creepy creatures in the wild: topcreepy creatures in the wild: left side
In Texas, two wretched little ragamuffins—one, of the poor white trash, and another a negro—were kept skulking about the cook-tent, making long, circuitous détours to the creek for water, for fear we would see them, as they said "Miss Lize tole us you'd make a scatter if you knew 'no 'count' chillern was a-bein' fed at the cook-tent." They slipped into the underbrush at our approach, and lay low in the grass at the rear of the tent if they heard our voices. The General at first thought that, after Eliza had thoroughly stuffed them and made them fetch and carry for her, they would disappear, and so chose to ignore their presence, pretending he had not seen them. But at last they appeared to be a permanent addition, and we concluded that the best plan would be to acknowledge their presence and make the best of the infliction; so we named one Texas, and the other Jeff. Elizabeamed, and told the orphans, who capered out boldly in sight for the first time, and ran after Miss "Lize" to do her bidding. Both of them, from being starved, wretched, and dull, grew quite "peart" under her care. The first evidence of gratitude I had was the creeping into the tent of the little saffron-colored white boy, with downcast eyes, mumbling that "Miss Lize said that I could pick the scorpions out of your shoes." I asked, in wonder—one spark of generosity blazing up before its final obliteration—"And how, in the name of mercy, do you get on with the things yourself?" He lifted up a diminutive heel, and proudly showed me a scar. The boy had probably never had on a pair of shoes, consequently this part of his pedal extremity was absolutely so callous, so evidently obdurate to any object less penetrating than a sharpened spike driven in with a hammer, I found myselfwondering how a scorpion's little spear could have effected an entrance through the seemingly impervious outer cuticle. Finally, I concluded that at a more tender age that "too solid flesh" may have been susceptible to an "honorable wound." It turned out that this cowed and apparently lifeless little midget was perfectly indifferent to scorpions. By this time I no longer pretended to courage of any sort; I had found one in my trunk, and if, after that, I was compelled to go to it, I flung up the lid, ran to the other side of the tent, and "shoo-shooed" with that eminently senseless feminine call which is used alike for cows, geese, or any of these acknowledged foes. Doubtless a bear would be greeted with the same word, until the supposed occupants had run off. Night and morning my husband shook and beat my clothes while he helped me to dress. The officers daily came in with stories of the trick, so common to the venomous reptiles, of hiding between the sheets, and the General then even shook the bedding in our eyrie room in the wagon. Of all this he was relieved by the boy that Eliza called "poor little picked sparrow," who was appointed as my maid. Night and morning the yellow dot ran his hands into shoes, stockings, night-gown, and dress-sleeves, in all the places where the scorpions love to lurk; and I bravely and generously gathered myself into the armchair while the search went on.
Eliza has been reminding me of our daily terror of the creeping, venomous enemy of those hot lands. She says, "One day, Miss Libbie, I got a bite, and I squalled out to the Ginnel, 'Somethin's bit me!' The Ginnel, he said, 'Bit you! bit you whar?' I says, 'On my arm;' and, Miss Libbie, it was pizen, for my arm it just swelled enormous and got all up in lumps. Then it pained me so the Ginnel stopped a-laughin' and sent for the doctor, and he giv' me a drink of whiskey. Then what do you think! when I got better, didn't he go and say I was playin' off on him, just to get a big drink of whiskey? But I 'clar' to you, Miss Libbie, I was bad off that night. The centipede had crept into my bedclothes, and got a good chance at me, I can tell you."
Our surgeon was a naturalist, and studied up the vipers and venomous insects of that almost tropical land. He showed me a captured scorpion one day, and, to make me more vigilant, infuriated the loathsome creature till it flung its javelin of a tail over on its back and stung itself to death.
