entered. He wore small-clothes, silver kneebuckles, his hair powdered and tied in a queue, and neat polished shoes. He asked the young man if his name was Duval. The boy, tired and depressed, said moodily, "Yes."

        "And do you," said the gentleman, "come from Richmond?"

        "I do," said the boy, "but what is that to you?"

        "Nothing, good-night."

        Next day, however, the gentleman, the pink of elegance and courtesy, called on the boy. He said he was a friend of his father's, that he had heard of the struggle he was making, and would take him in his office and direct his studies if he would come. Young William, apologising for his previous churlishness, gratefully accepted the offer, and a little later went to live at the house of his friend, who was one of the leading lawyers of Kentucky. From that time life went easier for him. His reading was properly directed, he joined a debating society, was its most brilliant speaker, and was soon hailed as a coming genius.

        One evening at a little party he met the auburn-haired beauty and was introduced to her as "Miss

Nancy Hynes." Her mother was a Miss Stuart from Scotland who had married a Kentuckian, and it was from Scotland she had got her red hair. People in the room began to talk, and they left the young couple practically alone. William was terribly embarrassed. Then he said, "Don't you see how uncomfortable I am? Can't you say something, anything to help me out?"

        The girl's dimples all appeared and she said, "What do you want me to say?"

        He answered: "Not that you forgive me - for I don't want forgiveness. If I had it to do over again, by heaven, I would do it, even if I died for it."

        They met frequently at dances at the houses of friends, and before the young man was nineteen he was engaged to the girl of seventeen. Her mother, a widow, objected on the score of their youth, but he told her he would marry her daughter, and very soon, if all the world rose up in defiance. The mother liked this grave, romantic wooer, and said she knew all about him and his family, and that he would only have to wait a reasonable time. He then studied harder than ever, with a prospect of a wife and home before him.

        In the meantime his father, hearing where he was, wrote to say he would give him a liberal allowance if he would soon go to college. He talked it over with his sweetheart and the wise young maiden advised him to go, but just as he was starting for the Virginia University, Nancy's mother died suddenly, leaving her with a younger sister, my great-aunt, Polly Hynes, a little girl away at a boarding-school. The chivalrous lad felt his promised bride needed a protector, so he gave up the idea of college, was admitted to the Bar that autumn, and married immediately afterwards.

        Fate is kind to some mortals. These married sweethearts

ever remained lovers. They were poor, for Nancy could not touch her small fortune until she came of age, and my grandfather had nothing. They lived in a little two-roomed log house, and my grandfather said, "Everything we had was in half-dozens; a half-a-dozen spoons and forks and knives and chairs, a bed, a table, a sofa, a dozen books and a little rocking-chair and work-table for my girl wife. We were so poor, but so happy."

CHAPTER II
YOUTHS GLAD SUCCESS

        To the wholly intrepid spirit is given Courage in life; Courage in danger; Courage in death.

        THEY had only been married a week when court was held at a country town twenty-five miles away. It was hard for William Duval to leave his pretty bride, and he had no money, but he borrowed a little, and a horse from a neighbour and, like young Lochinvar, rode gaily away. Fate loves reckless courage and protects its possessors. The young lawyer had no case to plead before the court and no influence to get him one, but just as he entered the inn an old man in the barroom was struck by a bully. The young man promptly knocked the bully down. This secured his popularity. The crowd shook hands with the plucky stranger and plied him with drinks, which he had the judgment to refuse, for he felt the morrow would be a momentous day for him.

        The next morning when the court opened, he boldly seated himself among the advocates. A man was charged with passing counterfeit money. He had been out of the range of lawyers and was asked to choose one for his defence. Looking around, he selected the eager faced lad, who was given until next day to prepare his case. As they left the court the

accused man gave his counsel one hundred dollars as a retaining fee.

        Young Duval spent many hours in anxious preparation of his defence and argument. When night came he was too excited to speak; in the morning he could not eat. He reached the court agitated and unnerved, and when he began to speak it was only to flounder and stammer. Presently the public prosecutor made a cruelly sarcastic remark. There was a laugh in court. At that his nerves became taut and steady. His voice rang out with a brave challenge. He marshalled his facts with telling effect and proved his client's innocence conclusively. The case ended triumphantly in the man's acquittal, and young Duval was made. His earnestness and eloquence had stirred even the lawyers. His youth, his courage, his knowledge of law were discussed. Other cases were given him, and when the week ended he had made seven hundred dollars. The night the fees were paid him he was like a miser. He locked his bedroom door and let the gold trickle through his fingers; he piled it up and saw in its glitter a rosy future of comfort for his wife and of gratified ambition for himself.

        The next morning before dawn, he mounted the borrowed horse and started for Bardstown. His wife had prepared a delicious breakfast for him, but he was too excited to eat. Like the boy that he was, he wanted to surprise her, and he sat down at the table and began slowly counting out the money in ten-dollar gold pieces. His wife looked on and said, "Whose money is it? Have you got to take it to the bank?"

        "It is my money!" said my grandfather, "mine and yours! Oh Nancy, come and dance and sing and cry." And together they laughed and waltzed round the

room, like the children they were, for poverty had gone out of the window, and success had come in at the door.

        Later, my grandfather was elected to Congress from Kentucky, as he said he would be, and on his return to the States was appointed Judge of the Federal Court, which office he retained for some years. By this time three of his eight children had been added to the family. In those days the Floridas were a territory, and the Indians being somewhat troublesome a man of courage, decision, and heart was wanted for governor. The appointment was offered to my grandfather, who retained the office for twenty-four years. The youngest five children were born in Florida and the last pretty little girl was named after that land of flowers.

        The new governor kept open house. All the year carriages drove back and forth, and people came and went as if it had been a hotel. Christmas and Easter were different from other seasons only in more turkeys and game, larger cakes, more egg-nog, and greater quantities of punch.

        Three of my aunts and my mother were all celebrated beauties, my mother inheriting the Scotch hair, a dark auburn, and the deep blue eyes of her mother. My grandfather was always hospitable to the admirers of his daughters. They could spend the day, or even, if they felt inclined, several days, but at ten o'clock each night old Scipio, the negro butler, was required to see that the drawing-room was closed and the piazzas cleared.

        Scipio made his appearance dressed in a swallow-tailed coat, his hair tied like my grandfather's in a queue (a strain of Indian blood had given him straight hair), and bearing an enormous waiter, with a large, noisily ticking silver watch lying upon it and numerous

mint juleps. The suitors were supposed to observe the time, drink the juleps, say good-night and go home.

        Life in Florida in those days must have been enchanting. There were fruit and vegetables all the year round, oranges for the picking, peaches and melons in great abundance. The Indians constantly brought in all kinds of game; the woods were full of wild orchids and myriads of wild flowers, and the pink cranes and scarlet flamingoes were quite tame on the banks of the little river that flowed at the bottom of the grounds.

