We, who were wise betimes, cut our logs in the woods, dug up our clay on the neighboring hill-side, and waited the arrival of “Uncle George.” This uncle came in time, and led the work. A hole was cut in Mr. Stratford’s room—the logs were notched and crossed, the chimney splints were split and laid up, and the whole was properly cemented together, and daubed over with rich clay mortar.
Hardly was the chimney complete, when one of the guard announced that he reckoned there’d be a norther; the beeves, he said, were making for the timber. In Texas it is an established fact that nobody can tell anything about the weather, so we gave little heed to the prediction. Early in the afternoon, however, some one said that the norther was in sight. The day was warm; the sun was bright; birds were singing, and the leaves still were green. There was nothing to indicate a change save a black cloud rapidly rising in the north. Our men were sitting round in their shirt-sleeves, whittling and working as usual, and every thing continued pleasant. The black cloud, however, bore swiftly down upon us. As it drew near, we saw an immense flock of turkey-buzzards driven before it, whirling in the air and screaming wildly. A moment later the breeze struck us. It felt not unlike the gust that precedes a thunder-shower, but as I watched the cloud I found that I had suddenly grown cold. I had heard fearful stories of these northers, and read of a hardy Vermonter, who, scorning a cold that merely skimmed the ponds with ice, had ventured out in one; and how his blood congealed, and he was carried back by his horse insensible. I saw that all the men had gone in, and that the sentries had wrapped themselves in their blankets. Within the shanty I found our little fire-place bright and its owners sitting in a close circle around it. But the cold seemed to beat directly through the walls, and the wind blew a steady blast. We passed all the long evening closely crouched around the fire, warming first one side and then the other, talking of home and pitying the poor wretches in the barracks. When bed-time came we carried hot stones with us into our bunks and hurried to bed before we should be chilled. I wrapped myself in my double army blanket with which I had braved ice and snow and then rolled myself in my buffalo. I thought it sufficient for an Arctic winter, but ere morning the horrible cold crept in and penetrated to the very bones. As I moved about to try and make my blood circulate, Colonel Burrill spoke and said that he was so cold that he feared he was dying. The Colonel had been quite ill, and this startled me; so I rose, threw a coat or two upon him, and then drawing the blankets over his head, tucked them tightly in and left him to take the chances of suffocation or freezing. I went back to my own couch and shivered away till morning. The cold drove us all out early, and we met again around our fire-place. A sailor boy brought up a hot breakfast, for cooking over a hot stove that morning was a high privilege which no one threw away. He told us that one of his shipmates lay frozen in his bunk, and that they had just found him there dead. During the morning we suspended our blankets from the rafters so as to form a little tent immediately around the fire, and there in darkness we sat the live-long day. Another dismal evening followed and another bitter night. Then, after thirty-six hours of fury, the norther went down and we ventured to crawl out and resume our work.
VII.
TEA.
There was some coffee in Camp Groce, when we arrived—not much—and a little was bought afterward for “morning coffee,” with some tea for the sick, at fifteen dollars per pound. It was poor stuff, and not worth the price.
The messes that I found there used corn; or, as they called it, corn coffee. This was made from the meal. Burnt in a frying-pan upon the stove, by a sailor-cook, some particles in charcoal and some not singed at all, it formed a grayish compound, and made as horrible a beverage as any one could be supposed willing to drink. I thought at first that I would go back, for my own part, to an old habit of cold water; and if we had possessed pure water I might have done so. But our well-water had a sulphurous taste; and then, in this southern climate, there is an insatiable appetite for nervine food. Thus those who never touched pepper, nor cared a fig for seasoning, and spices at home (not because they disliked them, but because they thought it wisest not to eat what they did not want), have had a constant craving in the army for coffee, tea, and spices, and for the bad catsups, and worse imitation sauces, that sutlers sell and soldiers buy. So I drank these slops, and, like the others, called them coffee.
A little mess, indeed, as I have hinted, applied the Louisiana lesson we had learnt, and made their “morning coffee.” Turning out with the first glimmer of dawn, we ground and re-ground exactly twenty of the precious berries, watchful that not one should be lost, nor a speck of the priceless dust spilt. An old tin cylinder, with a piece of flannel bound tightly round the end, formed the strainer, and a large-sized tin mug our coffee-pot; and by keeping a week’s grounds, at least, in the strainer, it was wonderful what strength this ingenious apparatus did extract.
But the enterprising Yankee mind, never long contented with any thing, quarrelled with the corn-meal coffee and proposed a change. A hardy sailor, of New England origin, objected to the meal, and insisted that it would be better to make the coffee directly out of corn—we should, he said, get all the flavor then. There was a furious debate over this, of course, for the enterprising Yankee mind much prefers a theory to a fact. It was argued on the one side, that the flavor was just what you did not want; that corn was corn, and it made no difference if it was also meal; and that it was much wiser to use the meal and thereby make the enemy grind our coffee, than to burn the corn and grind it ourselves. These arguments were met by others equally strong, and the debate continued till some stupid person of Dutch descent, suggested that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and that if any one wanted to try corn for coffee, he might.
We traded some of our meal ration for corn; the corn was burnt and ground and tried, and found far preferable to meal and all other substitutes. Its opponents drank it, and our little coffee-mill creaked and rattled at all hours under the load which the discovery threw upon it.
A further improvement was effected, for it was discovered one day, that the outside of the kernel would be well parched, while the inside would have a yellow, undone appearance. The fact is, it was impossible to roast it through, and this gave to the coffee a raw, mealy taste. The remedy was simple, and consisted merely in not grinding the corn, and thus using only the outside of the kernel.
“We thought then that we had reached the perfection of corn, and the last of substitutes.”