Legends of what had happened to army women who had disregarded the injunctions for safety were handed down from elder to subaltern, and a plebe fell heir to these stories as much as to the tactics imparted by his superiors, or the campaigning lore. I hardly know when I first heard of the unfortunate woman who lingered too far behind the cavalcade, in riding for pleasure or marching, and was captured by the Indians, but for ten years her story was related to me by officers of all ages and all branches of the service as a warning. In Texas, the lady who had been frightfully stung by a centipede pointed every moral. The sting was inflicted before the war, and in the far back days of "angel sleeves," which fell away from the arm to the shoulder. Though this misfortune dated back from such a distant period, the young officers, in citing her as a warning to us to be careful, described the red marks all the way up the arm, with as much fidelity as if they had seen them. No one would have dreamed that the story had filtered through so many channels. But surely one needed little warning of the centipede. Once seen, it made as red stains on the memory as on the beautiful historic arm that was used to frighten us. The Arabs call it the mother of forty-four, alluding to the legs; and the swift manner in which it propels itself over the ground, aided by eight or nine times as many feet as are allotted to ordinary reptiles, makes one habitually place himself in a position for a quick jump or flight while campaigning in Texas. We had to be watchful all the time we were in the South. Even in winter, when wood was brought in and laid down beside the fireplace, the scorpions, torpid with cold at first, crawled out of knots and crevices, and made a scattering till they were captured. One of my friends was stationed at a post where the quarters were old and ofadobe, and had been used during the war for stables by the Confederates. It was of no use to try to exterminate these reptiles; they run so swiftly it takes a deft hand and a sure stroke to finish them up. Our officers grew expert in devising means to protect themselves, and, in this instance, a box of moist mud, with a shingle all ready, was kept in the quarters. When a tarantula showed himself, he was plastered on the wall. It is impossible to describe how loathsome that great spider is. The round body and long, far-reaching legs are covered with hairs, each particular hair visible; and the satanic eyes bulge out as they come on in your direction, making a feature of every nightmare for a long time after they are first seen. The wife of an officer, to keep these horrors from dropping on her bed as they ran over the ceiling, had a sheet fastened at the four corners and let down from the rough rafters to catch all invaders, and thus insured herself undisturbed sleep.
Officers all watch and guard the women who share their hardships. Even the young, unmarried men—the bachelor officers, as they are called—patterning after their elders, soon fall into a sort of fatherly fashion of looking out for the comfort and safety of the women they are with, whether old or young, pretty or ugly. It often happens that a comrade, going on a scout, gives his wife into their charge. I think of a hundred kindly deeds shown to all of us on the frontier; and I have known of acts so delicate that I can hardly refer to them with sufficient tact, and wish I might write with a tuft of thistle-down. In the instance of some very young women—with hearts so pure and souls so spotless they could not for one moment imagine there lived on earth people depraved enough to question all acts, no matter how harmless in themselves—I have known a little word of caution to be spoken regarding some exuberance of conduct that arose from the excess of a thoughtless, joyous heart. The husband who returned to his wife could thank the friend who had watched over his interests no more deeply than the wife who owed her escape from criticism to his timely word. And sometimes, when we went into the States, or were at apost with strange officers, it would not occur to us, gay and thoughtless as we were, that we must consider that we were not among those with whom we had "summered and wintered;" and the freedom and absolute naturalness of manner that arose from our long and intimate relationship in isolated posts, ought perhaps to give way to more formal conduct. If the women said to the men, "Now we are among strangers, do you not think they would misunderstand our dancing or driving or walking together just as fearlessly as at home?" That was sufficient. The men said, "Sure enough! It never occurred to me. By Jove! I wish we were back where a fellow need not be hampered by having every act questioned;" and then no one sought harder or more carefully so to act that we might satisfy the exactions of that censorious group of elderly women who sat in hotel parlors, looking on and remarking, "We did not do so when we were girls," or even some old frump in a garrison we visited, who, having squeezed dry her orange of life, was determined that others should get no good out of theirs if she could insert one drop of gall.
Occasionally the young officers, perhaps too timid to venture on a personal suggestion, sent us word by roundabout ways that they did not want us to continue to cultivate someone of whom we knew nothing save that he was agreeable. How my husband thanked them! He walked the floor with his hands behind him, moved so that his voice was unsteady, and said his say about what he owed to men who would not let a woman they valued be even associated with anyone who might reflect on them. He was a home-lover, and not being with those who daily congregated at the sutler's store, the real "gossip-mill" of a garrison, he heard but little of what was going on. A man is supposed to be the custodian of his own household in civil life; but it must be remembered that in our life a husband had often to leave a young and inexperienced bride to the care of his comrades while he went off for months of field duty. The grateful tears rise now in my eyes at the recollection of men who guarded us from the very semblance of evil as if we had been their sisters.
A TEXAS NORTHER.
Wehad not been long in our camp at Hempstead, before the wives of two of the staff arrived by way of Galveston. Their tents were put on a line with or near ours, and arbors built over them. One of these women, Mrs. Greene, had been one of my dearest girlhood friends, and every pleasure of my happy life was enhanced by the presence of this lovely woman. We all went out, after the heat of the day, on long rides about the country. Our father Custer was a fine rider, and not only sat his horse well, but it was almost impossible to unseat him. He grew more wary and watchful of his tormenting sons every day. If they halted, apparently only to say a casual word or so to their paternal, that keen old man spurred his horse to one side with the agility of a circus-rider, just in time to avoid the flying heels of the horse of his offspring in front of him, which had been taught to fling his hoofs up when touched just back of the saddle. If both boys came together and rode one on each side of him, he looked uneasily from one to the other, suspicious of this sudden exhibition of friendship; and well he might, for while one fixed his attention by some question that provoked an answer, usually about politics, the other gave a quick rap on the back of the horse, and the next thing, the father was grasping the pommel to keep from being flung forward of the animal as he threw up his heels and plunged his head down, making the angle of an incline plane. Even when, after a concerted plan, one rode up and pulled the cape of the elder man's overcoat over his head and held it there a moment, while the other gave the horse a cut, he sat like a centaur,and no surprise unseated him or loosened his grip on the reins. They knew his horsemanship well, as he had ridden after the hounds in Maryland and Virginia in his younger days, and had taught them to sit a horse bareback, when their little fat legs were too short to describe a curve on the animal's side. Of course I was always begging to have them spare father, but it was needless championship. He enjoyed their pranks with all his fun-loving soul.
