If only the oxen or the mules had been in danger, perhaps I would not have been so eager to shoulder my rifle and, in company with Zeba, tramp around and around the animals until midnight. As it was, however, I did my duty faithfully, and when the night was half spent, father came out with John to relieve us. I was so weary that when I crawled into one of the wagons on to the soft feather bed, it seemed to me asif my legs would drop from my body, and my eyes were so heavy with slumber that it was only by the greatest exertion I could keep them open.
When next I was conscious of my surroundings, the rising sun was sending long yellow shafts of light beneath the canvas covering of the wagon; the little chaparral cock was calling out from the pecan motte near at hand, as if to assure me he still stood my friend; while far away could be heard the shrieks, yelps, and barks of the cowardly wolves which had been sneaking around our flock of sheep all night.
I came out of the wagon with a bound, determined that from this on until I had my flock of five thousand sheep, there should be no dallying on my part.
As I started toward thestream for a morning bath, a big black shadow came between me and the sun. Looking up, I saw for the first time a turkey buzzard, his black coat and red crest showing vividly against the sky as he flapped lazily in front of me to alight in the near vicinity of the chaparral cock. I was so superstitious as to believe for the moment that the sudden appearance of this disagreeable-looking bird at the very moment when the little cock was bidding me good morning, threatened disaster to our scheme of making a home and to my plan of raising sheep.
With the air fresh and bracing, the sunlight flooding everything with gold, and even with the dismal shrieks and yelps in the distance, it would have been a pretty poor kind of fellow who could have remained long disheartened, simply because a grumbling old turkey buzzard chanced to fly in front of him.
The stream by the side of which I hoped to live for many a long year was not deep at this season, but clear as crystal, and just cool enough to give me the sensation of being keenly alive when I plunged in head foremost. I floundered about until I heard mother calling for me to hurry while the corn bread was hot, lest I lose my share, for both she and father were ravenously hungry.
While we ate we decided where the cook camp should be put up and how we would care for the cattle, the sheep, and the mules while we were building our house.In fact, very many plans were laid during those ten or fifteen minutes, some of which were carried out at once.
As for the cook shanty, we were not inclined to spend very much time over it. Simply a shelter from the dew and the sun, where mother might be screened from the wind, so she could use the cookstove we had brought with us, was all we needed.
Father intended to build a house of lumber, even though at that time he knew that he would be forced to pay anywhere from twenty to thirty dollars a thousand feet for cheap boards, and then haul them no less than two hundred miles.
After he had told me about the lumber I asked in wonder and surprise if he counted on spending so much money, when we might build a house as the Mexicans do, of adobe brick, with no more timber in it than would serve to hold up a roof of mud. He laughingly replied that when we had made a saw pit, he would show me how we might get out our own building material, and said that I was to have a hand in the manufacture, for he thought I could do my share of the sawing when I was not looking after the cattle or the sheep.
Before leaving home he had made arrangements to keep with us the three negroes whom we had hired in Bolivar County, until we were fairly settled. Therefore we had seven pairs of hands in this house building, which should put the work along in reasonably rapid fashion, even though five of the laborers were not skilled.
We spent no more time at breakfast than was necessary for eating and for roughly sketching out the plans for the day's work. After this each set about his task. I drove the sheep a short distance away toward the farther end of the valley, where they could conveniently get at the water and yet find rich pasturage; John and Zeba picketed out the mules; and father with the three negroes rounded up the cattle.
This done, we set about making a shanty by digging to the depth of two or three feet a space about three yards wide and four yards long, around the sides of which we set branches of pecan trees. We planted poles at the four corners so that we could use the wagon covers for walls and roof.
When this rudest kind of rude building was so far finished that it would screen us from the wind, we set up the cookstove, and mother began what in Bolivar County she would have called her regular Saturday's baking. After this we put on a roof of canvas, pinning the whole down as best we might with mesquite bushes, until we had a shed which would serve, but which was most crude looking.
Although there was nothing on which we could pride ourselves in this first building, it had occupied us nearly the entire day, and I had no more than an hour in which to rest my weary limbs before it was necessary to stand guard over the sheep, lest the wolves carry off the beginnings of my flock.
It was during this night, when it cost not only great effort, but real pain, to keep continually on the move lest I fall asleep, that I decided that at the very first opportunity I would build a corral. While our flock was so small, it would not be a very great task tobuild a pen sufficiently large to hold the animals together, and at the same time shut out the wolves. There were enough mesquite bushes, or trees, to provide me with the necessary material, and I decided upon the place where I would build a pen, figuring in my mind how the work could be best done.