        In 1823, Governor Duval rendered signal service to the territory of Florida and to the United States Government by putting down the conspiracy of Neamathla, one of the most noted Indians in American history. He was the chief of the Mickasookies, a fighting tribe of warriors, who had their hands not only against the white man, but against the weaker Indian as well. They had committed many depredations on the frontiers of Georgia and were constantly attacking the Seminoles, a peaceful and picturesque tribe, who gave the Government no trouble, but sought (unless influenced by the Mickasookies) its protection.

        Neamathla was a splendid figure, more than six feet in height, with fierce fiery eyes and a face like a hawk. He hated white men and proudly called Governor Duval "brother," never acknowledging his superiority.

        The Indians at this time, chiefly through the governor's influence, had signed a treaty to remove to a small section of land in the eastern part of Florida and to remain there for twenty years, thus leaving the remainder of the State free to the white man. Neamathla fought bitterly against the treaty, but finally signed it, saying quite frankly: "If I had enough warriors,

brother, instead of signing the treaty, I would wipe every white man from the face of Florida. I say this to you, for though you are white, you are a Man. Your pale-faced people wouldn't understand me."

        Thinking it wise to be near the Indians, Governor Duval had settled at Tallahassee. The village of Neamathla being only three miles away, he often rode out to have a pow-wow with him. One day he found him surrounded by all his warriors, drinking brandy freely. Neamathla began to boast that although the red man had made a treaty, the treaty was at an end, "broken by the white man, who had not delivered the cattle and money promised."

        The Governor replied, "The time for the money and cattle has not yet arrived." But the old chief only looked sly and continued to drink and threaten. He had been cutting tobacco with a long knife, and while he was talking he flourished his keen blade not an inch away from the Governor's throat, saying the country was the red man's, that it should belong to him, and he would fight for it until his bones, and the bones of his warriors bleached upon its soil.

        Suddenly and unexpectedly the Governor seized him by the bosom of his shirt, clenched his fist in his face, and said: "You have made your treaty. You shall keep it. I am your White Chief sent by your father in Washington to see that you do it. If you do not, the blood of every Indian in the country will dye the land, and his bones will bleach upon its soil."

        The old chief threw himself back with a bitter laugh. "Ho, ho, little white brother!" he said, "can't you see my joke?"

        My grandfather returned to Tallahassee, and things went smoothly for several months. Every day some

of the Indians reported themselves at the Governor's house, but suddenly their visits ceased, and at midnight of the fourth day after this, Yellow Hair, a young brave who loved the White Chief, stole into the house. "Governor," he said, "at the risk of my life I've come to tell you that five hundred warriors are holding a secret war talk with Neamathla."

        There was no more sleep that night for Governor Duval; he saw that he must take a desperate chance. There were one hundred white families near, and he had no soldiers. Everything depended on himself. At dawn he was up, and, mounting a fleet horse, called upon the interpreter, De Witt, to follow.

        The man demurred. "Wait, Governor," he said, "until we can get the militia."

        "No," said my grandfather, "there is not a moment to lose, we must ride fast." And they struck for the Indian village to what De Witt thought was certain death.

        "The chiefs," he said, "are old, discontented, suspicious and exasperated. They intend serious mischief."

        Finally my grandfather said, "Go back, man, and leave me to go on alone."

        "No," said De Witt, "I won't leave you to die alone, but God! what a foolhardy expedition."

        They rode on in silence, and when they neared the village my grandfather said sternly, "Translate word for word what I say to you. Only courage can save us now."

        There was a great council fire, and Neamathla was sitting on a rude throne surrounded by his warriors. The Governor rode straight into the circle, while forty rifles were cocked and levelled at him. He slowly dismounted, looked Neamathla fearlessly in the eyes,

and, with a gesture of contempt, stood waiting. The old chief threw up his arm; the guns were lowered. The Governor then walked up to Neamathla and asked why he was holding a council of war. The old chief was silent.

        The White Chief said, "You need not answer. I know; but if a single hair of the head of a white man in this country is harmed" - he made a mighty sweeping gesture with his arm - "I will hang every chief to the trees that surround you. The Great Father in Washington holds you in the hollow of his hand. He has only to close it and you are dead. I am but one man. You may kill me, but the white man is as many as the leaves on this oak. Remember your warriors, whose bones have made the battlefields white. Remember your wives and your children dead in the swamps. Another war with the white man, and there will not be one Indian left to tell the story to his children."

        His words had effect. They sat still and silent. Then he appointed a day for them to meet him in St. Mark's and rode forty miles straight ahead to the Apalachicolas, a friendly tribe who were at feud with the Mickasookies. They immediately sent three hundred warriors to St. Mark's. He summoned also the regular army and the militia, and was then ready for Neamathla. Yellow Hair came again in the dead of night to tell the Governor that nine towns concerned in the conspiracy were disaffected, and from him he found out the names of the chiefs in these towns who were popular, but without power.

        On the day of the conference he rode out to meet Neamathla, who, although at the head of eight hundred Indians, was afraid to venture into the court of St. Mark's alone. He thought when he saw the troops

and the preparations that he had been betrayed, but was reassured when the Governor rode by his side and told him when the talk was ended that he could go home free.

        Neamathla and the older chiefs blamed the younger ones who had led them into conspiracy. "Then," said my grandfather, "if you cannot govern your braves you must, like the white man, find men who can. I depose you, Neamathla, and appoint Little Bear in your place." And with great ceremony a broad ribbon sewn with beads, from which a large medal of the Capitol depended, was hung around the neck of a younger chief.

        In this way nine chiefs were deposed and popular braves appointed in their place. The Indians were delighted; they thought my grandfather a prophet to have divined their choice. The new warriors, he was confident, would keep an eye on the disaffected, and would remain loyal to the Government and to him.

        Neamathla left the country and returned to the Creek nation, who made him a chief, but, shorn of his great power, he soon died of disappointment. The Governor's achievement of defeating alone and unaided a conspiracy which would have brought about a terrible massacre, was a valiant and heroic act. In later years with no military escort, he was able to remove, through their confidence in him, all the Indians from Florida to the Indian Territory - thus saving the Government at Washington great trouble and expense.

        When the question of the Indians was settled, he devoted himself to the development of the State. His children were being educated in Kentucky. The girls went to the Convent of Nazareth in Bardstown, and the boys to St. Joseph's, the college of the Jesuits

which gave shelter to Louis Philippe when he was a refugee in America, and where later Jefferson Davis was a hard-working student.