It was very hard to get postage, and he was unwary enough one day—on account of the color being the same as the issue of that year—to buy a dollar's worth of his eldest scion, only to find them old ones, such as were used before the war. Whether he considered the joke worth a dollar, I could not decipher, for he was silent; but soon afterward he showed me an envelope marked in the writing of his son Armstrong, "Conscience-money," containing the $1 unlawfully obtained.
We were invited one night to go to a coon-hunt, conducted in the real old Southern style. The officers wanted us to see some hunting, but were obliged to leave us behind hitherto when they crossed the Brazos River on deer-hunts, and were the guests of the planters in the chase, that began before dawn and lasted all day. We had thickets, underbrush and ditches to encounter, before the dogs treed the coon; then a little darkey, brought along for the climbing, went up into the branches and dislodged the game, which fell among our and the neighbors' dogs. No voice excited them more wildly than the "Whoop-la!" of our old father, and when we came home at 2a. m., carrying a coon and a possum, he was as fresh as the youngest of us.
The citizens surrounding us were so relieved to find that our troops left them unmolested, they frankly contrasted the disciplined conduct with the lawlessness to which they had been witness in States where the Confederate army was stationed. But they scarcely realized that an army in time of peace is much more restricted. They could hardly say enough about the order that was carried out, preventing the negroes from joining the column as it marched into Texas.There was no way of taking care of them, and the General directed that none should follow, so they went back, contented to work where they would be fed and clothed.
One reason that our life seemed to me the very perfection of all that is ever attained on earth was, that the rumors of trouble with Mexico had ceased. The demands of our Government had been complied with; but it was thought best to keep the troops in the field the rest of the year, though there was to be no war.
Our first experience with a Texas norther surprised and startled us. It came on in the night, preceded by the usual heavy, suffocating air which renders breathing an effort. After this prelude, the wild blast of wind swept down on us with a fury indescribable. We heard the roar as it approached over the stretch of prairie between us and the sea. Our tent, though it was guyed by ropes stretched from the ridge-pole to a strong post driven far into the ground, both in front and at the rear, shook, rattled, and flapped as if with the rage of some human creature. It was twisted and wrenched from side to side; the arbor overhead seemed to toss to and fro, and the wagon rocked in a crazy effort to spill us out. Though the ropes stretched and cracked like cordage at sea, and the canvas flapped like loosened sails, we did not go down. Indeed, rocked in this improvised "cradle of the deep," it was hard to tell whether one was at sea or on land. I begged to get up and dress for the final collapse that I was sure was coming, but my husband quieted me and calmed my fears, believing that the approaching rain would still the wind, as it eventually did. Next morning a scene of havoc was visible. Our neighbors crept out of their tents, and we women, in a little whispered aside, exchanged our opinions upon the climate of the "Sunny South."
They also had passed a night of terror, but fortunately their tents did not go down. Mrs. Lyon had just come from the North, and expected to join her husband; meanwhile she was our guest, and the General and I had endeavored to give her as cordial a welcome as we could, feeling that all must beso strange to her after the security and seclusion of her girlhood's home. The night preceding the norther we took her to her tent near ours, and helped her arrange for the night, assuring her that we were so near that we could hear her voice, if she was in the least afraid. We, being novices in the experience of that climate and its gales, had no idea the wind would rise to such concert pitch that no voice could be distinguished. She said that when we fastened her in from the outside world with two straps, she felt very uncertain about her courage holding out. We kept on assuring her not to be afraid, but on bidding her good-night and saying again not to be in the least disturbed, that the sentinel walked his beat in front of her tent all night, she dared not own up that this assurance did not tend to soothe her anxious fears, for she thought she would be more afraid of the guard than of anything else. And as I think of it, such a good-night from us was rather unsatisfactory. My husband, soldier-like, put the utmost faith in the guard, and I, though only so short a time before mortally afraid of the stern, unswerving warrior myself, had soon forgotten that there were many timid women in the world who knew nothing of sleeping without locks or bolts, and thought, perhaps, that at the slightest ignorance or dereliction of duty the sentinel would fire on an offender, whether man or woman. Added to this fear of the sentinel, the storm took what remnant of nerve she had left; and though she laughed next morning about her initiation into the service of the Government, there were subsequent confessions to the horror of that unending night. In talking with Major and Mrs. Lyon nowadays, when it is my privilege to see them, there seemed to be no memories but pleasant ones of our Texas life. They might well cherish two reminiscences as somewhat disturbing, for Mrs. Lyon's reception by the hurricane, and the Major's baptism of gore when he killed his first deer, were not scenes that would bear frequent repetition and only leave pleasant memories.
