THE SPANISH DAGGER IN BLOOMTHE SPANISH DAGGER IN BLOOM.
It is a cold, drear March where the north star shines high overhead; but here, where it seems suddenly to have lost its balance and to have dropped low in the brilliant night, March is like June. It is June indeed, June with its wealth ofgrasses, its noble avenue of magnolias, its great green spread of live-oaks—most magnificent of Southern trees; June with its soft balm, and its sweet sunshine, and its perfume-laden air. And if you have never seen the pole star in the sky of the north, where the star is almost directly over your head, you cannot realize how strange a sight it is to see it so low in the sky as it is here.
There is a large garden in this city—it is, in fact, a part of the city proper. It was once a beautiful faubourg, now known as the Garden District, where the people live outdoors in a fine old aristocratic way, and where all the beauty in nature seen in the other sections of the city seems to be outdone. Very many rare old homes are in this garden region, with its deep hedges and ample grounds, inclosed in high stone walls, and a wealth of flowers and noble courts and an abounding hospitality. But what, after all, are houses to a people that lives outdoors? Conveniences only; for such a people, better than houses are the air of the open, the scent of the roses, the blue of the Southern sky, the vast, strong sweep of the brilliant stars!
If we pause here along this street where run such every-day things as electric street-cars, weshall see on one side of the splendid avenue a smooth-paved roadway for the carriages, on the other a course for the horsemen, and in the center a noble inner avenue of trees set in a velvet-like carpet of grass; and here and there along the way, almost in touch of your hand from the open car window, appears the Spanish dagger, with its green, sharp blades and its snowy, showy plume. Not far away stands a lowly negro cabin, where the sun beats down hot and fierce upon a great straggling rose-bush, reaching up to the eaves, beating back the rays of the sun defiantly and gaining fresh strength in the struggle. On such a bush one day I counted two hundred and ninety roses.
This city which lives outdoors must play most in the open, and in its noble park, with its vast stretches of bright green, here empurpled by masses of the dainty grass-flower, there yellowing with the sheen of the buttercup, one finds the tireless golf-players leisurely strolling over the links; from yonder come the cries of the boys at ball; and in the farther distance you may see through the frame-like branches of a giant live-oak the students of a great university hard set at a game of tennis. And yet—is it the air, or therace, or the traditions?—something it is which makes the sportsmen, like the spring, seem slow to move.
FAR IN THE PINEY WOODS.FAR IN THE PINEY WOODS.
And here even the palms grow outdoors in the city yards. And should you go past the city's limits, and yet within seeing distance of its blue-tiled housetops, you will find the palms growing rank in the great swamps, which you must search if you care to hunt for the languid alligators—palms growing so thick and rank that it is quite like looking into some vast conservatory, with the blue dome of the sky for glass. And here grow the magnolias in their wild, barbaric splendor of bloom, and the live-oaks, mighty of girth and spread, draped in somber gray moss as if for the funeral of some god of the deep green wood. At the fringe of the swamp, tempting you until near to jumping into the morass after them, are the huge fleurs-de-lis, each gorgeous blossomfully seven inches across its purple top.
To the north, somewhat apart from the reach of the treacherous river, lie the health-giving piny woods, and along the big, sullen stream the sugar plantations, some of them still the home of a lavish hospitality, some of them transformed into mere places of trade, where thrift and push haveelbowed out all that fine gallantry and ease and ample hospitality of an earlier day—that hospitality which will ever remain a leading characteristic of the people. To be a Southern man or a Southern woman and to be inhospitable—that is not possible in the nature of things.
A PICTURESQUE FRONT IN THE FRENCH QUARTER.A PICTURESQUE FRONT IN THE FRENCH QUARTER.