Therefore, when father relieved me at midnight, I had in my mind's eye the first sheep pen put up on theWest Fork of the Trinity, and already in imagination was on the high road to prosperity.
When another morning came, my dreams of what the future might bring me had become decidedly cloudy, for the rain was falling, not furiously, as in the case of a norther or a short-lived tempest, but with a steady downfall which told of a long spell of disagreeable weather, and I was not the only member of our party to come out from the beds in the wagons looking disheartened, and uncomfortably damp.
At our old home in Bolivar County the first sound in the morning which usually broke upon my ear was that of mother's singing as she prepared breakfast. On this day she was in our cook house, but working in silence. So, forgetting my own discomfort in the fear that something might have gone wrong with her, I askedwhy I had not heard her morning song. In reply she pointed first to the heavens, and then to our stock of household belongings, which were strewn here and there where they had been taken from the wagons. To give her cheer, I tried to laugh, saying there was little among our goods which would come to harm because of the rain, and such as might be injured I would quickly get under cover. She replied in an injured tone that father had told her there were few rainstorms in Texas during the year, save when a norther raged.
I ventured to jest with her, by saying most likely it had been arranged for our especial benefit, as we were newcomers in the country and needed to be introduced to all varieties of climate. The light words failed to bring a smile to her lips. So, without loss of time, I set about carrying such of our belongings as might be injured by the rain to the shelter of the wagons, and had hardly more than begun the task when father returned, his face quite as gloomy as mother's.
He tried to apologize for this sort of weather, and began by saying that from all he had learned during his first visit there was little danger that we should be visited by a very long storm.
Even the negroes were out of humor, and althoughthe morning was not cold, all were shivering, and looked as if they had been taking a bath in the stream. I asked Zeba what had happened. In sulky tones he told me that while he had been rounding up the cattle and bunching them at the upper end of the valley, so that they would not stray too far on the prairie, he had been treated to a veritable shower bath from the moisture on the mesquite bushes and the pecan trees.
The chaparral cock was silent. Even the turkey buzzard had forsaken the pecan motte. The mules,which I could see in the distance, were hanging their long ears dejectedly, and the cattle in a most forlorn manner stood humped up with their heads away from the wind. Only the sheep grazed with seeming contentment.
When I went into the cook camp, in order to get my breakfast, I was thinking of the old plantation in Bolivar County, where, when it rained, we had good shelter instead of being homeless in the wilderness, as one might say.
And surely we were in a wilderness, there on the banks of the Trinity, exposed to all the downpour, savewhen we crawled into one of the wagons to shelter ourselves while mother continued her work. There is no need that I should say the breakfast was inviting, for my mother could cook the meanest of food in such a manner that it would appeal to one's appetite, yet we ate as if it were a duty rather than a pleasure to break our fast after so much watching.
When the meal was ended, father set the negroes to gathering up the remainder of our goods that might be injured by dampness, and I, rather than remain idle when there was so much work to be done, took part in the task, until we had nearly everything sheltered.
The only places of refuge against the storm were the miserable shanty we had put up so hastily and the small two-mule wagon in which father and mother had ridden.
We were a mournful-looking company of emigrants, when, the last of the goods having been stowed away, we sat under one of the wagon bodies, while mother continued to work in the shanty regardless of the rain which came in through a hundred crevices.
The negroes gathered about father and me, in order to take advantage of the shelter afforded by the wagon. We remained silent a full ten minutes before father strove to cheer our spirits by suggesting that a stormat this season of the year could not last very many hours, and that by the following morning we should be rejoicing in the heat and the brightness of the sun.
He was at fault in this prediction, however. During the remainder of the day we came out from the shelter now and then to make certain that the cattle, the mules, and the sheep yet remained within the valley, and then crept back once more to keep mournful silence, seldom breaking it, save when the meals were ready.
The rain continued to fall steadily, and yet it was necessary we stand guard against the coyotes, who began to howl, and scream, and bark as soon as night came. No longer dreaming of making my fortune at sheep raising, I went off with Zeba just before darknesscovered the earth, to begin the weary march around and around our herd of cattle and flock of sheep. I was soon drenched to the skin, and wished that father had never been attacked by the Texas fever.
I wondered during that long, wet, disagreeable time of watching where the other newly arrived settlers had begun to make homes in Texas. I knew that hundreds of families near us in Bolivar County, and from Kentucky and Missouri, had come into this republic of Texas, and it seemed, as I thought it over, most singular that we had failed to meet with any of them.