The staff-officers had caused a long shade to be built, instead of shorter ones, which would have stood the stormsbetter. Under this all of their tents were pitched in two rows facing each other; and protected by this arbor, they daily took the siesta which is almost compulsory there in the heat of the noontide. Now the shade was lifted off one side and tilted over, and some of the tents were also flat. Among them was that of our father Custer. He had extricated himself with difficulty from under the canvas, and described his sensations so quaintly that his woes were greeted with roars of laughter from us all. After narrating the downfall of his "rag house," he dryly remarked that it would seem, owing to the climate and other causes, he was not going to have much uninterrupted sleep, and, looking slyly at the staff, he added that his neighborhood was not the quietest he had ever known.
The letters home at that time, in spite of their description of trivial events, and the exuberant underlined expressions of girlish pleasure over nothings, my father enjoyed and preserved. I find that our idle Sundays were almost blanks in life, as we had no service and the hunting and riding were suspended. I marked the day by writing home, and a few extracts will perhaps present a clearer idea of the life there than anything that could be written now:
"Every Sunday I wake up with the thought of home, and wish that we might be there and go to church with you. I can imagine how pleasant home is now. Among other luxuries, I see with my 'mind's eye,' a large plate of your nice apples on the dining-room table. I miss apples here; none grow in this country; and a man living near here told our Henry that he hadn't seen one for five years. Father Custer bought me some small, withered-looking ones for fifty cents apiece. It seems so strange that in this State, where many planters live who are rich enough to build a church individually, there is such a scarcity of churches. Why, at the North, the first knowledge one has of the proximity of a village is by seeing a spire, and a church is almost the first building put up when a town is laid out. Here in this country it is the last to be thought of. Cotton is indeed king.The cake you sent to me by Nettie Greene, dear mother, was a perfect godsend. Oh, anything you make does taste so good!"
"Our orderly has perfected a trade for a beautiful little horse for me, so that when Custis Lee's corns trouble him, I am not obliged to take the choice of staying at home or riding one of Armstrong's prancers. The new horse has cunning tricks, getting down on his knees to let me get on and off, if I tell him to do so. He is very affectionate, and he racks a mile inside of three minutes. We talk 'horse' a great deal here, dear father, and my letters may be like our talk; but any man who has kept in his stable, for months at a time, a famous race-horse worth $9,000, as you have kept Don Juan,[B]ought not to object to a little account of other people's animals. We had an offer of $500 for Custis Lee at Alexandria."
"I sometimes have uninvited guests in my tent. Friday, Nettie saw something on the tray that Eliza was carrying. It had a long tail, and proved to be a stinging scorpion. The citizens pooh-pooh at our fear of scorpions, and insist that they are not so very dangerous; but I was glad to have that particular one killed by Armstrong planting his gun on it. I feel much pleased, and Armstrong is quite proud, that I made myself a riding-habit. You know I lost the waist of mine in the forest. It took me weeks to finish it, being my first attempt. I ripped an old waist, and copied it by drawing lines with a pencil, pinning and basting; but it fits very well. I remember how you both wanted me to learn when I was at home, and I almost wished I had, when I found it took me such ages to do what ought to have been short work."
"Our letters take twenty days in coming, and longer ifthere are storms in the Gulf. The papers are stale enough, but Armstrong goes through them all. I feel so rich, and am luxuriating in four splint-bottom chairs that we hired an old darkey to make for us. I want to sit in all four at once, it seems so good to get anything in which to rest that has a back."
"Our dogs give us such pleasure, though it took me some time to get used to the din they set up when Armstrong practiced on the horn. They call it 'giving tongue' here, but I call that too mild a word. Their whole bodies seem hollow, they bring forth such wild cries and cavernous howls. We call them Byron, Brandy, Jupiter, Rattler, Sultan, and Tyler."
"Something awful is constantly occurring among the citizens. It is a lawless country. A relative of one of our old army officers, a prominent planter living near here, was shot dead in Houston by a man bearing an old grudge against him. It is a common occurrence to shoot down men here for any offense whatever. Armstrong never goes anywhere except for hunting, and as we have plenty of books and our evening rides, we enjoy life thoroughly. Nettie fell from her horse, and we were frightened for a time, but she was only lamed. Though she weighs 165 pounds, Autie[C]picked her up as if she were a baby, and carried her into their tent."