        My uncle Burr, the eldest son, was the flower of my grandfather's flock, tall, with a splendid figure, bright blue eyes, light waving hair, a dazzling smile, a speaking voice of golden sweetness, a dashing rider, and like his father a man of extraordinary courage, he sounds a perfect hero of romance. As a child I was ever eager for stories about him. When he graduated from college, young, gallant, intrepid, inheriting from his father the pioneer spirit, Texas, with a handful of brave men, was fighting for her liberty against the Mexicans, and Burr Duval raised in Kentucky a company of young men like himself, college bred and the sons of gentlemen. Among them was the lover of my great aunt Polly Hynes, - then a young lady who made her home with my grandfather - and my uncle John Duval, a boy of eighteen. This gallant company was called the "Kentucky Mustangs," and Burr Duval was their captain. They offered themselves for service to Texas, and Colonel Fannin asked them to join his army.

        They had not been long in the State when in a battle between Fannin's army and the Mexicans they surrendered to General Urrea, who agreed to treat them as prisoners of war, but at Goliad, on Palm Sunday, 1836, they with other companies, about four hundred and forty-three men in the very flower of their youth, were marched out and traitorously drawn up in line and shot. A few escaped, my uncle John, being at the end of the line and fleet of foot, among them.

        When the scourge of yellow fever fifteen years later visited Florida, John had returned from Texas, brown, thin, and still saddened from the loss of his gallant

young soldier brother, and another and slighter grief which ever pursued him, the necessity of choking to death a little dog that he had taken to Texas from Kentucky. With Mexicans in full pursuit, the dog was about to bark, and the only way to save his own life was to strangle his one faithful friend. It was a miserable little tragedy, and when quite an old man his face would still grow melancholy when he spoke of it.

        After the death of her first-born beautiful son even my grandfather, they said, could rarely make my grandmother smile, and she was one of the first to die of yellow fever, for she made no effort to live. Aunt Polly, who was a woman of strong character and affections, had closed the room where she bade her lover good-bye forever, and she allowed no one to enter it but herself. The silver candlesticks had grown tarnished, the orange blossoms were brittle in the vase, the dust, like a grey pall, covered every object. But she spent hours alone there every day.

        The loss of my grandmother was a terrible blow to my grandfather, and to the end of his life he remained inconsolable. They had been like two happy birds in the springtime. He teased her, and she would laugh and pull his ears and play with him as if they were still boy and girl. After her death he was restless and miserable, having lost interest in all things. With aunt Polly and her grief, it was a depressed and changed household. My uncle John, in spite of the terrible tragedy he had lived through, wanted to go back again to Texas. He had lost his heart to that vast country, so full of excitement and of seething vivid life, and my grandfather, to seek change from his poignant grief, consented to take his remaining family and go with him. They settled first in Galveston where my aunt,

Elizabeth Beall, who was a very beautiful young widow, was at the head of the house. His children gathered around him, he began to get back his cheerfulness again, to take an interest in politics and the rapid development of the great "Lone Star State." My father, who had held the office of Supreme Judge of the State of Arkansas, resigned and came to Texas, where he married my mother and went with her to live at Austin.

        Fate surely cheated me out of a joy in not knowing my grandfather. I have always felt that we were congenial spirits. He was the soul of hospitality, affectionate, generous, brave, witty, and light-hearted, even in the face of death. His love of tradition led him to wear a queue. In his youth it was tied with a black ribbon, but later in life, when considered too aristocratic and dandified, it was plaited and tucked up out of sight among his curls with a hair-pin. Doctor Blake after his death cut off the queue and sent it to my aunt, his eldest daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Beall. He was not an old man when he died in Washington from an attack of gout and pneumonia. He loved life, and he had not an enemy in the world. He was vitally interested in Texas, that splendid new country of his later years. He had many friends, and his children adored him, not with the theoretical love of children for their parents, which can brook absence, but with the real companionable love, desiring nothing so much as constant, affectionate intercourse and intimate interchange of thought. Aunt Lizzie told me that his daughters, my mother, my aunt Mary, my aunt Florida and herself were counting the days of his return from Washington, when they received a letter from old Doctor Blake announcing his death.

        The Governor's gout was very bad, [he wrote] and weakened him a good deal, but I had hopes of pulling him through until the 20th, when he seemed to grow worse. All the time he had been astonishingly cheerful, and full of amusing stories. His friends (he had too much company I thought) came in shoals from the capitol and elsewhere to keep him company, and his spirits never flagged. I stayed late the night of the 20th. When I came in he was reading his Bible - which I send you - and laying it aside, he said, "Blake, there 's some mighty good reading in that book. It has helped me over devilishly rough roads, and while maybe I haven't exactly lived 'a sober, righteous and godly life,' I can honestly say I 've never questioned. I've always been certain of Him. How can anybody doubt who reads intelligently His Sermon on the Mount?" I begged him to sleep and try and conserve his strength. Finally he dozed off, saying, "Yes, that wonderful Nazarene planted seed in my heart; if it has n't made a good harvest, it is n't His fault. But, Blake, I really prefer not to die. This is a pretty good world when all's said and done, don't you think so?" I stayed quite two hours while he slept, and I came again very early in the morning. I could see that the Governor was suffering, for he looked terribly ill. I said, "How are you?" as cheerfully as I could. "Blake," he said, with his ever-ready joke, "I am about to pass in my checks." "I hope not, Governor," I answered. "Yes, I am," he said smiling a weak smile, "and it's just as well, for there are three old widows in this hotel, all of them desperately in love with me. If I got well I'd have to marry one of them, and if I did the other too would die of broken hearts, so it 's just as well I 'm going." And with this he turned his head, still smiling, and a moment later he was dead. And the world holds one less natural, generous, unaffected, gallant and witty gentleman. The Governor's death is no less a grief to me than it is to you. Pray permit me to convey to you my sincere sympathy. . . .

        A little painted parchment fan, brought by one of the Duval brothers from Rouen, with the family tree, a silver christening dish, and a few other heirlooms, is always in some way to me associated with my grandfather's death. It was small, with ivory sticks, inlaid with a pattern of gold. On it a gentleman in satin small-clothes and a powdered wig danced the minuet with a lady in pointed bodice, a flowered brocaded petticoat, red high-heeled slippers, and her hair dressed à la Marie Antoinette. A little trail of roses finished the fan at top and bottom, and on the other side a picturesque shepherd and two beribboned lambs disported themselves on green, downy hillocks. The fan was said to have been used, on her way to the guillotine, by an ancestress of my grandfather, a certain Lucienne Duval. She, a devoted loyalist, was condemned as an extra indignity to ride publicly with her lover on the tumbril to their place of execution. All Paris, even the scum of the French Revolution, knew of the affair, for the lady had none of the hypocrite in her, so little that she gave no excuse for her conduct, and indeed always spoke of her husband as a great gentleman without fault.

        "Perhaps," she said, "he is too perfect; that, maybe, is why I love de Tocqueville. God knows he has enough faults for two, but he is, and ever has been, the one man on earth for me."

        The day of the execution these two who had sinned much, but loved much, went bravely to their death, he taking snuff from his enamelled box, and talking as gaily as if going to a May Day dance at Petit Trianon, she standing erect and waving defiance with that gay and airy trifle, her little painted fan. When the tumbril stopped de Tocqueville said, "For the first time

in my life I shall reverse etiquette. Madame, I will precede you."