The storm, the darkness, and the irritating calls of the coyotes had so worked upon my mind that I came to believe that all the stories we had heard of people who were to make homes in this new country had been false. It seemed to me that we were the only persons in the United States who had been so foolish as to venture across the Red River with wild dreams of fertile ranches and rapidly increasing herds of cattle or flocks of sheep.
Three days passed before we again rejoiced in the light of the sun. During that time so much discomfort and actual danger had been met that I was sick at heart at the very sound of the name of Texas.
Before the end of the second day we had succeededin making the cook shanty nearly waterproof, by stripping all the wagons of their covers, and pinning the canvas down over the pecan branches. This left our goods exposed to the rain, and many of our belongings were necessarily ruined, although we took little heed of that fact, if only it was possible to give mother some degree of comfort.
On the morning of the third day the valley was dotted here and there with pools of water, showing that the soil had drunk its fill and refused to take in more. In order to move about in the valley, it was necessary at times to wade ankle-deep. The result was that father and I, as well as the negroes, were forced to wear garments saturated with water, since it would have been useless to put on dry clothes, for after an hour of tramping to and fro they would have been in the same wet condition. Yet we had no thought of real danger. There was in our minds simply thepainful idea that we must endure what could not be avoided; we never dreamed that worse was to come.
Just before time for dinner on the third day I noticed that the sheep were making their way rapidly up out of the valley, and, fearing lest they might stray so far that it would be impossible to herd them before nightfall, I followed, leaving father and the negroes crouching under one of the wagon bodies.
To my surprise, when I had walked a few yards fromwhere we were encamped, I found the water in many of the pools nearly ankle-deep, and saw that the western side of the valley, that part farthest from the stream, was literally flooded.
Strange as it may seem, neither father nor I had given any particular heed to the rising of the stream. There was in our minds, dimly perhaps, an idea that the amount of water had increased during this long storm, and we were not disquieted on seeing it come up to the height of the banks; but now, being warned by the depth of water in the valley, I quite forgot the sheep for an instant, and ran back to where I could have a full view of the river.
The flood was already overlapping the banks at the northern end of the valley, a fact which accounted for the quantity of water I had found while going toward the sheep, and I fancied it was possible to hear, far away in the distance, a roaring noise such as a waterfall might produce.
Heedless of the fact that my twelve sheep were stampeded, I ran swiftly along the edge of the stream toward the wagons, shouting wildly that a flood was upon us. I was yet twenty or thirty yards distant when father came out to learn why I was raising such an alarm.
It needed but one glance for him to understand that we were in the gravest danger. Even while I ran, it was possible for me to see the river rising, rising, until what, at the moment I set off to herd the sheep, had been comparatively dry land, was being flooded so rapidly that before I had gained the wagons, they were standing a full inch deep in the water.
Father ran hurriedly, with a look of alarm on his face, toward the cook shanty and shouted for mother to make all haste, to leave everything behind her, and to clamber into one of the wagons. Then, turning to the negroes, he literally drove them out from their shelter, ordering them to round up the mules withoutdelay so we might hitch them to the wagons. It was not necessary that I should be told to obey this command on the instant, even though it was not directed to me. I wheeled about, intending to turn the mules in the direction of the wagons, leaving the slaves to bring up the harness, but while doing so, I saw that we were too late by at least three or four minutes, for the mules, having already taken alarm by the rising of the water, were making their way at a quick pace up the incline which led to the higher land, following directly behind the sheep.
Probably, if I had moved more cautiously, I might have circled around them, and thus checked their flight until the negroes could come up; but I was so thoroughly alarmed by the rapid rise of the water and the ominous roaring in the distance, that I set off at full speed directly toward the animals, and in a twinkling they broke into a gallop, stampeding the sheep by plunging among them.
As if this was not sufficient disaster, the cattle, which had been feeding fully a mile farther down the valley, now wheeled suddenly about in alarm, and set off over the ridge, bellowing with fear, their tails swinging high in the air.
So unreasoning was I in the sudden fright whichhad come upon me, that I failed to realize it would be useless to pursue any of our live stock, until father shouted for me to turn back without loss of time. His voice, even though he was no more than two hundred yards away, came dimly to my ears because of the increasing roar in the distance, which sounded more and more threatening each instant.
When I gathered my wits about me sufficiently to obey the command, I saw that he, with the negroes, was striving desperately to haul one of the heavy wagons from the bank of the stream; but so sodden with water was the earth that the wheels sank into the soft surface to the depth of two or three inches, and, struggle as they might, it could not be moved a single pace.