"Besides visiting at the house of the collector of the port, where there is a houseful of young girls, we have been hospitably treated by some people to whom Armstrong was able to be of use. One day, a gentle well-bred Southern woman came into our tent to see Armstrong, and asked his protection for her boy, telling him that for some childish carelessness the neighboring colored people had threatened his life.Armstrong believed her, and melted. He afterward inquired elsewhere into the matter, and was convinced that the boy had not intentionally erred. The child himself was proof, by his frank manner and his straightforward story, of his innocence."
"I suppose we were the first Yankees these people had ever known, and doubtless nothing but gratitude induced them even to speak with us; yet they conquered prejudice, and asked us to dinner. They had been so well dressed when they called—and were accounted rich, I believe, by the neighbors—that I could scarcely believe we had reached the right house when we halted. It was like the cabins of the 'poor white trash' in the forest, only larger. I thought we had mistaken the negro quarters for the master's. Two large rooms, with extensions at the rear, were divided by an open space roofed over, under which the table was spread. The house was of rough logs, and unpainted. Unless the Texans built with home materials, their houses cost as much as palaces abroad, for the dressed lumber had to be hauled from the seacoast."
"The inside of this queer home was in marked contrast with the exterior. The furniture was modern and handsome, and the piano, on which the accomplished mother, as well as her little son, gave us music, was from one of our best Northern manufactories. The china, glass and linen on the dinner-table were still another surprise."
"They never broached politics, gave us an excellent dinner, and got on Armstrong's blind side forever by giving him a valuable full-blooded pointer, called Ginnie, short for Virginia. With four game chickens, a Virginia cured ham (as that was their former State), and two turkeys, we were sent on our way rejoicing."
"Our Henry has gone home, and we miss him, for he is fidelity itself. He expects to move his entire family of negroes from Virginia to Monroe, because he says, father, you are the finest man he everdidsee. Prepare, then, forthe dark cloud that is moving toward you, and you may have the privilege of contributing to their support for a time, if he follows Eliza's plan of billeting the orphan upon us."
"We have a new cook called Uncle Charley, who has heretofore been a preacher, but now condescends to get up good dinners for us. We had eleven to dine to-day, and borrowed dishes of our Southern neighbors. We had a soup made out of an immense turtle that Armstrong killed in the stream yesterday. Then followed turkeys, boiled ham—and roast beef, of course, for Armstrong thinks no dinner quite perfect without his beef. We are living well, and on so little. Armstrong's pay as a major-general will soon cease, and we are trying now to get accustomed to living on less."
"I listen to the citizens talking over the prospects of this State, and I think it promises wonders. There are chances for money-making all the time thrown in Armstrong's way; but he seems to think that while he is on duty he had better not enter into business schemes."
"Armstrong has such good success in hunting and fishing that he sends to the other officers' messes turtle, deer, duck, quail, squirrels, doves and prairie chickens. The possums are accepted with many a scrape and flourish by the 'nigs.' I forgot to tell you that our nine dogs sleep round our wagon at night, quarreling, growling, snoring, but I sleep too soundly to be kept awake by them."
The very ants in Texas, though not poisonous, were provided with such sharp nippers that they made me jump from my chair with a bound, if, after going out of sight in the neck or sleeves of my dress, they attempted to cut their way out. They clipped one's flesh with sharp little cuts that were not pleasant, especially when there remained a doubt as to whether it might be a scorpion. We had to guard our linen carefully, for they cut it up with ugly little slits that were hard to mend. Besides, we had to be careful, as we were so cut off that we could not well replace our few clothes, and it costs a ruinous sum to send North, or even to New Orleans, for anything. I found this out when the General paid an express bill on agown from New York—ordered before we left the East—far larger than the cost of the material and the dressmaker's bill together. The ants besieged the cook-tent and set Uncle Charley and Eliza to growling; but an old settler told them to surround the place with tan-bark, and they were thus freed. It was all I could do to keep the General from digging down into the ant-mounds, as he was anxious to see into their mechanism. The colored people and citizens told us what fighters they were, and what injuries they inflicted on people who molested them. We watched them curiously day by day, and wanted to see if the residents had told us stories about their stripping the trees of foliage just to guy us. (It has long been the favorite pastime of old residents to impose all sorts of improbable tales on the new-comer.) Whether this occurrence happens often or not I cannot say, but it certainly took place once while we were there. One morning my husband ran into the tent and asked me to hurry up with my dressing; he had something strange to show me, and helped me scramble into my clothes.
The carriage-road in front of our tents cut rather deep ruts, over which the ants found a difficult passage, so they had laid a causeway of bits of cut leaves, over which they journeyed between a tree and their ant-hills, not far from our tents on the other side of the road. They were still traveling back and forth, each bearing a bit of leaf bigger than itself; and a half-grown tree near us, which had been full of foliage the day before, was entirely bare.