It is, when all is said and done, on the gallery that this city lives most of its life—on the gallery even more than on the evening-thronged banquette, which is the sidewalk of the North, or the boulevards, or even the fragrant parks, where life flows in a fair, placid stream. Some there must be who toil by day in shop, or at counter, or in dim accounting-rooms, or on the floors of the marts where fortunes are made and lost in sugar or cotton or rice. For such the gallery is a haven of rest. If they must pass the earlier day indoors, for them the gallery during the long, late afternoon, and the ghost of a twilight, and the long evenings far into the starry night. The ghost of a twilight indeed—the South knows no other. Sometimes I have watched the long, splendid twilight come down over the wild Canadian forest—slowly delaying; creeping up the low mountains; halting from hour to hour in the glades below; shade after shade in the glorioussky of the west gradually merging into the dimness of the oncoming dusk; the moments passing so slowly, the day fading so elusively, until, at last, when even the low moon has hung out its silver sign in the west and the stars are pricking through, it is still twilight along the lower earth. And still farther to the north, around the globe in the far upper Europe, with the polar circle below you, it is like living on a planet of eternal day to sit through the northern light and feel about you the all-pervasive twilight of the land of the midnight sun. But the night is so hasty here, and the day is swift; and between them runs but a slender, dim thread.
OLD PLANTATION VILLA ON ANNUNCIATION STREET.OLD PLANTATION VILLA ON ANNUNCIATION STREET.
The gallery is a feature of every house in this city that lives outdoors, be it big or little, humble or grand, or lowly or mean. It is on the first floor or the second, or even the third, though the third it seldom reaches, for few people care for houses of great height. Indeed, there are hundreds of homes of but one story, full of the costliest tokens of the taste of an artistic people. And the soil below is so like a morass that ample space must be left between floor and earth; while as for cellars, I have heard of but two in all the great city. Thegallery may run around the entire house, flanked and set off by splendid pillars with capitals rich and ornate; it may run across one end of the residence and be a marvel of rich ironwork, as fine as art and handicraft can make it, with, mayhap, the figures of its field outlined in some bit of color, as gold or green; it may be but a single cheap wooden affair, paintless, dingy, dilapidated, weather-worn, and stained with neglect; but a gallery it is still, an important social feature of this outdoor life.
Over the gallery grow the roses; out near at hand a bignonia-vine lifts its yellow flare aloft and throws down a fluttering shower of bell-like blooms, and all the air is heavy with the scents of the South. So through the long evening the people sit upon the gallery and chat or read or sing or doze or plan or discuss their family affairs. By day the galleries are protected with gay-colored awnings or those filmy woven sheets of reeds which keep out the glare and let through the light and the fragrant breeze. Children make of the gallery a play-house; young people here entertain their friends; the elders discuss the affairs of a nation or dwell on that wonderful pastthrough which this ancient Southern city has come tumultuously down through the lines of Castilian and Saxon and Gaul.
OLD SPANISH HOUSES.OLD SPANISH HOUSES.
If you should take your map of the United States and run your finger far down its surface until it rested upon the largest city in all the beautiful South, and the metropolis of a vast inner empire which holds two civilizations, one French-Spanish, one American, both slowly, very slowly, merging through the centuries; or, better still, if you should stroll along the streets on a sweet March day, peering into its curious quarters, watching the beautiful little children and the dark-eyed men and the gaily dressed women and all the throngs of people, city people who cannever long remain away from the green fields and the noble old trees and the scent of the roses—then you could not fail to hit upon this charming old place, New Orleans—in many ways the most interesting of all the cities in America, the beautiful city that lives outdoors.
I wonder if my readers realize what a story of the vast extent of our country is told by its rivers?
Every variety of river in the world seems to have a cousin in our collection. What other country on the face of the globe affords such an assortment of streams for fishing and boating and swimming and skating—besides having any number of streams on which you can do none of these things? One can hardly imagine rivers like that; but we have them, plenty of them, as you shall see.
As for fishing, the American boy may cast his flies for salmon in the Arctic circle, or angle for sharks under a tropical sun in Florida, without leaving the domain of the American flag. But the fishing-rivers are not the most curious, nor the most instructive as to diversity of climate, soil, and that sort of thing—physical geography, the teacher calls it.
A LIVE-OAK WITH SPANISH MOSS.A LIVE-OAK WITH SPANISH MOSS.
For instance, if you want to get a good idea of what tropical heat and moisture will do for a country, slip your canoe from a Florida steamer into the Ocklawaha River. It is as odd as its name, and appears to be hopelessly undecided as to whether it had better continue in the fish and alligator and drainage business, or devote itself to raising live-oak and cypress-trees, with Spanish moss for mattresses as a side product.
