XI.
EXCHANGE.
The work upon the tunnel was interrupted for a day by an event, which I think must be without a parallel in any other prison-camp. At the breaking out of the rebellion, Miss Mollie Moore was a school girl of sixteen. After Galveston was re-taken by the Confederates, the “Houston Telegraph” was adorned with several heroic ballads, written by the young lady, whom the editor sometimes called “our pet,” and sometimes the “unrivalled star of Texan literature.” The 42d Massachusetts had been quartered in a warehouse on the wharf of Galveston, and had passed the night previous to their capture in fighting, all of which the ballad described thus:
“Beneath the Texan groves the haughty foemen slept.”
The literary taste of a simple, half-educated people is never very high, and it is not surprising that this childish composition so nicely equalled the taste of its readers, as to be deemed a marvel of genius, and actually to be published with General Magruder’s official report. Miss Mollie became the literary genius of Texas, and her effusions were poured forth through the “Houston Telegraph” and the “Tyler Reporter” and the “Crocket Quid Nunc” in most lavish streams. This strong incentive to write, and these ready opportunities to publish were not altogether abused by the young authoress, who rapidly improved. Judging her by the other poems that adorned those papers, she indeed appeared to be the “unrivalled star of Texan literature.” I am fortunate in being able to introduce her to northern readers by an extract from:
AN INVITATION.
TO MISS LIZZIE IRVINE, OF TYLER.
The autumn sunset’s fairy dyes
Have faded from the bonding skies
Grey twilight (she with down-cast eyes
And trailing garments) passeth by;