With the Holy Name on her lips, she went away simply and solemnly, as if fulfilling some religious rite. I received the news of her departure one day when the house was full of company. I put the letter in my breast and said no word about it, for it was only to God I could speak of this sorrow; the common words of sympathy the news would have evoked, could not have comforted me. Even when Robert’s tears mingled with mine, for he loved her dearly, I was not consoled. For a long time, daily life felt thin and haggard. I had no mother to write to, and my heart was troubled because I knew that I might have written to her oftener. I might have given her hopes that would have made death easier. Oh, why had I not done these things? For it is not the flowers on the coffin, but the flowers we strew on the daily life of our dear ones that show the true affection. And it was too late! O daughters of good mothers, give while God permits you, the kind words, the smiles of understanding 218 affection, the little attentions and gifts, that will brighten your mother’s last days. I do not know why I should have written “daughters of good mothers.” God makes no exceptions in his positive command to “Honor thy Father and thy Mother.”
I might have done more! that was the bitter refrain that for a long time made all my memories of the sweetest, tenderest mother sorrowful. But she has forgiven me long ago, and the vast breadth and depth of the river of death is now constantly bridged by our thoughts of each other. We walk far apart, but when I think of her, I know that she is thinking of me, and I wave my hand in greeting to her. Does she see the lifted hand? I believe she does. Why do I believe it? Because the soul is a diviner, and the things it knows best are the things it was never told. Whatever it divines, is revealed truth. Whatever it is told, may either be doubted or received.
For nearly a year after the birth of Calvin, there was not much change in the domestic life of Austin. The days slipped into weeks and months, and were, as the waves of the ocean, all alike, and yet all different. But early in 1859 changes so great were present, that it was impossible any longer to ignore them. There were bitter disputes wherever men were congregated, and domestic quarrels on every hearthstone, while feminine friendships melted away in the heat of passionate arguments so well seasoned with personalities. There were now three distinct parties: one for remaining in the Union; a second which demanded a Southern Confederacy, and a third which wished Texas to resume her independence and to fly the Lone Star flag again. It was a quarrel with three sides, and the women universally entered into it, with so much temper, that I could not help thinking they had all exercised too much long suffering in the past, and were now glad of a lawful opportunity to be a little ill-natured.
It may be strange, but it is the truth, that I seldom heard slavery named as a reason for secession. The average Texan had but a slight security for his slaves. The journey to the Rio Grande was not long or difficult for a man bent on freedom, who was sure to be succored and helped by every party of Indians or Mexicans he met. Arriving at the river, he had only to 219 walk across some one of its shallow fords, and touch land on the other side a free man. The number of slaves who freed themselves by this way was considerable every year, and I heard many slave owners say that they would be well satisfied to give their slaves freedom on such terms as the English slave owners obtained. What really excited them was the question of state rights. They were furious with the United States Government’s interference in their state’s social and domestic arrangements. They would not admit its right to do so, and were mad as their own prairie bulls, when compulsion was named. I heard arguments like these, both from men and women constantly; they talked of nothing else, and the last social gathering at my house was like a political arena.
So I was not sorry when on April the sixteenth, my daughter Alice was born, and I could retire for a few weeks into comparative solitude, and peace. Robert brought me the news from the Capitol every day, and it was as uncertain and changeable as the wind. One day war was inevitable, and Houston was coming from Washington to lead the Unionist party; and perhaps the next day it was the pen, and not the sword, that would settle the matter. I began to grow indifferent. “The quarrel is all bluster,” I said to Robert, “and their talk of war will fizzle out, some way or other, into a question of dollars and cents.” And I was vexed because Robert shook his head at my opinion, and replied, “Well, Milly, I heard George Durham say something like that this morning, and an old Texan in the crowd told him he was all wrong. ‘We are against seceding just now,’ he said, ‘but we shall be drug into it, and then we’ll be so all-fired mad, we’ll fight like a lobos wolf, who, the longer he fights, the better he fights.’”
“You always look at the dark side, Robert,” I complained; and he sighed and answered wearily, “It is generally the right side, Milly.”
One night, after a long, anxious day, I was conscious of that peculiar disturbance of heart and body, which warns of latent enmity or coming danger. My flagging soul felt
“As if it were a body in a body,
And not a mounting essence of fire.”