For some reason unexplainable, malarial fever broke out among our staff. It was, I suppose, the acclimation to which we were being subjected. My father Custer was ill, and came forth from the siege whitened out, while the officers disappeared to mourn over the number of their bones for a few days, and then crept out of the tents as soon as they could move. My husband all this time had never even changed color. His powers of endurance amazed me. He seemed to have set his strong will against yielding to climatic influences; but after two days of this fighting he gave in and tossed himselfon our borrowed lounge, a vanquished man. He was very sick. Break-bone fever had waited to do its worst with its last victim. Everything looked very gloomy to me. We had not even a wide bed, on which it is a little comfort if a fever-tossed patient can fling himself from side to side. We had no ice, no fruit, indeed nothing but quinine. The supplies of that drug to the hospital department of Texas must be sent by the barrel, it seemed to me, from the manner in which it was consumed.
Our devoted surgeon came, of his own accord, over and over again, and was untiring in his patience in coming when I sent for him in-between-times, to please me in my anxiety. My husband was so racked and tormented by pain, and burnt up with fiery heat, that he hardly made the feeblest fight about the medicine, after having attained the satisfaction of my tasting it, to be sure that I knew how bitter it was. As the fever abated every hour, I resorted to new modes of bribery and corruption to get him to swallow the huge pill. My stepmother's cake had come in the very best time, for I extracted the raisins and hid the quinine in them, as my father had done when giving me medicine as a child. It seemed to me an interminable time before the disease began to yield to the remedies. In reality, it was not long, as the General was unaccustomed to medicine, and its effect was more quickly realized on that account. Even when my husband began to crawl about again, the doctor continued the medicine, and I as nurse remorselessly carried out his directions, though I had by no means a tractable patient, as with returning health came restored combative powers. My husband noticed the rapid disappearance of the pills from the table when he lay and watched the hated things with relief, as he discovered that he was being aided in the consumption by some unknown friend. One morning we found the plate on which the doctor had placed thirty the night before, empty. Of course I accused the General of being the cause of the strange disappearance, and prepared to send for more, inexorable in my temporary reign over a weak man. He attempted a mildkicking celebration and clapping accompaniment over the departure of his hated medicine, as much as his rather unsteady feet and arms would allow, but stoutly denied having done away with the offending pills. The next night we kept watch over the fresh supply, and soon after dark the ants began their migrations up the loose tent-wall on the table-cover that fell against the canvas, and while one grasped the flour-mixed pill with his long nippers, the partner pushed, steered and helped roll the plunder down the side of the tent on to the ground.
The triumph of the citizens was complete. Their tales were outdone by our actual experience. After that there was no story they told us which we did not take in immediately without question.
The hunting included alligators also. In the stream below us there were occasional deep pools, darkened by the overhanging trees. As we women walked on the banks, we kept a respectful distance from the places where the bend in the creek widened into a pond, with still water near the high banks. In one of these dark pools lived an ancient alligator, well known to the neighbors, on which they had been unsuccessfully firing for years. The darkeys kept aloof from his fastness, and even Eliza, whose Monday-morning soul longed for the running water of the stream, for she had struggled with muddy water so long, trembled at the tales of this monster. She reminds me now "what a lovely place to wash that Gros wash-house was, down by the creek. But it was near the old alligator's pool, and I know I hurried up my wash awfully, for I was afraid he might come up; for you know, Miss Libbie, it was reckoned that they was mighty fond of children and colored people."
men, women and an alligatorMEASURING AN ALLIGATOR.
One of the young officers was determined to get this veteran, and day after day went up and down the creek, coming home at night to meet the jeers of the others, who did not believe that alligator-hunting in a hot country paid. One night he stopped at our tent, radiant and jubilant. He had shot the old disturber of the peace, the intimidator of theneighborhood, and was going for help to haul him up to the tents. He was a monster, and it cost the men tough pulling to get him up the bank, and then to drag him down near our tent. There he was left for us women to see. We walked around and around him, very brave, and quite relieved to think that we were rid of so dangerous a neighbor, with a real old Jonah-and-the-whale mouth. The General congratulated the young officer heartily, and wished it had been his successful shot that had ended him. Part of the jaw had been shot away, evidently years ago, as it was then calloused over. It was distended to its utmost capacity, and propped open with a stick. Nettie brought out a broom from her tent, with which to get a rough estimate of his length, as we knew well that if we did not give some idea of his size in our letters home, they would think the climate, which enervates so quickly, had produced a total collapse in our power to tell the truth. The broom did not begin to answer, so we pieced out the measure with something else, in order to arrive at some kind of accuracy. Then we thought we would like to see how the beast looked with his mouth closed, and the officers,patient in humoring our whims, pulled out the props. There was a sudden commotion. The next thing visible was three sets of flying petticoats making for the tent, as the alligator, revived by the sudden let-down of his upper jaw, sprawled out his feet and began to walk over the grass. The crack of the rifle a moment after brought the heads of three cowards from their tents, but after that no woman hovered over even his dead hide. The General was convulsed over our retreat. The drying skin of his majesty, the lord of the pool, flung and flapped in the wind, suspended to the pole of the officers' arbor for weeks, and it was well tanned by the air long before they ceased to make sly allusions to women's curiosity.