        "No," she said with a tender smile, "Philippe, you have often kept me waiting; I shall go first and be waiting for you still." And then before all the jeering multitude he took her in his arms and kissed her on the eyes and on the mouth, saying, "I've always loved you, always." And she, looking into his eyes, asked, for she had been jealous, "And loved me faithfully?" He whispered back quite humbly, "Before God, dear woman, as faithfully as you have loved me!"

        Then, deaf to the insults of the crowd about her, who called out, "Look at the painted cocotte, brazen to the last!" she walked erect to the guillotine, still holding the little fan and whispering "Toujours fidèle, toujours." In a moment the basket received her head. When de Tocqueville stepped from the tumbril, a man suddenly old, he had to be supported to his execution, for he could not walk. The mob laughed with delight and roared with triumph, "Voyez, voyez, lâche, lâche!" They did not see that he had already died with his brave lady, and that for once they would execute a corpse.

        The mistress of a lackey in the Duval household was said to have picked up the fan and returned it to the family.

        May all the descendants of this poor lady meet death as bravely as she. Certainly my grandfather did, and that is why Lucienne's fan makes me think of him. Death finds so many who fear his grim and affrighting presence that he must love those and say a word in their favour, who in the very last moment turn to him with a brave face, and meet him with a gay and unexpected smile.

CHAPTER III
THE CONQUERING PIONEER

                        Courage comes straight from God,
                        With it He has created saints, martyrs,
                        Heroes, soldiers,
                        Lent them to the world,
                        And taken them to Himself again.

        THE best blood of America is in Texas, the hardy blood of the conquering pioneer. Even to-day, by instinct, inheritance, and tradition, the men of Texas are still pioneers, for they must be ever on the alert to fight nature as she tries their prowess in droughts, floods, hurricanes and tornadoes, but the golden possibilities in that vast land - oil and coal to-day, topaz and turquoise to-morrow, gold and silver in the future - urge them on to hope and fresh endeavour.

        The men who first established the Republic had force enough to wrest the land from the Indian, and afterwards from the Mexican. They were strong, they fought to conquer or to die. And not only were there pioneer men, but splendid pioneer women as well. How wise is Nature in aptly supplying her needs! After the Civil War all the babies born in the South were boys. It was impossible for mothers who longed for them, to produce girls, and when women were needed with intrepid souls, great powers of endurance, and vigorous health to share a life of difficulty and

danger with daring men, Nature produced them. Medea, when asked, "Country, husband, children are all gone, what remains?" answered, "Medea remains." There were many Medeas in Texas. When husband and children were killed by the Indians, and later by the Mexicans, houses destroyed by fire, cattle and horses confiscated, still these hardy women lived on to a brave old age.

        Mrs. Long, whose husband of her youth was assassinated by the Mexicans, spent a long life in trying to avenge his death. It needs an iron constitution and rugged health, to survive the memory of bloody tragedies, and life in those days was melodramatic in its intensity. If the occurrences of a day or a week of that time were now put on the stage, it would give us, sitting in our seats in a theatre, fierce and bloodcurdling thrills.

        The crest of that wave of supreme daring - and history, ancient or modern, contains no more sublime display of courage - was the defence of the Alamo. Not one man survived. They died like their leaders, Travis, Crockett, Bowie and Bonham, fighting until death loosened the grip of the smoking weapons from their brave hands. There is something glorious and complete in a bloody struggle where every man dies. On the old monument of the Alamo was the inscription: "Thermopylæ had her messenger of defeat, but the Alamo had none." None was needed. It was better for that superhumanly gallant band to die together. They have made an imperishable page of glory in history, and left a proud heritage of unconquerable courage for the state to hand down to her sons.

        But the battle of San Jacinto, when the Texans, concealed behind a gradually sloping hill, descended

unawares upon the Mexicans with the terrible cry from every man: "Remember Goliad! Remember the Alamo! Goliad! The Alamo!" avenged many deaths. And in such furious, revengeful haste were the soldiers that, coming to close quarters with the Mexicans they clubbed their muskets, and fought hand to hand with bayonets and knife. "Goliad! Goliad!" which in hoarse, fierce cries echoed over the battlefield, meant death to the Mexican army, for, cruel memories crowding upon them, the men fought like savages. The artillerymen ordered: "Guns to the front! Guns to the front! God! This for the Alamo!" and a steady stream of fire poured forth on the Mexicans. The men at the guns were blackened with powder; the cannon smoked and sent out long tongues of flame.

        "Fire, fire," cried one, "in God's name, fire!"

        "In the name of Travis, Bowie, and Crockett, fire, men, fire!"

        The guns roared like wakeful hyenas, the band of drum and fife stridently played, "Will you come to the bower?" The Mexicans were running, rushing, fleeing, agonised and appalled from "The Bower."

        The battle lasted only half an hour, but six hundred and thirty Mexicans were dead on the fertile plain, more than two hundred were wounded, and more than seven hundred were prisoners. Arms, munition, mules, horses, money in gold and silver, were taken as loot from the Mexicans, and of the brave little army of seven hundred and forty-three Texans there were only six killed and twenty-five wounded. Goliad and the Alamo were avenged.

        Santa Anna when captured was generously treated as a prisoner of war. If women, the mothers and wives of the men slain at the massacre of Goliad and

shot at the Alamo, had taken him prisoner he would have met instant death, which he deserved, but he lived to again betray in 1843 the Texan troops at Nier, when Fisher's men, surrendering under a written promise to be accorded treatment as prisoners of war, were instantly tied together in pairs, and driven like cattle towards the city of Mexico.

        In the early dawn of the following day, led by a brave Scotchman, Captain Ewan Cameron, many of them escaped. The remaining number who could not get away were commanded by Santa Anna to be drawn up in a line and shot, but the order was modified to the drawing of black beans. The man, who, blindfolded, drew the fatal colour was shot. Seventeen men in this way were executed, and those who drew white beans had better have died than lived, so cruelly did they suffer. But every day brought nearer to the undaunted pioneers of Texas the hope of freedom and independence. Men may have been many things in that struggling republic, filibusters, outlaws, adventurers, gamblers, pirates, but I never heard of a coward.

        We had the honour of sharing with Louisiana the picturesque gentleman pirate Lafitte, who was said by his enemies to make love or to scuttle a ship with equal success, and by his friends to be a seigneur with letters of marque from the French government. He was certainly, to put it politely, a violator of the revenue, and Governor Claybourne had put a price upon his head, when, at an opportune moment for him, General Jackson and his army arrived in New Orleans. With the ready assurance of the bold adventurer, Lafitte offered his services and that of an armed company for the defence of the state, and though General

Jackson had denounced "robbers, pirates, and hellish bandits," he entered the army, was commended for bravery, gained a full and free pardon by the government, and left Louisiana rehabilitated, only to start privateering in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Galveston. In an incredibly short space of time he had gathered more than a thousand lawless adventurers about him. Finally a Government vessel was robbed of some thousands in gold. After that he disappeared and was supposed to have sailed for South America.