In this fickle-minded state it does a little of all these things, so that when you are really on the river you think you are lost in the woods; and when you actually get lost in the woods, you are quite confident your canoe is at last on the river. This confusion is due to the low, flat country, and the luxuriance of a tropical vegetation.
To say that such a river overflows its banks would hardly be correct; for that would imply that it was not behaving itself; besides, it has n't any banks—or, at least, very few! The fact is, those peaceful Florida rivers seem to wander pretty much where they like over the pretty peninsula without giving offense; but if Jack Frost takes such a liberty—presto! you should see how the people get afterhimwith weather-bulletins and danger-signals and formidable smudges. Sothe Ocklawaha River and a score of its kind roam through the woods,—or maybe it is the woods that roam through them,—and the moss sways from the live-oaks, and the cypress trees stick their knees up through the water in the oddest way imaginable.
In Florida one may have another odd experience: a river ride in an ox-cart. Florida rivers are usually shallow, and when the water is high you can travel for miles across country behind oxen, with more or less river under you all the way. There are ancient jokes about Florida steamboats that travel on heavy dews, and use spades for paddle-wheels.
But those of you who have been on its rivers know there is but one Florida, with its bearded oaks and fronded palms; its dusky woods, carpeted with glassy waters; its cypress bays, where lonely cranes pose, silently thoughtful (of stray polliwogs); and its birds of wondrous plumage that rise with startled splash when the noiseless canoe glides down upon their haunts.
MOSS-DRAPED LIVE-OAKS.MOSS-DRAPED LIVE-OAKS.
Every strange fowl and every hideous reptile, every singular plant and every tangled jungle, will tell the American boy how far he is to the south. Florida is, in fact, his corner of the tropics; and the clear waters of its rivers, stained tobrown and wine-color with the juices of a tropical vegetation, will tell him, if he reads nature's book, how different the sandy soil of the South is from the yellow mold of the great Western plains.
Such a boy hardly need ask the conductor how far west he is if he can catch a glimpse of one of the rivers. All the rivers of the plains are alike full of yellow mud, because the soil of the plains melts at the touch of water. These are our spendthrift rivers, full to the banks at times, but most of the year desperately in need of water. It is only with the greatest effort that they can keep their places in the summer: there is just a scanty thread of water strung along a great, rambling bed of sand, to restrain Dame Nature from revoking their licenses to run and turning them into cattle-ranches.
No wonder that fish refuse to have anything to do with such streams, and refuse tempting offers of free worms, free transportation, and protection from the fatal nets. Fancy trying to raise a family of little fish, and not knowing one day where water is coming from the next!
Not but what there is water enough at times; only, those rivers of the great plains, like the Platte and the Kansas and the Arkansas, are sowasteful of their supply in the spring that by July they are gasping for a shower. So, part of the year they revel in luxury, and during the rest they go shabby—like shiftless people.
But the irrigation engineers have lately discovered something wonderful about even these despised rivers. During the very driest seasons, when the stream is apparently quite dry, there is still a great body of water running in the sand. Like a vast sponge, the sand holds the water, yet it flows continually, just as if it were in plain sight, but more slowly of course. The volume may be estimated by the depth and breadth of the sand. One pint of it will hold three quarters of a pint of water. This is called the underground flow, and is peculiar to this class of rivers. By means of ditches this water may be brought to the surface for irrigation.
Scattered among the foot-hills of the Rockies are rivers still more wilful in their habits. Instead of keeping to their duties in a methodical way, they rush their annual work through in a month or two; then they take long vacations. For months together they carry no water at all; and one may plant and build and live and sleep in their deserted beds—but beware! Without warning,they resume active business. Maybe on a Sunday, or in the middle of the night, a storm-cloud visits the mountains. There is a roar, a tearing, a crashing, and down comes a terrible wall of water, sweeping away houses and barns and people. No fishing, no boating, no swimming, no skating on those treacherous rivers; only surprise and shock and disaster!
So different that they seem to belong in a different world are the great inter-mountain streams, like the Yellowstone and the Colorado.