At last, in November, the sealed proposals from citizens to the quartermaster for the contract for transporting the camp equipage and baggage, forage, etc., over the country, were all in, and the most reasonable of the propositions was accepted. Orders had come to move on to Austin, the capital, where we were to winter. It was with real regret that I saw our traps packed, the tents of our pretty encampment taken down, the arbors thrown over, and our faces turned toward the interior of the State. The General, too buoyant not to think that every move would better us, felt nothing but pleasure to be on the march again. The journey was very pleasant through the day, and we were not compelled to rise before dawn, for the sun was by no means unbearable, as it had been in August. It was cold at night, and the wind blew around the wagon, flapping the curtains, under which it penetrated, and lifting the covers unless they were strongly secured. As to trying to keep warm by a camp-fire in November, I rather incline to the belief that it is impossible. Instead of heat coming into the tent where I put on my habit with benumbed fingers, the wind blew the smoke in. Sometimes the mornings were so cold I begged to be left in bed, and argued that the mules could be attached and I could go straight on to camp, warm all the way. But my husband woke my drowsy pride by saying "the officers will surelythink you a 'feather-bed soldier,'" which term of derision was applied to a man who sought soft places for duty and avoided hardships, driving when he ought to ride.
If we all huddled around one of my husband's splendid camp-fires, I came in for the smoke. The officers' pretty little gallantries about "smoke always following beauty," did not keep my eyes from being blistered and blinded. It was, after all, not a very great hardship, as during the day we had the royal sun of that Southern winter.
My husband rode on in advance every day to select a camp. He gave the choice into my hands sometimes, but it was hard to keep wood, water and suitable ground uppermost; I wanted always the sheltered, pretty spots. We enjoyed every mile of our march. It rained sometimes, pouring down so suddenly that a retreat to the traveling wagons was impossible. One day I was wet to the skin three times, and my husband wondered what the anxious father and mother, who used frantically to call "rubbers" after me, as a girl, when I tried to slip out unnoticed, would say to him then; but it did not hurt me in the least. The General actually seemed unconscious of the shower. He wore a soldier's overcoat, pulled his broad hat down to shed the rain, and encouraged me by saying I was getting to be a tough veteran, which among us was very high praise. Indeed, we were all then so well, we snapped our fingers at the once-dreaded break-bone fever. If we broke the ice in the bucket for our early ablutions, it became a matter to joke over when the sun was up and we all rode together, laughing and singing, at the head of the column.
Our march was usually twenty-five miles, sometimes thirty, in a day. The General and I foraged at the farms we passed, and bought good butter, eggs and poultry. He began to collect turkeys for the winter, until we had enough for a year. Uncle Charley was doing his best to awe Eliza with his numerous new dishes. Though he was a preacher, he put on that profession on Sundays as he did his best coat; and if during the week the fire smoked, or a dogstole some prepared dish that was standing one side to cool, he expressed himself in tones not loud but deep, and had as extensive a collection of negro oaths as Texas afforded, which, I believe, is saying a good deal. My husband, observant as he always was, wondered what possessed the old fellow when preparing poultry for dinner. We used slyly to watch him go one side, seize the chicken, and, while swiftly wringing its neck, mumble some unintelligible words to himself, then throw down the fowl in a matter-of-fact way, and sit down to pluck it. We were mystified, and had to get Eliza to explain this peculiar proceeding that went on day after day. She said that "though Uncle Charley does swear so powerful, he has a kind of superstition that poultry has a hereafter." Evidently he thought it was not right to send them to their last home without what he intended for a funeral oration. Sometimes he said, as fast as his nimble old tongue could clatter:
"Hark, from the tombs a doleful sound,Mine ears attend the cry!Ye living hens, come view the groundWhere you must shortly die."
Once after this my husband, by hiding, contrived to be present, though unseen, at one of these funeral ceremonies:
"Princes, this clay must be your bed,In spite of all your towers,The tall, the wise, the reverend head,Must lie as low as yours."
