The suffering so close at hand made me indifferent to what was going on at a distance, and also all through that long, terrible summer, I was aware that Robert was practicing a very strict personal economy. So I was sure that he was not making as much money as he expected to make, and when he asked me, one day, if I could manage with two servants, I was prepared to answer,
“Dear, I can do with one, if it is necessary.” And I was troubled when he thankfully accepted my offer.
To be poor! That was a condition I had never considered, so I thought it over. We could never want food in Texas, unless the enemy should drive his cannon wheels over our prairies, and make our old pine woods wink with bayonets. Then, indeed, the corn and the wheat and the cattle might be insufficient for us and for them, but this event seemed far off, and unlikely. Our clothing was in far less plentiful case. My own once abundant wardrobe was considerably worn and lessened. Robert’s had suffered the same change, and the children’s garments wanted a constant replacing. But then, every 231 one was in the same condition; we should be no poorer than others. A poverty that is universal may be cheerfully borne; it is an individual poverty that is painful and humiliating.
Slowly, so slowly, the hot blistering summer passed away. It was all I could do, to look a little after my five children. I dressed myself and them in the coolest manner, and the younger ones refused anything like shoes and stockings; but that was a common fashion for Texan children in hot weather. I have seen them step from handsome carriages barefooted, and envied them. People must live day after day where the thermometer basks anywhere between 105 degrees and 115 degrees, to know what a luxury naked feet are—nay, what a necessity for a large part of the time.
Not a drop of rain had fallen for many weeks, and, when the drought was broken, it was by a violent storm. It came up unexpectedly one clear, hot afternoon, when all the world seemed to stand still. The children could not play. I had laid Ethel in her cot, and was sitting motionless beside her. The negroes in the kitchen were sleeping instead of quarreling, and, though Robert and I exchanged a weary smile occasionally, it was far too hot to talk.
Suddenly, the sky changed from blue to red, to slate color, and then to a dense blackness, even to the zenith. The heavens seemed about to plunge down upon the earth, and the air became so tenuous, that we sighed as men do, on the top of a high mountain. Then on the horizon there appeared a narrow, brassy zone, and it widened and widened, as it grew upward, and with it came the fierce rush and moan of mighty winds, slinging hail-stones and great rain-drops, from far heights—swaying, pelting, rushing masses of rain fell, seeming to displace the very atmosphere. But, Oh, the joy we felt! I cried for pure thankfulness, and Robert went to a shaded corner of the piazza, and let the rain pour down upon him.
When the storm was over, there was a new world—a fresh, cool, rejoicing world. It looked as happy as if just made, and the children were eager to get out and play in the little ponds. Robert and I soon rallied. The drop in the temperature was all Robert needed, and I had in those days a wonderful power—not 232 yet quite exhausted—of recuperation. If a trouble was lifted ever so little, I threw it from me; if a sickness took but a right turn, I went surely on to recovery. So as soon as the breathless heat was broken, I began to think of my house and my duties. The children’s lessons had been long neglected, and my work basket was full to overflowing with garments to make and to mend.
Very quickly I was so busy that I had no time for public affairs, and then the war dragged on so long, that my enthusiasm was a little cooled. Also I was troubled somewhat by Robert’s continued lack of employment. Food and clothing was dearer, and money scarcer than I had ever before known them, and Robert had become impatient and was entertaining a quite impossible idea—he wanted to rent a farm and get away from the fret and friction of the times. I pointed out the fact that neither of us knew anything about farming, and that Texas farming was special in every department. But in those days it was generally supposed that any man could naturally farm, just as it was expected that every girl naturally knew how to cook and to keep house. At any rate, the idea had taken possession of him, and not even the probability of prowling savages was alarming.
“All that come near the settlements are friendly,” he said, “or if not they are too much afraid of the Rangers to misbehave themselves.”
“But, Robert,” I answered, “very few of them think killing white women and children ‘misbehavior.’”