They flow through landscapes of desolate grandeur, vast expanses compassed by endless mountain-ranges that chill the bright skies with never-melting snows. The countless peaks look down on the clouds, while far below the clouds wind valleys that the sunlight never reaches. Twisting in gloomy dusk through these valleys, a gaping cañon yawns. Peering fearfully into its black, forbidding depths, an echo reaches the ear. It is the fury of a mighty river, so far below that only a sullen roar rises to the light of day. With frightful velocity it rushes through a channel cut during centuries of patience deep into the stubborn rock. Now mad with whirlpools, now silently awful with stretches of green water, thatwait to lure the boatman to death, the mighty river rushes darkly through the Grand Colorado Cañon.
No sport, no fun, no frolic there. Here are only awe-inspiring gloom and grandeur, and dangers so hideous that only a handful of men have ever braved them—fewer still survived.
Grandest of American rivers though it is, you will be glad to get away from it to a noble stream like the Columbia, to a headstrong flood like the Missouri, or an inland sea like the Mississippi; on them at least you can draw a full breath and speak aloud without a feeling that the silent mountains may fall on you or the raging river swallow you up.
In the vast territory lying between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean the rivers are fast being harnessed for a work that will one day make the most barren spots fertile. Irrigation is claiming every year more of the flow of Western rivers. Even the tricksy old Missouri is contributing somewhat to irrigation, but in the queerest possible way.
With all its other eccentricities, the Missouri River leaks badly; for you know there are leaky rivers as well as leaky boats. The governmentengineers once measured the flow of the Missouri away up in Montana, and again some hundred miles further down stream. To their surprise, they found that the Missouri, instead of growing bigger down stream, as every rational river should, was actually 20,000 second-feet[2]smaller at the lower point.
Now, while 20,000 second-feet could be spared from such a tremendous river, that amount of water makes a considerable stream of itself. Many very celebrated rivers never had so much water in their lives. Hence there was great amazement when the discrepancy was discovered. But of late years Dakota farmers away to the south and east of those points on the Missouri, sinking artesian wells, found immense volumes of water where the geologists said there would n't be any. So it is believed that the farmers have tapped the water leaking from that big hole in the Missouri River away up in Montana; and from these wells they irrigate large tracts of land, and, naturally, they don't want the river-bedmended. Fancy what a blessing it is, when the weather is dry, to have a river boiling out of your well, ready to flow where you want it over the wheat-fields! For of all manner of work that a river can be put to, irrigation is, I think, the most useful. But isn't that a queer way for the Missouri to wander about underneath the ground?
(Author of "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch")
"Jes' look at dat ornery little nigger!" exclaimed Aunt Melvy, as she deposited a basket of clothes on the cabin floor. "I lef her to clean up, an' to put de 'taters on to bile, an' to shoo de flies offen de twinses, an' I wisht you 'd look at her!"
Nell Tracy, who had come down with Aunt Melvy from the big house on the hill, viewed the culprit ruefully. 'Mazin' Grace was Aunt Melvy's eighth daughter, and had been named for her mother's favorite hymn, which began "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound." She was very short and very fat, and her kinky hair was plaited into ten tight pigtails, each of which was bound with a piece of leather shoe-string. At present she sat with her back propped against the door, her mouth wide open, and slept peacefully while the flood of her mother's wrath passed over her.
"'MAZIN' GRACE SLEPT PEACEFULLY.""'MAZIN' GRACE SLEPT PEACEFULLY."
"Oh, but, Aunt Melvy, won't you please let her come?" begged Nell, throwing off her sun-bonnet and letting down a tangle of yellow curls. "I have n't got anybody to play with me. Mother drove to town with father, and she said I was to get 'Mazin' Grace to stay with me."
"Why, I'se gwine to let her come, honey," said Aunt Melvy, "co'se I is. I wouldn't mek you cry fer nothin'! Only, I'se gwine to whup her fust. She ain't 'sponsible on her word, dat's what's de matter wid her. She done 'low to me she would n't wink her eyeball while I was gone. What you think I ketch her doin' one time?" Aunt Melvy's voice sank to a whisper. "She sewed, on a Sunday! She knowed as well as me dat w'en she gits to heben she'll hab to pick out ebery one ob dem stitches wid her nose."