        La Salle, that brave and intrepid discoverer, having claimed and named Louisiana for Louis XIV, sailed for Texas, landed at Matagorda Bay, explored the Lavaca River, and built Fort St. Louis. He called it "The St. Louis of Sorrow," and so it proved for him. It is a pity that its historic name has been changed to Dimmit's Point. A leader of men can never escape the destroying jealousy of those whom he dominates. They admire him. They fear him. They envy him to the point of hatred. La Salle escaped the dangers of the explorer by land and sea only to die by the hand of an assassin, one of his own men, on the Neches River.

        There was courage and daring and carelessness of life in Texas; not only in those early days, but even as a child I myself remember the old disregard of danger which prevailed in Texas. There is a great deal in atmosphere. When a man lives in a country where cowardice is not tolerated, although he may quake inwardly he would never dare to show the white feather. On a Saturday night if a frontiersman had drunk enough liquid "hell-fire," he would ride into the town yelling like a Comanche Indian, the reins of his horse thrown

over his arm or held in his teeth, and both hands occupied in alternately firing off pistols, one perhaps pointed upward to the heavens, the other downward to the earth, or by misadventure hitting a human being. My youngest brother, Ridge, standing on the side-walk, enjoying one of these all too realistic spectacular performances, was shot through the foot. He was about fifteen years old and we were the greatest friends, then and always. After a few days I was allowed as a great privilege to see the little greyish hole in his instep. I don't think he minded it much; with a bundle of newspapers and a pile of books he was always oblivious to the world.

        When I grew up and married, during my visits to Texas my brother Ridge always spent a part of every day with me and he had such a restful, comfortable, sensible, original way of visiting. He wanted to see me, but having nothing in particular to say, he said nothing. Arriving with a dozen newspapers under one arm and several books under the other, he gave me a brief but affectionate greeting, and, sitting down, he read steadily for two hours, got up, patted me on the head or shoulder, and said, "Good-bye, Betts Swizzlegigs, see you to-morrow." And off he would go; but he always saw me on the morrow. For, in the whole of his life, he never broke the slightest promise, or told a little or a big lie.

        When he talked, which he did amazingly well, it was to say something worth while, for he had a perfectly astounding memory. It was like a moving picture show, and seemed to have literally photographed every event, every book, and every poem that he had ever read. He was very fond of some little verses by Rollin Ridge, a talented Cherokee Indian:

                        I love thee as the soaring bird
                        The bright blue morning when he sings,
                        With circling, circling melody,
                        And Heaven's sweet sunlight on his wings.
                        I love thee as the billows love
                        In tropic lands the pearly shore;
                        They come and go - they come and go,
                        With answering kisses evermore.

                        I love thee as the mariner
                        Far driven o'er the stormy sea
                        The bright and shining silver star
                        Which tells him where his home may be.
                        I love thee thus and ever shall;
                        Thine eyes their bright and glorious light
                        Shine in my soul for evermore
                        Illumining its darkest night.

and he always repeated again the lines,

                        "With circling, circling melody
                        And Heaven's sweet sunlight on his wings."

and I hope in that other and more beautiful country where he has gone, "Heaven's sweet sunlight" is shining upon him.

        As a little girl, I had a great desire to be brave, but, like the burglar described to me by F. C. Froest, the able superintendent of police in London, who had three terrors - an old-fashioned iron bar fastened across a door, a little shrill barking dog, and an old maid who always sleeps with one eye open, - there were three things, which struck terror to my soul. These were the drunken yells of the galloping outlaws, the old Voodoo negro witch living near us, who was said to make people die by putting a spell on them; and the bellowing

of a bull, which for a long time I believed to be the devil roaring aloud for bad children whom he was seeking to devour. This fable had been told me by a little negro girl on the place, and had sunk deep into my well of credulity, where even yet the waters have not been dried to dust by the world's disillusionment.

        Maum Phyllis, the Voodoo witch, had been brought to Texas from South Carolina by my uncle Marcellus Duval, and my father always said she was the last slave who had been born in Africa. She was so black that even her lips were a blue-black colour; her eyes were large and rolling; she never smiled and seldom spoke. In her ears she wore big hoops of gold, and a snow-white head handkerchief instead of the gay plaid turban always worn by other negro women. The contrast of her stern black face and the white above it was startling. There was no scandal, no secret, no small incident in any house in town which was unknown to her, and even white women were not above buying her love philtres. One of her peculiar talismans, composed of a bat's wing, a rabbit'a foot, some hemp from the rope which had hanged a murderer, and drops of milk from the breasts of a mother and daughter, each nursing a baby of the same age, was supposed to bring unwilling lovers to the most forbidding of woman-kind. In the South, where women married very young, it was not an unusual thing for the mother's youngest child to be of the same age as her daughter's firstborn.

        Mammy, although a very religious and ardent Methodist, was a firm believer in Voodooism, charms, amulets, the evil eye, "sperrits" and all the rest of it, I cannot even now disabuse my mind of superstition and I know, "de cunjhe book" contains many warnings and shuddering peeps into the future.

                        "De cunjhe book say dat he prowl by night,
                        En' de cunjhe-book ought to know;
                        Deh 's a chance dat he 's neah when de dew gleam bright
                        En de ol' bak lawg buhn low -
                        Deh 's a chance det he 's neah when de stars wink weak,
                        En' de tallow cup buhn blue;
                        En' doan yo' dahe to speak
                        When de ol' flo' creak -
                        It 's de
                        Voodoo Bogey-Boo!

                        "He 's de awfullist thing, de cunjhe books say,
                        (Wuss den de uddeh bogy-boos)
                        En' de' ain't no chahm det kin keep him away -
                        He jes' come aroun' when he choose.
                        Deh 's snake-skin, en' bat-wing, en' rabbit-foot,
                        Well, its mighty li'l good dey 'll do,
                        Foh de cunjhe-book tell
                        It 's hahd to put a spell,
                        On de
                        Voodoo Bogey-Boo!

                        "Sum say det he gallop on an ol' blac' cat
                        Roun' de rim ob de big full moon,
                        Sum say det he cum in de shape of a bat
                        Fum his home in de swamp lagoon,
                        En' gran'mammy tell dat he 's always neah
                        When ebeh deh 's a grabe dug new,
                        En' she say if yo' heah
                        A ringin' in yo' eah
                        It 's de
                        Voodoo Bogey-Boo!

                        "Lemme tell yo', l'il boy, you betteh keep still
                        De dawg 's at de do' peepin' fru'
                        En' eben de cricket in de damp do'sill
                        Am stoppin' to listen too -

                        De room am still en' de fiah am daid
                        Deh 's sumfin a cummin' foh yo'
                        Jes' yo' jump right in baid
                        En' kibbeh up yo' haid,
                        It 's de
                        Voodoo Bogey-Boo!"