"Gather up the spare clothing, and take your mother with you!" father shouted as I came up to where the black men were standing dumbly by the side of the wagon they had so vainly attempted to haul. I cried out dully, grown stupid with fear, asking where I should go with mother; but even while speaking, I had sufficient common sense remaining to pull out from amongour belongings as many water-soaked garments as I could get my hands on.
"Go to the high land!" father shouted, and literally dragged mother out from her seat in the wagon, where she had been crouching since the water flooded the cook camp. She had her wits about her sufficiently to understand what father would have us do. Calling on me to follow, she took from my arms a portion of the burden and set off straight across that increasing flood of water in the direction taken by the animals. She realized that they, prompted by instinct, would lead the way to the highest point of land.
Thus we two, mother and I, abandoned father and all our belongings, and it surely seemed as if we were leaving him to a terrible fate. I would have come to a full stop in order to urge him to follow us, but mother called out that I should not slacken pace. She said that he knew better than we what should be done, and that he would follow without loss of time.
It seemed to me that we had no sooner gained the top of the bank, and from there the highest point of one of the prairie hills, when, looking around, I saw father and the negroes coming at full speed, as if fleeing from death itself. And this really was the case, as I saw a few seconds later. I would have run toward the edge of the valley in the hope of helping them, but mother held me back.
The roar of the coming flood was deafening. Father and the slaves were yet clambering up the side of the valley when I saw, coming down the channel of the river, a raging torrent which bore on its surface trunks of trees such as would have dealt death to any one who might have been in their line of advance. On the waters were fragments of wood, bunches of mesquite bushes, and I fancied now and then the body of an ox; but it was all a scene of confusion, of noise, and of menace.
During perhaps ten seconds I felt certain father would be swept away by the raging stream which was filling the valley. The torrent swelled until the crest of the muddy waves swept against Zeba's legs, for he was the last of that little company struggling to save his life. Not one moment too soon did father and the negroes gain the high land. They were hardly in safety when all our valley was filled with water, and I knew that beneath the flood was everything we owned in the world save the live stock.
Father came swiftly on until he stood by mother's side, clasping both her hands. But he spoke not a word, and I realized that we had come from Bolivar County with all our belongings only to have them swept away, and that we were destitute.
As I saw a huge pecan tree, tossing and rolling on the brown waves, I asked myself if such a monster could be thrown about like a straw, what must become of our wagons in the valley?
It was much like mockery to see the clouds breaking away immediately after all the mischief had been done. Before we had been upon the high land ten minutes the clouds gave way here and there, until we could see a glint of the sun. The rain ceased falling, and he would have been a poor weather prophet indeedwho could not have foretold that the long storm had come to an end; but, as I said bitterly to myself, it had brought with it the end of all our dreams.
The cattle, mules, and sheep had stampeded. Far away in the distance I could see that little flock of mine, and yet farther beyond them, barely to be distinguished by the naked eye, were the cattle.
The mules had disappeared entirely, and I, who was ignorant of a ranchman's work, believed for the moment that we had seen the last of every head of stock and that we could never round them up again.
I looked to see father overwhelmed with sorrow, and,therefore, great was my surprise when I heard him say cheerily:—
"It is well that we had this experience early in our Texan life, else the disaster might have been greater. Now we know it would be in the highest degree unwise to build our home in the valley, for if the stream rises in flood once, it will again, and we might lose our lives. It will not require any great length of time for us to make good the damage that has been done."
It almost vexed me that he should speak so lightly of what seemed to me a disaster which could not be repaired. When I asked how matters might possibly be worse, he replied laughingly that we were still alive, our stock would not stray so far but that we could soon herd them up, and there were many things in the wagons which would not be seriously harmed by the wetting.
To this day I am inclined to believe he put the best face possible upon the matter, so that mother might not grieve, and certainly his cheery words helped us all. What was more to the purpose, the fact that he set each one some task to perform prevented us from dwelling upon the possibilities of the future.
The storm had cleared away like magic; within half an hour from the time our valley was flooded and therain had ceased falling, the sun was shining brightly. The waters were no longer rising, and I did not need father to tell me they must, as a matter of course, subside quite as quickly as they had come.
Already I fancied that the tide was falling and that the torrent swept past with less force. I would have stood idly watching it, but that father insisted I should go with him and the negroes to a motte of pecans a short distance away, there to set about putting up a shelter for mother's comfort.