Nell looked at the sleeper's round pug-nose and wondered how she would ever be able to do it. But it was no use thinking of the punishment in the next world, when an immediate whipping was promised in this; consequently she turned the whole battery of her eloquence upon AuntMelvy, who in the end gave in.
"'AND I AM GOING TO WEAR THE WATERMELON STOCKINGS,' CRIED NELL.""'AND I AM GOING TO WEAR THE WATERMELON STOCKINGS,' CRIED NELL."
Ten minutes later the two little playmates were skipping down the avenue under the shady oldbeech-trees where their fathers had played together in the long ago.
"Is yer maw gwine lemme tek you to de Christian an' Debil Society?" asked 'Mazin' Grace, as they skirted the house, and made their way into the back yard.
"Yes," cried Nell, gleefully, "and I am going to wear the watermelon stockings!"
If 'Mazin' Grace had not been so black, a cloud might have been seen passing over her face. She was the sharer of all Nell's woes, and of all but one of her joys. The exception was the possession of the watermelon stockings.
These were a sort of heirloom among the children of the family, and were regarded with reverence and pride. They were of a peculiar shade of pink silk, with clockwork up the sides and sprays of white flowers embroidered over the instep. A long time ago they had belonged to Cousin Mary, who was quite a big girl now, and she had sent them to Uncle Robert's boy up in Ohio. He learned to waltz in them, and in time sent them to little Agnes in Virginia, who wore them for a year on state occasions, then sent them back to Kentucky to little Cousin Nell.
If ever a tempted soul longed for a forbiddentreasure, 'Mazin' Grace longed for the watermelon stockings. "Effen they was mine, I'd give you one anyways," she argued with Nell, but to no avail.
In the back yard stood a big old chicken-coop, which had been cleaned out and nicely whitewashed for the children to use as a play-house. It had an upstairs and a downstairs, and a square little door that fastened on the outside with a wooden peg. Nell could climb in easily; but 'Mazin' Grace was too fat, and after many efforts she had given up, contenting herself with watching the play from outside.
To-day a doll funeral was in progress, and Nell, moving comfortably about inside the coop, arranged the broken bits of china in a spool-box, tied a sweeping piece of crape on her biggest doll, and allowed her imagination full swing in depicting the grief of the doll family.
'Mazin' Grace, sitting under the apple-tree outside, took little interest in the proceedings. The hot sun beat down on the long stretch of blue-grass, and up from the creek came the warm odor of mint; a fat old bumblebee hummed close to her head, but she did not stir. She was thinking about the watermelon stockings.
"NELL TIED A SWEEPING PIECE OF CRAPE ON HER BIGGEST DOLL.""NELL TIED A SWEEPING PIECE OF CRAPE ON HER BIGGEST DOLL."
Presently she began to move stealthily toward the coop, watching Nell cautiously from the corner of her eyes. "Ain't nobody to home but me an' her," she whispered to herself, "an' there wouldn't nobody know, an'—" With a deft movement she closed the small door and fastened it with the wooden peg. Then she turned, and, leaving the unconscious prisoner, sped softly up the garden path, through the basement, and up the stairs.
In Mrs. Tracy's bedroom was a wide old mahogany dresser with big glass knobs that seemed to glare unwinking reproof at 'Mazin' Grace as she opened the bottom drawer.
"Dis heah is where dey stays at," she said, tossing aside ribbons and laces in her eagerness. "Oh, goody, goody! Heah dey is!"
Tearing away the tissue-paper, she gazed with delight at the coveted stockings. The knobs might glare as much as they liked; the sparrows might scold themselves hoarse on the window-sill; 'Mazin' Grace was lost in the rapture of the moment, and refused to consider consequences. She traced the pattern of the embroidery with her stubby finger, she rubbed the silk against her cheek, and even tied one stocking around her head and stood on tiptoe to see the result in the mirror. The more she handled them the more reckless she became.
"I 'spect I 'se gwine to try dese heah stockin's on!" she said, with a giggle, as she drew the silken lengths over her bare, dusty feet. "GeeBob! Ain't them scrumptious! I look lak a shore-'nuff circus lady!"