        Voodooism is now a thing of the past, but all the world knows that a rabbit's foot which has danced on a tombstone in a graveyard will bring extraordinary good luck. I have never been fortunate enough to possess one. My mascot of these days is a bracelet made from the hairs of an elephant's tail, an ornament guaranteed to bring at least some good fortune. It is lucky in the first place to get the bracelet at all, for not every elephant has hair on his tail, and to have the black spikes necessary to bend like tiny whalebones into a circle, the elephant must have been free, a dweller in forests, a monarch of all he surveyed, and a leader in the elephant world. He must have lifted up his trunk and deeply trumpeted when he heard the lion's loud roar in the jungle; he must have been wise and more than a century old, for thin weak hairs cannot appease an angry fate. My Helen gave me a tiger's whisker; it was neatly curled up and enclosed in a little sapphire studded gold heart, and attached to a bracelet, but a fair-haired German waiter stole it from me two years ago in New York. I daresay by this time he is proprietor of a prosperous hotel and all the luck intended for me has been transferred to him.

        One little piece of good fortune that I had was being born in Texas, that great, wide, cheerful, courageous territory, with the most picturesque history of all the states and a distinct individuality of its own, inheriting as it has something of aloofness and independence from

the old Republic. During her long struggle with Mexico, England and France, for their own reasons, had both shown great interest in the future of Texas, but without help she had fought bravely on, overcoming with bleeding steps defeat and disaster, until at length Mexico was obliged to offer her terms of peace. This brought the United States to a realisation of her position and importance. Goethe said "Thought expands and weakens the mind; action contracts and strengthens it"; certainly these men of action know how to wait. Patience has won more battles than bravery, for it means unending, sustained courage.

        The most thrilling thing I ever heard Parnell say in his even steady voice was, "I can always bide my time." These pioneer statesmen bided their time. Quietly resting between Mexico and the United States they calmly compared the advantages of a republic, or a state, and delicately weighed in the scales all that would be to their own advantage. Each of the other states had asked to be admitted to the Union, but Texas proudly waited, and when she received her card of invitation said, "Yes, I am flattered at your polite invitation, but I must enter the Union on my own terms." And if she wishes it to-morrow, she can be divided into four States and send twelve men to the Senate; but this will never be, for she is proud of her stupendous size, of her unique position and, above all, of being the "Lone Star State."

        When the United States agreed in 1846 to her independent terms, at the first faint streak of dawn cannons boomed to assemble together the patriots and pioneers who had fought for her liberty in the past and would guard it jealously in the future. The sunrise was magnificent, and amidst a profound silence the honoured

flag with its single star was lowered and furled, and a flag with stars hoisted and unfurled. The President of the late Republic said with deep feeling: "The final act in the great drama is finished, the Republic of Texas is dead. The State of Texas lives." There was a wild shout, and Texas was enrolled in the Union.

        When the Legislature assembled, the state constitution, framed by just and honest men, showed that sagacity and wisdom ruled her counsels. Much of the Common Law in England was used and some of the laws improved upon. All property owned by the husband or wife at the time of marriage and all acquired afterwards remained the separate property of each, and all property acquired during marriage was common property. Offences against the persons of slaves were punished in the same way as those committed against white people. The homestead was, and still is, exempt from debt. Public free schools were supported by taxation; and a sum of money was voted for the maintenance of the Texas rangers, a small army necessary to the State in the quick capture and punishment of marauding outlaws and "Hellish bandits." My father often commented upon the wisdom of the constitution of the State. He was himself the author of Paschal's Digest of the Laws of Texas. Martin Lyttleton, that brilliant lawyer and fine orator, told me it was the first law book he had ever read, and although he has now attained prominence in the Congressional life of Washington, he never forgets Texas and his love for that great State.

CHAPTER IV
SAM HOUSTON

                        An opal-hearted country,
                        A wilful, lavish land;
                        All you who have not loved her,
                        You will not understand
                        Though earth holds many splendours,
                        Wherever I may die,
                        I know to what brown country
                        My homing thoughts will fly. DOROTHEA MACKELLER.

        BEFORE the war, society in Austin must have been very varied and interesting. General Sam Houston was governor of the State. My mother did not like him, holding him responsible for the massacre of Goliad where my Uncle Burr Duval had been shot; but from this history exonerates him. He came to Texas in the first instance, like many another man, to mend a broken heart, and for a time eschewed the society of the white man and above all the white woman. Living entirely with the Indians, he learned their language, adopted their costume, and to the end of his life retained a certain bold picturesqueness in his dress. When Governor of the State, he wore a soft silk shirt, a flowing red necktie, a leopard-skin vest, coat and trousers of brown camel's hair, a wide sombrero of grey felt embroidered in silver, and a rich-coloured Mexican serape. Some of these serapes woven by the Indians

are of great value; they are made on a fine frame not unlike the manner of weaving an Eastern rug, and are splendid in colouring and as pliable and soft as an Indian shawl. Age only improves them; with care they last for generations and are with the Mexicans valued heirlooms. Governor Houston loved popularity and was always sending my mother, through my father, some small carved object. Like Madame de Staël he required constant occupation for his hands; she played with a twig or a flower, he was always whittling, and he was rarely seen without a knife and a piece of soft wood which he transformed into stars, hearts, diamonds, and Noah's Ark people and animals. Eventually my mother softened towards him, for he and my father were always friends. In a quarrel which he had with a public man, my father was trying to mend matters when Governor Houston said: "You are right, Judge, I must n't be too hard on Jones; he has every quality of the dog except his fidelity."

        The romance of his life was not unlike that of Claude Melnotte, but without the happy ending which romance so easily, but life rarely, gives. He was a man of great ability and when very young was elected governor of Tennessee. During his term of office he fell ardently in love with a beautiful and ambitious girl. The wooing was not without difficulty as he had a rival, a young man, undesirable and undistinguished, who scarcely entered into his big busy mind. The girl he loved lived in an adjoining town, and the courtship was mainly through letters, therefore he had not the opportunity of properly studying her character. As was the fashion of the time they were married at night, in a candle-lighted, flower-wreathed church. There was a big wedding, for everybody wanted to see the

handsome young couple, and to congratulate the Governor, but at last, at the end of the festivities, he sought the beautiful bride. All shimmer of satin and glimmer of pearl, she awaited him, in the rose-and-white bridal chamber.

        He went quickly towards her, speechless with emotion, and tenderly gathered her in his arms. "Don't," she said, pushing him away, "you will crush my veil." Her voice struck coldly upon his quickened emotions, but he was repelled only for a second. He was too happy to take warning, and he unfastened her veil, laid it reverently on the sofa, and softly lifted her face to kiss her. She drew back with a look almost of dislike, and said, "Please, please, not now." He thought it was maidenly modesty and said: "I have n't thanked you yet for marrying me, but I do. See, I am humble; I am on my knees, my darling, to thank you," and he knelt and covered her hands with kisses.