It was well we were forced to work to the utmost of our power, and so we did. When night came, mother at least had a shelter over her head. The black menand I were content to lie down anywhere beneath the mesquite bushes, and there we slept soundly as if no disaster had overtaken us. There was no need of standing guard against the wolves, for we no longer had anything save ourselves to watch over.
When I expressed my fear that the wolves might kill the greater number of our sheep, father insisted that there was more than a possibility that all the flock would be found; and he promised that if any were killed during the night, he would make my loss good from his own share of the flock.
When I awoke the first rays of the sun were falling through the mesquite bushes fairly upon my face. A jack rabbit, his long ears flapping comically as he humped across the prairie, stopped when he was nearly opposite the motte of pecans to wonder who these people were, who had come to disturb him. This was the first object to meet my gaze, and however great might have been the sorrow in my heart, I could not have kept from laughing long and loud at the ridiculous creature.
I soon saw, however, that his clownish appearance was not to be counted strongly against him, for, startled by my rising quickly, he darted away with the fleetness of a deer. I question whether, if my rifle had beenat that moment in my hands ready for use, I could have done more than take aim before he was out of sight among the bushes.
Then came a cheery good morning, as I interpreted it, from a chaparral cock, and I fancied it was the same fellow who had welcomed us to the valley. Following this friendly morning greeting came the screaming of a bird which I afterward knew was called a killdeer. I was wondrously cheered by the sight and sounds of life around.
Then came the work of the day, the first for me being to build a fire, even though there was nothing to be cooked. It had been my duty at home in Bolivar County to perform this service, and unwittingly I did it then, not remembering the fact that all our provisions were at the bottom of that brown flood. Mother asked, as she came out from her poor shelter, why I thought it necessary to start a blaze. I looked dumbly back at the valley which we had left in such haste, and to my surprise saw the tops of the wagons just appearing above the surface of the water, so rapidly had the torrent subsided. Father said laughingly, as if it was a matter which amused him exceedingly:—
"We will wait for breakfast until we can get a sideof bacon from one of the wagons, unless you, Philip, are inclined to dive beneath the water for one."
It was evident we were to have little to eat during that day if we depended upon rescuing anything eatable from the flood. So I suddenly determined that I would not be outdone by father in cheerfulness and proposed that John go with me in search of the cattle.
"I am thinking all of us must take a hand in that work," father said. Then turning to mother, he asked if she would be willing to remain there among the pecan trees alone while we roamed the prairie in search of the cattle.
It was a useless question, for my mother was a woman who always stood ready to do that which came to her hand, regardless of her own pleasure or inclination.
We set off at once, hungry as we were, on what I thought would be a useless journey. I was prepared to tramp all day, if necessary, without getting sight of a single animal belonging to us, and yet, greatly to my surprise, an hour before noon we came upon the entire flock of sheep with never a one missing. They were feeding as peacefully as if they had been herded by a better shepherd than I ever claimed to be.
Gyp, who had kept close to my heels from the time thewaters first came down upon us, now seemed to recover his spirits. For the first time since we had been forced to flee for our lives he gave vent to a series of joyful barks, running around and around the flock as if he had been ordered to do so.
Father proposed that Gyp and I return with the flock to where mother was waiting, while he and the negroes continued in search of the cattle and mules. Against this I was not inclined to make any protest, for it had worried me not a little because she was alone, although I failed to understand how any harm could come to her.
When the afternoon was about half spent, the negroes that father had hired as mule drivers came in with all our herd of oxen and cows. They reported that father, with John and Zeba, had kept on having seen the mules far away in the distance, and it was reasonable to suppose they would return to usbefore night had set in. This they did not do, however, and mother and I were troubled because of their absence, yet we could do nothing but sit there, idly watching the sheep and gazing down now and then into the valley to mark the ebb of the waters.
Half an hour before sunset, when the wagons stood out plainly in view, with the flood hardly more than upto their axles, I called upon the negroes to follow me, and we set out to look among our belongings for something to eat.
After searching about we came upon a side of bacon, which looked but little the worse for its long bath, save that it was coated in a most unpleasant fashion with mud. Thinking it impossible for us to find any other thing in condition for eating until after it had been well dried, we turned to the grove of pecans with our small prize.
I built a fire near where mother's shelter of branches and leaves had been set up. Then from the mesquite bushes I cut twigs which would serve as forks to hold the meat in front of the blaze. After this I carved the bacon with the knife from my belt, and mother broiled slice after slice, the savory odor causing me to realize how exceedingly hungry I was.