"CATCHING HER RAGGED SKIRTS IN EITHER HAND, SHE BOWED LOW TO HER IMAGE.""CATCHING HER RAGGED SKIRTS IN EITHER HAND, SHE BOWED LOW TO HER IMAGE."
She tipped the mirror in order to get the full reflection, and stood for a moment entranced.Then catching her ragged skirts in either hand, she bowed low to her image, and, after cutting a formal and elaborate pigeonwing, settled down to a shuffle that shook the floor. Music and motion were as much a part of 'Mazin' Grace as her brown skin and her white teeth. All Aunt Melvy's piety had failed to convince her of the awful wickedness of "shaking her foot" and "singing reel chunes." She danced now with utter abandon, and the harder she danced the louder she sang:
"Suzanne Goffin, don't you cry;Take dat apron from your eye.Don't let de niggers see you sigh;You'll git a pahtner by an' by."
The small figure with its flying pigtails swayed and swung, and the pink legs darted in and out. Backward, forward, right glide, left glide, two skips sidewise. Her breath was almost gone, but she rallied her forces for a grand finale. With a curtsy to the bedpost and hands all around, she dashed into the rollicking ecstasy of the "Mobile Buck":
"Way up yonder in de moon,Yaller gal lickin' a silver spoon.Cynthy, my darlin', who tol' you so?Cynthy, my darlin', how do you know?"
As she dropped panting on the floor, something arrested her attention. She held up her head and sniffed the air. It was a familiar odor that roused her conscience as nothing else could have done. Something burning usually meant that she had failed to watch the stove, and that catastrophe usually meant a whipping. She scrambled to her feet and ran to the window. Over across the road, the big barn where Mr. Tracy stored his grain was wrapped in flames. The wind was blowing from that direction, and it fanned the smoke into 'Mazin' Grace's eyes.
"Gee! Dat was a spark of fire," she cried, as she snatched her hand from the window-sill. She climbed out of the window upon the porch, and looked anxiously up and down the road. Nothing was to be seen save the long stretch of empty turnpike, with the hot sun beating down upon it. As she turned to go back inside the window, she stopped, horrified. On the cornice of the roof above her a glowing ember was smoldering dangerously. 'Mazin' Grace wrung her hands.
"Mammy said I was gwine to git burned up fer bein' so wicked. An' Marse Jim's house, what's belonged to we-all sence de wah! An' de settin'-room where we hangs up our stockin's ebery Christmas! An' dere ain't nobody to takekeer ob it all but me! Oh, Lordy! Lordy! what mus' I do?—what mus' I do?"
As she stood there, wild-eyed and tearful, a thought made its way through the kinky hair into her bewildered brain. She darted back into the house, and reappeared with a broom.
"I'se gwine up dat ladder," she said with grim determination, "an' I'se gwine to sweep dem sparks off. An' effen I can't sweep 'em off I kin spank 'em out."
The fire at the barn was now raging; great volumes of smoke swept toward the house, heavily laden with live embers. 'Mazin' Grace, choking and frightened, wielded her broom with telling effect; no sooner did a spark touch the roof than it was brushed off into the long grass below. But they were coming faster and faster, and, watch as she would, she could not keep some of them from igniting the dry shingles. From side to side she scrambled, sweeping, beating, fighting the fire with all the strength in her little body. Her eyes smarted fiercely, her feet were bruised, the heat was suffocating; but 'Mazin' Grace never thought of deserting the post: she worked, as she had danced, with all her might and main, pitting her puny strength valiantly against that of the flames.
"FROM SIDE TO SIDE SHE SCRAMBLED, SWEEPING, BEATING, AND FIGHTING THE FIRE.""FROM SIDE TO SIDE SHE SCRAMBLED, SWEEPING, BEATING, AND FIGHTING THE FIRE."
But courage does not always bring success. Just when the fire at the barn began to subside, and the sparks ceased to fall on the roof, a tiny column of smoke began to curl up from the gabled roof of the porch. 'Mazin' Grace clambered down the ladder, and, sitting astride of the angle, worked her way outward toward the fire. She could not carry the broom, but if she could only reach the blaze perhaps she could beat it out with her hands! Excitement gave her fresh strength. On either side the roof sloped abruptly, but she worked her way on, inch by inch. Two shingles had caught—three! The smoke had changed into a blaze. Leaning over as far as she dared, 'Mazin' Grace stretched out her hand toward the flame. She could not reach it.
