About the first of February I quit the packing house and went to Matagorda where I was welcomed by all my old acquaintances. From there I took a trip over to the "Settlement," on the Peninsula, to see the old homestead. Everything looked natural; the cedar and fig trees were covered with little red winged black birds, seemingly the same ones that were there when I left, nearly three years before.
After a week's stay in the Settlement, I went back to Matagorda and went to work for Mr. Joseph Yeamans, a Baptist preacher. My work was farming and my wages part of the crop.
Mr. Yeamans' farm was a thirty acre sand patch on the Peninsula, about forty miles above the Settlement. Our aim was to raise a big crop of water melons and sweet potatoes, but when I left everything pointed to a big crop of grass burrs and a very slim lay out of sweet potatoes and water melons.
The old gentleman and I lived all alone in a little delapidated shanty with a dirt floor. Our chuck consisted of black coffee, hard-tack and coon or 'possum meat. We had three good coon dogs, therefore had plenty of fresh meat such as it was.
There being plenty "Mavricks" close at hand, and being tired of coon meat, I used to try and get the old man to let me butcher one now and then for a change, but he thought it wicked to kill cattle not our own.
As some of you may not know what a "Mavrick" is, I will try and explain.
In early days, a man by the name of Mavrick settled on the Lavaca river and started a cow ranch. He being a chicken-hearted old rooster, wouldn't brand nor ear-mark any of his cattle. All his neighbors branded theirs, therefore Mr. Mavrick claimed everything that wore long ears.
When the war broke out Mr. Mavrick had to bid adieu to wife and babies and go far away to fight for his country's good.
When the cruel war was ended, he went home and found his cattle roaming over a thousand hills. Everywhere he went he could see thousands upon thousands of his long-eared cattle.
But when his neighbors and all the men in the surrounding country came home and went to branding their five years increase, Mr. Mavrick did not feel so rich. He made a terrible fuss about it, but it did no good, as in a very few years his cattle wore some enterprising man's brand and he was left out in the cold.