        Another, softer woman, not loving him, would have done it then, and laying her hand upon his head would have thanked God for this adoring heart, but her own was of ice. She said, somewhat sharply: "Do get up and don't be foolish; I don't want you to thank me for marrying the Governor of Tennessee." He said very gently, "You have married your lover, Madame."

        "I don't want a lover," she said, coldly, "if I had wished to give myself up to love, - a thing I don't believe in, - I would have married S.," naming his rival.

        "Did you," said her husband fiercely, "love him?"

        "No," she said, "but I might have loved him, if you had not been a man of successful ambition. I have married, as I said before, the Governor of Tennessee."

        "Perhaps," said he with a dangerous light in his

eyes, "you do not love this gentleman - this paltry Governor - "

        She said, "Love is not necessary in an ambitious marriage. I am the Governor's wife. I am to sit at the head of his table, to receive his friends, to share his triumphs - "

        "And," he cried with a great burst of passion, "to starve his heart and leave it empty! To break it in the end, and to make ambition his curse. Even now," he added bitterly, "my ambition is dead. You have killed all my hopes, and I suffer the torments of the damned, for I wanted you and I loved you, - my God, how I loved you!"

        She answered calmly: "I thought men placed ambition before a woman. I am willing for you to do that. You are the Governor of . . ."

        "By heaven, Madame," he said harshly, "there is no such person."

        And with that, he strode to the writing-table, wrote his resignation to the State, threw it at her feet, picked up his hat, and said:

        "I married you for love, the purest, the truest, the most reverently adoring that man ever gave to woman. You married me without love. I scorn a woman's body without her soul. We are as far asunder as the poles. We part here, now and forever."

        He closed the door and went out into the darkness of the stormy night - his tragic wedding night - and they never met again.

        He sought forgetfulness among the Indians, and was only roused from lethargy by the desperate efforts of the struggling Republic of Texas towards liberty. When he became General of the army, his wife, at last loving him deeply, should, according to romance, have

travelled thousands of miles and appeared, travel-stained, softened and repentant, to sue for his forgiveness; but in reality they were divorced. Each married again, and they never met after the fatal night of their parting.

        Texas must have held more than her share of thrilling romance at this period. Men made love with impulsive ardour, for the rapid uncertainty of life brings greediness for all it holds. During the war, one day's courtship served for marriage. "Love to-night and death to-morrow," was the soldier's motto.

        Among the first settlers of Texas a number of representatives of old Southern families had established themselves in Austin. James Raymond had helped to frame the constitution of the State and was a banker; the Flournoys (what pity to anglicise the aristocratic name of Fleur Noire!), the Lubbocks, the Wauls (Waul's confederate Texas brigade was later to become a synonym in the army for undaunted courage); - the Hancocks, the Duvals, the Peases - Elisha Pease, afterwards governor, although born in the North and a Union man, never lost the affection or confidence of the people - these were among the most distinguished of the early settlers. Then there were the Throckmortons, the Wests, the Burlesons, the Steiners, the Haynes, and the Wigfalls. Louis Wigfall had been sent from Texas to the United States Senate. With uncompromising Southern proclivities, he became in 1861 one of the leaders of Secession, and was a fiery, vehement, passionate speaker, earning for himself the sobriquet of "the stormy petrel."

        Mrs. Chesnut, in her Diary from Dixie, 1860-65, frequently mentions the Wigfalls. "I sent Mrs. Wigfall a telegram - 'Where shrieks the wild seamew?'

She answered, 'Seamew at the Spotswood Hotel will shriek soon. I will remain here.' " And of the bombardment of Fort Sumter, she says, "Wigfall was with them on Marius' Island when they saw the fire in the fort. He jumped into a little boat and, with his handkerchief, as a white flag, rode over . . . . As far as I can see, the fort surrendered to Wigfall. It is all confusion." And at Richmond in 1861 she says: "Heavens! He manoeuvered until I was weary for their sakes. Poor fellows, it was a hot afternoon in August and the thermometer in the nineties. President Davis uncovered to speak. Wigfall kept his hat on. Is that military?" After the war Louis Wigfall lived for a time in England, but eventually returned to the United States.

        Matthias Ward, another Senator from Texas in 1860, was very popular. He had a great sense of humour and enjoyed a story against himself. His face was extremely youthful, with fresh bright eyes as blue as that dear flower, the prairie blue-bonnet, and cotton-white hair. Travelling from New Orleans to St. Louis by a Mississippi steamer, he had engaged the state-room number one hundred and ten. The boat was immensely crowded, and his room had been taken possession of by a party of lawless men. Standing outside the open door of the ladies' cabin, the steward called to one of the understewards, "Here, can't you get this poor man, one hundred and ten, a berth?" A pretty lady put her head out of the state-room. "Oh, steward, bring him right in here," she said; "the ladies won't mind a harmless old man of a hundred and ten, and, poor old soul, he must have somewhere to sleep." "Pull your hat down," said the steward, "and hobble to your berth; it will be all right." But the lovely

ladies chattering, relieving their pretty heads of hundreds of curls and braids, letting their own hair flow over their shoulders, and dropping immense hoop skirts which fell with a clang like steel armour to the floor, were temptations too strong to be withstood. Mr. Ward peeped, and immediately an observant young lady called out, "Steward, steward, come quick and get your hundred and ten. He's looking at us with young blue eyes." And the steward had to find him another state-room, minus crinolines.

        There were many men in Texas opposed to Secession at the beginning of the war. The State had entered the Union on her own terms; she was prosperous and far enough away from the passionate excitement in Washington for astute statesmen to see inevitable defeat. From the beginning everything was against the South. The North had wealth, open ports, greater numbers, and even with success the South must have suffered horribly from a war fought on her own territory. But when Texas finally accepted Secession she did it with no half measures, furnishing to the Confederate army eighty-eight regiments of infantry and cavalry, and more than thirty batteries of artillery. In all, seventy-five thousand Texas men fought for the Southern cause. Albert Sydney Johnston ranked among the ablest officers in the service. Ben McCullough commanded the Texas Rangers, who did not know fear. Sam Bell Maxey, a cousin of my mother's, soon won his two stars. General William Steele, who had married my aunt Laura Duval's sister, an ardent sympathiser with the South, had resigned from a crack cavalry regiment in the United States army to take command in Texas. And the long roll-call of glory holds hundreds of Texas names.