With a cry of terror and despair, she fell forward on the ridge; all her courage and strength suddenly deserted her—she could only cling there face downward, and sob and sob as if her heart would break. "Effen our house burns down, I want to die too," she whispered. "But Miss Lucy an' Marse Jim won't never know how I tried to take keer on it. 'Deed I did."
Up from the creek came the faint perfume of the mint; the sparrows scolded in the beech-trees.Nellie, who had broken her prison bars, called again and again from the playground, while slowly but surely up the roof crawled the ever-increasing flames. But 'Mazin' Grace heard nothing, saw nothing; she lay unconscious on the roof, an absurdly pitiful little figure in her ragged dress and pink silk stockings.
It was six weeks before 'Mazin' Grace's burns were sufficiently healed for her to walk. Mr. Tracy, hearing of the fire on his farm, had driven home just in time to save the child's life. His porch was completely destroyed; but the old homestead, with its host of memories and associations, stood intact—a monument to the faithfulness of a very naughty little girl.
Almost the first time 'Mazin' Grace was allowed to go out, she took Nell to the "Christian an' Debil" Society. She limped as she walked, for her feet were still tender from the recent blisters; but, in spite of the pain, her smile was one of unalloyed bliss. Two pairs of sturdy little legs were keeping step in two new pairs of watermelon stockings.
The alligator, or "'gator," as it is usually called throughout its home, the Southern States, is an object of great curiosity at the North. Every winter many tourists visit Florida and carry back baby alligators, together with more or less magnified accounts of the creature's doings and habits, and their stories are probably the cause of this very widespread interest.
Though the alligator is rapidly disappearing from the banks of the lower St. John's River, in Lake Washington and in the Saw Grass Lake (where that river has its source), and in waters still farther south, they are still to be found in almost undiminished numbers, and are hunted for a living by native hunters. They are commonly sought at night, by torch-light, for in this way they can be approached with the utmost ease.
THE ALLIGATOR HUNTERS IN THEIR CAMP.THE ALLIGATOR HUNTERS IN THEIR CAMP.
A rifle-ball will readily penetrate an alligator's hide, although there exists an unfounded belief to the contrary. The creatures will "stand a deal of killing," however, and frequently roll off a bank and are lost even after being shot through and through.
The alligator builds a nest of mud and grass, and lays a large number of oblong white eggs, but the little ones when hatched often serve as lunch for their unnatural papa, and this cannibalism, more than the rifle, prevents their numbers from increasing. The alligator is not particular as to diet. I once found the stomach of a ten-footer to be literally filled with pine chips from some tree which had been felled near the river's bank! They are fond of wallowing in marshes, and many a man out snipe shooting has taken an involuntary bath by stumbling into their wallows. In dry seasons alligators will traverse long distances overland to reach water, and travelers have come suddenly upon alligators crawling amid prairies or woods, in the most unexpected manner. The alligator as a rule is very wary, butat times sleeps quite soundly. I saw one struck twice with an oar before it woke.
The Haunt of the "Gator"The Haunt of the "Gator".
There is a very prevalent impression that the alligator differs from the crocodile in that one moves the upper jaw and the other the lower. Such, however, is not the case. Both animals move the lower jaw, though the raising of the head as the mouth opens sometimes gives the appearance of moving the upper jaw only. But alligators and crocodiles differ in the arrangement of the teeth, and the snout of the crocodile is more sharply pointed.
The hides are salted to preserve them and are shipped to dealers in Jacksonville, where those less than six feet long are worth a dollar, while for those which exceed this length twenty-five cents extra is allowed. A fair estimate of the number of alligators killed for sale in Florida alone, and not counting those shot by tourists, would be ten thousand annually. One hears very conflicting reports as to the length of large alligators. A prominent dealer in Jacksonville said that out of ten thousand hides handled by him none were over twelve feet long. I am told that at the Centennial, side by side with a crocodile from the Nile, there was shown an alligator from Florida sixteen feet in length.
