So Gonzales kept its cannon, Texas had gained the first battle in defense of liberty, and there was great excitement in the town and in Eli Mitchell’s cornfield. The men cheered and sang and gamboled, celebrating their easy victory. Expresses were immediately sent galloping to the eastward, bearing the news, and urging the colonists to rally.
As soon as the first express reached San Felipe, the Central Committee of Defense, there, of which Stephen Austin was chairman, issued a stirring appeal. A copy of it was read among the volunteers at Gonzales. “Now every man in Texas must decide for himself [it said] whether he would submit to the destruction of his rights and liberties by the Mexican government. If he will not submit, let him give his answer by the mouth of his rifle. The citizens of Gonzales have been attacked, the war has begun. Every citizen should march to help his countrymen in the field!”
Hurrah!
More volunteers did march in. They were assigned to companies, until the cornfield was alive with armed men. Ernest was the youngest soldier on the ground, and he was immensely pleased to find himself really enrolled and assigned to the company of cavalry commanded by Lieutenant, now Captain, Almeron Dickinson. That was great! Thereupon Jim loyally asked to be assigned to the same company.
“Put the two boys together,” gruffly directed Colonel Moore; and when Jim came back with the news, he and Ernest rapturously hugged one another. They were “bunkies,” and continued to spread their blankets side by side. Tents were lacking, but a Texan minded not at all sleeping out in the open.
It was quite a reunion of Texas people, some of whom had been neighbors back in the United States but of late had been widely separated; while others never had met or else had heard each other’s names only in stories of Indian fights.
Ernest knew a few, who had been through Gonzales; but Jim knew many more, for he had lived longer there near the crossing of the Colorado River. And on a morning soon after the cannon fight he uttered a glad shout.
“Here’s Leo Roark! Bully!” And leaving Ernest, he rushed off.
Another body of recruits, dusty with travel, had just come in amidst cheers; and running forward, Jim reached up and warmly shook hands with a rider on a little black horse: a boy, as Ernest could see, about Jim’s age. They chatted for a few minutes—the boy sitting his pony easily, a shot-gun lying across his saddle. Then the detachment moved away, to make camp; and with wave of hand, and a word, and a flash of white teeth from under his broad gray hat, the boy followed.
Jim strolled back.