        A baptism of fire during the siege of Vicksburg gave Texas an adopted son whose name is well-known to history. An important redoubt had been captured by the Federals and it was necessary for the Confederates to recapture it. One entire company from Alabama had been shot down to the very last man, when Waul's Texas brigade volunteered to capture the fort. Captain Bradley said he wanted no married officers to take part, the danger was too great. Pettus, a young Confederate officer said: "Bradley, you are a married man yourself. Give me your command." Bradley answered: "No, where my troops go, I will lead them." Captain Pettus said, "All right, come ahead." He placed himself well in front, led them by a circuitous route, and before the Federals knew it, the fire of the Confederates was destructively centred upon the fort, which they unexpectedly approached in the rear. The quick volley and attack caused a panic, the fort was seized, and a greater number of prisoners than their own men were captured. Before the enemy fully realised their position, the Confederates had spiked their guns and without the loss of a single man had gained a complete victory. They marched back with heads up and banners flying to the quick-step of Dixie, played with drum and fife. A Texas soldier, full of enthusiasm, asked who the tall man was who led them. Someone said, "Pettus of Alabama." Then the brigade broke into a wild Texas yell and gave cheer after cheer for "Pettus of Texas!" "Pettus of Texas!" And Senator Pettus ever afterwards claimed to be a man of two States, Texas and Alabama, for he had been rebaptised on the field of battle for an act of unsurpassed daring by a legion of the Lone Star State.

        After the war, Texas soon recovered herself. Men

who fight valiantly forgive generously. Confederate soldiers came back with no bitterness or animosity in their hearts towards the North, and they worked at whatever occupation offered itself without hesitation or shame. A gallant Captain, with a bullet still in his arm, measured a yard of ribbon in a shop; or a Major, his only possession one mule, ploughed a long straight furrow and planted sugar-cane or cotton. Good birth luckily cannot be measured or ploughed away. It remains, and in a crisis it always counts. It is said that during the war a gentleman by birth recovered from wounds that were fatal to the son of the soil. It was not one man fighting death; the influence of his gallant forbears abided to help him.

        In the days of my childhood courage was a fetish in Texas. Girls and boys tried to bear a hurt without a cry. They were brought up to an open air life, and early learned to ride and run and swim and fish and hunt. When I was a baby my father had a Mexican saddle made with a pommel about the size of a soup-plate and, sitting in front of him, I rode in this way all over the country until I was big enough to mount a pony. Then I learned to ride on a gay little animal called "Buttons." He was of creole stock, an active, boyish, sturdy little fellow of the sweetest temper and the warmest heart, as eager for affection and petting as a dog, and as playful as a kitten. If I held up a pocket-handkerchief he stood rigidly still looking at it, showing the white of his eyes with roguish knowingness, until unexpectedly, with a rush, he ran and seized it out of my hand. Although my father paid only twenty-five dollars for him he had good Spanish and Norman blood in his veins, and with his bright bay colour and long black mane and tail was a very good-looking little

animal. Sometimes out of sheer joy of life he tilted me over his head and I would find myself sitting on the grass very surprised, looking into his mischievous face.

        After Buttons, I held in love my pet pig, "Pancake." He was extremely jealous of the pony whom he held in detestation, and he stood by squealing with rage when I mounted for my afternoon ride. This quaint pet I had literally raised from the dead. We had a famous Berkshire sow of enormous size and distinguished pedigree who overlaid her litter of pigs, leaving them as flat as pancakes. They were thrown out behind the stable waiting for a cart to bear them away, when I found them, thought one of them breathed, and carried him into the kitchen to Mammy. She dosed him with paregoric - wrapped him in hot flannels, put him by the fire and gave him a bottle of fresh warm milk. Slowly he revived, and for a long time I tended him every day and Mammy every night. Finally he began to fatten, to take notice, and to develop a loving heart. He trotted at my heels like a dog and sat on the balcony in the evening looking out on the garden while my mother watered her flowers. Dressed in a black barège gown with low neck and short sleeves and a little tulle cape trimmed with pink satin ribbons, she would go from bed to bed, carrying a big watering-pot, while a crowd of little darkies bearing smaller watering-pots trotted after her. Evidently it afforded Pancake great satisfaction to see other people at work, while he was grunting at leisure. He got his own way in everything, not by moral suasion, but by intimidation. The moment he saw a negro enter the dining-room with a dish he began to squeal, and the loud, penetrating and shrill noise continued until in despair my father would say, "Get a plate and let me give

Pancake his dinner first." And before anyone else was served, a huge plate of steaming food was taken out to him for the sake of quiet.

        Our house in Austin was built of stone, with very thick walls to make it cool. A piazza in front and another at the rear ran along the full length of the house. After the foundations were begun it was found that a noble elm-tree would have to be sacrificed to make room for the balcony, and my father was indeed the woodsman who spared the tree, for he built both upper and lower galleries round the trunk of it, and left the wide-spreading branches to make a thick shade in summer over the roof. My mother always regretted that it had not been cut down, as she said it brought insects into the house, but I loved its rough body and my bird-cages conveniently hung upon it. The first mocking-bird I tried to raise had a pathetic fate. Its father, rather than leave his son in captivity, became its filiuscide. My fledgling was getting on splendidly; his dewy eyes were soft and bright, he had a ferocious appetite and was fat and happy, when one day the parent bird approached the cage with a little red berry, fed him with it, and in a moment he was dead.

        I profited by my experience. The next mocking-bird I adopted was brought up out of a cage; he was called "Moonlight," and was perfectly tame, hopping about in every room in the house and sleeping at night on the back of a chair on the balcony. When he was just budding into manhood and had begun to try his voice with low-toned, beautiful warblings, he met a tragic end through a yellow cat who caught him, for although he was rescued it was only to die very quickly. I cried myself into a fever, and my father would have shot the cat if I had not begged for its life.

        A great and constant delight after my pets was the garden, now gone forever, for although the old house stands the ground has been divided and sold away from it:

                        I would know it, could I find it;
                        And before I reached the gate,
                        I would catch the smell of roses,
                        Where the fragrant hedge encloses
                        And the fair white lilies wait.

                        Tall they were, the hedge and lilies,
                        When my little feet ran there;
                        And I laughed and played beside them,
                        But the weary long years hide them,
                        Though I seek them everywhere.

                        I would know it, could I find it;
                        And before I reached the gate,
                        I'd escape long years and pain
                        And would be a child again,
                        Where the tall white lilies wait.

        It is to me a supreme sadness that with my passionate love of every flower that grows, my only garden is that dark and solitary enclosure, where I have wept and suffered and battled with loneliness and despair, my Garden of Gethsemane.

        My mother's garden was a whole acre of blossoms. The splendid Spanish bayonet (Yucca), with its thick pure waxen flower, grew near the gate. The exotic cactus, with its gorgeous blossoms of scarlet, flourished where the sun shone hottest; and there were beds of heart's-ease, forget-me-nots, single pinks and carnations, creeping ice-plant and the delicate sensitive plant, shrubs of crêpe myrtle and althea, with rows of holly-hocks

and gravelled walks thickly bordered with white and pink and purple gillyflowers. And the rose garden was scarcely ever, even in mid-winter, without a few per