Years ago near a place called Enterprise, on a point jumping into Lake Monroe, during all bright days a certain big alligator used to lie basking in the sun. He was well known to the whole neighborhood. The entire coterie of sportsmen at the only hotel used to call him "Big Ben," and proud hunters would talk, and evendream, of the time when a well-aimed rifle-shot would end his long career. But Big Ben was as cunning as a serpent, and whenever any one, afoot or afloat, came unpleasantly near, he would slide off into the water,—which meant "good-by" for the rest of the day.
One fine morning one of these sportsmen, paddling up the lake, luckilywith his rifle in his canoe, came upon Big Ben so sound asleep that he stole up within range and put a bullet through the alligator's brain. What to do next was a problem. He could not tow the monster all the way to Enterprise with his small canoe. A bright idea struck him. He put his visiting-card in the beast's mouth and paddled swiftly back. A number of hunters were at the wharf, and the slayer of Big Ben hastened to inform them with apparent sincerity that while out paddling he had come within easy range of the "'gator," who was, no doubt, still lying motionless on the point. A flotilla of boats and canoes, manned by an army with rifles, instantly started for the point. To avoid confusion it was unanimously agreed that all should go down together, and that the entire party, if they were lucky enough to find Big Ben still there, should fire a volley at the word of command. As they approached the point, the hearts of all beat quickly; and when, with straining eyes, they saw Big Ben apparently asleep and motionless upon the bank, even the coolest could scarcely control his feelings. The boats were silently drawn up within easy shot, and the word was given. Bang, bang! went a score of rifles and Big Ben, riddled with bullets, lay motionless upon the point! With a cheer of triumph the excited sportsmen leaped ashore, and fastening a rope around the dead alligator, speedily towed him to Enterprise. There the original slayer awaited them upon the wharf. When Big Ben was laid upon the shore, opening the animal's mighty jaws he disclosed his visiting-card, and thanked them most politely for their kindness in bringing his 'gator home for him.
A QUIET NAP ON THE RIVER BANK.A QUIET NAP ON THE RIVER BANK.
I once met with a curious adventure. Man is rarely attacked by alligators in Florida, except by the female alligator called upon to defend her young. Some years ago, in a small steamer chartered for the purpose, I had gone up a branch of the St. John's beyond Salt Lake until we could proceed no farther, because the top of the river had become solid with floating vegetation under which the water flowed. We tied up for the night,and shortly after were boarded by two men who said that their camp was near by and that they shot alligators and plume-birds for a living. One of the men carried his rifle, a muzzle-loader, and from its barrel projected the ramrod, which had become fast immediately above the ball while loading. He intended to draw it out after they should return to camp.
CATCHING AN ALLIGATOR ASLEEP.CATCHING AN ALLIGATOR ASLEEP.
We went ashore with these men to look at an alligator's nest near by, and were filling our pockets with baby-alligators, when we heard a grunting sound and saw an alligator eight or nine feet long coming directly at us. With the exception of the man already referred to, we were all unarmed and affairs began to look a little unpleasant, for the creature evidently meant mischief. When it was within a few feet, the man with the rifle, knowing that he alone had a weapon, took deliberate aim and fired bullet, ramrod, and all down the 'gator's throat. The animal turned over twice, and rolling off the bank, sank out of sight.
The alligators of the Amazon River in South America are very numerous, and owing to scarcity of hunters attain a very great size. In the upper waters apparently they are entirely unaccustomed to the report of firearms, and if notactually hit will lie still while shot after shot is fired. The largest I ever killed and measured was thirteen feet and four inches in length; but this was much smaller than many which I shot from dugouts and canoes too far away from shore to tow them in.
Buried an inch deep in one of these dead alligators I once found a piraña, that troublesome fish which makes swimming in some parts of the Amazon a risky matter. It bores into flesh very much after the manner of a circular punch, and when it starts, its habit is to go to the bone. The piraña of course could not penetrate the hide of the alligator, but entering by the bullet-hole it had turned to one side and partially buried itself in the flesh. I have seen men bearing very ugly scars, the results of wounds inflicted by the piraña while they were bathing. If this fish is cut open after having bored its way into an animal a solid round mass of flesh will be found inside corresponding to the hole it has made, showing that the fish really bores its way in.