We ate heartily, almost greedily. When our hunger had been partly satisfied, we sat down to await the coming of father, speculating upon his prolonged absence, until we had imagined that all sorts of evil had befallen him.
He who crosses a bridge before he comes to it, or, in other words, the man or the lad who looks into the future for trouble, proves himself to be foolish, for allthe worry of mind one may suffer will not change events by so much as a hair's breadth.
If mother and I had remained there talking of this thing or of that which had happened in Bolivar County, and not looking out across the prairie with the idea that harm had befallen father, then the evening might have been a pleasant one; but instead, we were almost distracted with fear, until about midnight, when the trampling of hoofs in the distance told us that the mules had been rounded up.
It seemed strange to me,when father and the negroes came into camp, bringing the mules with them, that in the stampede we had not lost a single animal. Every ox, cow, mule, and sheep that had been with us in the valley before the flood was now returned and herded in front of the pecan motte as peacefully as though nothing had occurred. But not far away we could hear the snarling, shrieking, and barking of the coyotes which served almost to make it seem as if that flood had been no more than a disagreeable dream.
That night the hired negroes and I stood watch. Father, John, and Zeba had traveled so far afoot, and were so weary that I could not have the heart to rouse them when it came time for our relief from duty, and so we paced around the herds and flock until daylight.
When the first rays of the sun glinted all the foliage around us with gold, it was possible for me to look down into the valley from which we had fled, and get some slight idea of the misfortune that had overtaken us.
Because of the weight of the wagons, and owing to the fact that they were heavily laden with farming tools and such things as would not float, they had hardly been disturbed. Also, owing, I suppose, in a great degree, to their being sunk so far in the mud after the first onrush of the torrent, they had not been knocked about to any extent.
As a matter of course everything, including the grass, was covered with mud; but the water, except here and there where it stood in small pools on the surface, had retreated to its proper place between the banks, and there was nothing to prevent us from caring for our goods.
Mother cooked all that was left of the bacon, after which, with hunger still gnawing at our stomachs, we went down to set our belongings to rights, and a wearisome day it was.
The harness of the mules had been swept downstream so far that we did not come upon any portion of it until the day was nearly done. Therefore, we could not make any effort toward dragging the wagons to the hard ground, but were forced to carry in our hands every article which it was necessary to spread out upon the clean grass to dry.
About nightfall, after having found enough harness for one team of mules, we succeeded in getting a single cart up to where mother's camp had been made. Then it began to look as if we had really taken possession of this portion of Texas, for all around were spread clothing, bedding, household furniture, farming tools, and this thing and that which went to make up the cargo we had brought from Bolivar County.
The wagon covers which had been spread over our cook camp had floated down the stream beyond the possibility of our finding them before another day. Therefore, that night, my mother slept once more in her shelter of branches and leaves; father and I made a bed for ourselves in the water-soaked wagon; and the negroes, or such of them as were not on duty guarding the cattle, lay down on the ground beneath it.
From this on we had plenty with which to occupy our hands as well as our minds. There was ever thenecessity of keeping the cattle rounded up, the sheep herded, and the mules from straying, and all this was the more difficult because they were now on the prairie instead of in the valley.
Father was determined that his first work in this new country should be the building of a house, and very shortly after the flood subsided, I understood what he meant, when he spoke of my taking a hand in getting out the lumber.
First, as a matter of course, we hauled the other wagons out of the valley, making a small corral with them near the pecan motte where we had decided tobuild a home. Then we hunted during a full day along the banks of the river for such of our belongings as had been carried away by the flood, and found everything of value before the search was ended.
Two of the negroes were told off to guard the flock and the herd, either father or I keeping a sharp eye on them meanwhile, lest they should neglect their duties. After the ground plan of our house was staked out, father blazed such of the trees as he decided must be felled in order to provide us with lumber.
The negroes were set at work cutting these down, while father made his preparations for that sawmill which amused me before it was finished, and caused my back and arms to ache sorely before it had fully served its purpose.
Perhaps you may not be able to understand how we could convert the trunks of trees into lumber without a sawmill, nor did I at first; but, as I have said, I soon came to have a very clear and painful idea of how it might be done.
First a deep trench eight or ten feet long, and perhaps four feet wide, was dug in the prairie near where the trees had been felled. At either end of this trench, standing perhaps three feet above the surface, was a scaffolding of small timbers.
When the first tree was down and had been trimmed of its branches, all hands were called to raise it up on these two scaffolds, and there it lay, each end projecting four or five feet beyond the uprights.