He so timed his verses that with one wrench he gave the final turn to the poor chicken's head as he jerked out the last line. My husband, perfectly convulsed himself, was in terror for fear Uncle Charley would have his feelings hurt by seeing us, and hearing my giggling, and I nearly smothered myself in the attempt to get back to our tent, where the General threw himself down with shrieks of laughter.
We varied our march by many an exciting race after jack-rabbits.The chapparral bushes defeated us frequently by making such good hiding-places for the hare.[D]If we came to a long stretch of open prairie, and a rabbit lifted his doe-like head above the grass, the General uttered a wild whoop to his dog, a "Come on!" to me, and off we dashed. Some of the staff occasionally joined, while our father Custer bent over his old roan horse, mildly struck him with a spur, and was in at the death. The ground was excellent for a run—level and grassy. We had a superb greyhound called Byron, that was devoted to the General, and after a successful chase it was rewarded with many a demonstration of affection. He was the most lordly dog, I think, I ever saw—powerful, with deep chest, and carrying his head in a royal way. When he started for a run, with his nostrils distended and his delicate ears laid back on his noble head, each bound sent him flying through the air. He hardly touched the elastic cushions of his feet to earth, before he again was spread out like a dark, straight thread. This gathering and leaping must be seen, to realize how marvelous is the rapidity and how the motion seems flying, almost, as the ground is scorned except at a sort of spring bound. He trotted back to the General, if he happened to be in advance, with the rabbit in his mouth, and, holding back his proud head, delivered the game only to his chief. The tribute that a woman pays to beauty in any form, I gave to Byron, but I never cared much for him. A greyhound's heart could be put into a thimble. Byron cared for the General as much as his cold soul could for any one, but it was not to be compared with the dear Ginnie: she was all love, she was almost human.
The dog was in an injured state with me much of the time. In quarters he resented all my rights. My husband had a great fashion of flinging himself on the bed, or even on the floor, if it was carpeted. He told me he believed he mustunconsciously have acquired the habit at West Point, where the zeal of the cadet seems divided between his studies and an effort to keep the wrinkles out of the regulation white pantaloons, which, being of duck, are easily creased. What punishment Government sees fit to inflict for each separate crease, I don't know, but certainly its embryo soldiers have implanted in them a fear of consequences, even regarding rumpled linen. As soon as the General tossed himself on the bed, Byron walked to him and was invited to share the luxury. "Certainly," my husband used to say, sarcastically; "walk right up here on this clean white spread, without troubling yourself to care whether your feet are covered with mud or not. Your Aunt Eliza wants you to lie on nice white counterpanes; she washes them on purpose for you." Byron answered this invitation by licking his host's hand, and turning in the most scornful manner on me, as I uttered a mild protest regarding his muddy paws. The General quickly remarked that I made invidious distinctions, as no spread seemed too fine or white for Ginnie, in my mind, while if Eliza happened to enter, a pair of blazing eyes and an energetically expressed opinion of Byron ensued, and he retorted by lifting his upper lip over some of the whitest fangs I ever saw. The General, still aiding and abetting, asked the dog to let Aunt Eliza see what an intelligent, knowing animal he was—how soon he distinguished his friends from his foes. Such an exasperating brute, and such a tormenting master, were best left alone. But I was tired, and wanted to lie down, so I told Eliza that if she would stand there, I would try the broom, a woman's weapon, on his royal highness. Byron wouldn't move, and growled even at me. Then I quite meekly took what little place was left, the General's sense of mischief, and his peculiar fondness for not interfering in a fight, now coming in to keep him silent. The dog rolled over, and shammed sleep, but soon planting his feet against my back, which was turned in high dudgeon, he pushed and pushed, seemingly without premeditation, his dreadful eyes shut, until I was nearly shoved off. I was conquered, androse, afraid of the dog and momentarily irritated at my defeat and his tyranny, while Eliza read a lesson to the General. She said, "Nowsee what you've done. You keer more for thatpesky, sassyold hound than you does for Miss Libbie. Ginnel, I'd be 'shamed, if I was you. What would your mother Custer think of you now?" But my feelings were not seriously hurt, and the General, having watched to the last to see how far the brute would carry his jealousy, gave him a kick that sent him sprawling on the floor, springing up to restore me to my place and close the colored harangue that was going on at the foot of the bed. Eliza rarely dignified me with the honor of being referee in any disputed question. She used to say, "No matter whether it's right or wrong, Miss Libbie's sho' to side with the Ginnel." Her droll way of treating him like a big boy away from home for the first time, always amused him. She threatened to tell his mother, and brought up that sainted woman in all our encounters, as she did in the dog episode just mentioned, as if the very name would restore order at once, and give Eliza her own way in regulating us. But dear mother Custer had been in the midst of too many happy scuffles, and the centre of too many friendly fisticuffs among her active, irrepressible boys, in the old farm-days, for the mention of her name to restore order in our turbulent household.