"Why don't they kill the hogs and eat 'em, and not have 'em rooting up the roads in this awful way?" asked greeny number one.
"Lord! they do kill and kill, I'm told," said greeny number two; "but Texas is such an almighty rich country that all sorts o' critters and things grow up spontaneously everywheres."
"Creation! but why don't they build fences alongside their roads then!"
"O, they never make fences in Texas; first you'd know a hurricane would come tearing along, and land them all in the Gulf of Mexico, quicker than you could say 'Old Kentuck.'"
"Stars and gaiters! what a dreadful dangerous country is this we have got into!" said number two, with a frightened aspect, as they dropped the subject and relapsed into silence, while it was evident, from their anxious visages, that their minds were harassed and disturbed, by visions of hog-wallows, hurricanes and spontaneous animals.
We have heard other and more philosophical hypotheses as to the origin of these uneven roads. Some suppose the country was once an inland sea, and these ridges were occasioned by the continuous action of the waves; others suppose the intense heat of the sun on the soft, clayey soil, caused it to crack and spread asunder, leaving the surface broken and ridgy. This latter is the more generally received opinion, we believe.
Here's half a chapter on hog-wallows, the unpoetical things! but as utilitarians maintain nothing is made but what subserves some purpose, we premise these humpy roads were made for the benefit of gouty men, dyspeptic women, and love-sick lads and lasses. Thus disposed of, "we resume the thread of our narrative," as novel-writers say. Our pen waxes wild and intractable, whenever we get safely over the stormy gulf, and stand on the shores of bonny, bright Texas; for we feel at home there, hog-wallows, musquitoes, Camanches and all. Let none dare gainsay Texas in our ears, for it is the banner state of all the immaculate thirty-one. Come on, reader, now we have had our say, straight up to the thriving plantation of Esq. Camford, and behold the wonders this wonderful land can produce upon the characters of nervous, delicately-constituted ladies. That buxom, blooming-matron in the loose gingham wrapper, and muslin morning-cap, who stands on the gallery of that new and tastefully-built cottage, all overshaded by the boughs of the majestic pecan trees, giving off orders to a brace of shiny-eyed mulatto wenches, who listen with reverential awe and attention, is none other than the hysterical, shaky-nerved Mrs. Camford, whom we beheld some two years ago bewailing the fate which had brought her to this awful place, to be poisoned by snakes, mangled by bears, and murdered by Indians. Listen to her words:
"Thisbe, take the lunch I have placed in the market-basket down to the cotton-field boys, and ask your master to come to the house soon as convenient; some people from the States are come to visit us:—and you, Hagar, go to the garden and gather a quantity of vegetables for dinner. I will be in the kitchen to assist in their preparation."
The women bowed, and hastened away on their separate errands. Mrs. Camford now turned to enter the house, when Josephine, her cheeks blooming with health and happiness, came bounding to her mother's side. "O, mamma, the young gentleman, Mr. Milder, knows all about cousin Alice! he has come right from the place in which she resides. He says she sent a great deal of love to us all, and desired me to write to her. Perhaps, now we know she remembers us so kindly, you will let me go north some time, and pay my long-promised visit. Susette and her husband talk of travelling next season, you know."
All this was uttered in the most lively and animated tone conceivable, and Mrs. Camford smiled, and answered cheerfully, as mother and daughter reëntered the neat, airy parlor, where our heroine of romance, Miss Mary Lester, was sitting beside her portly, red-visaged husband, Col. Edmunds, who had, in early life, been a Texan ranger, and acquired so keen a relish for the wild, exciting scenes of a new country, that he would not give his hand (his heart we suppose he could not control) to the fair Mary, unless she would consent to forego the luxuries of fashionable life, and follow his fortunes through the perils and vicissitudes of an Indian frontier. She stood out to the last, hoping the stalwart colonel would yield to her eloquent pleadings, and consent to make his abode in New Orleans; for she conceived that brother Augustus, having arrived at the sober age of thirty, would never marry, and it would be the finest idea in the world for him to relinquish the splendid estate he had acquired by his own untiring exertions, to the hands of Col. Edmunds, while she, as the worthy colonel's most estimable consort, would condescend to assume the direction of the servants and household affairs, and Augustus could thus live wholly at his ease, without a worldly care to distract his breast. What an affectionate, self-sacrificing sister would she be, thus kindly to relieve her brother at her own expense! But, just as this plan began to ripen for execution, she was counter-plotted, or fancied herself to be, which led to the same denouement. Winnie Morris came to pass a vacation with her brother, Wayland, and the fore-doomed bachelor, Augustus Lester, most audaciously dared to fall in love with the cackling girl. So Miss Mary declared; and to remain in her brother's mansion, where she had hitherto exercised unlimited sway, under such a little minx of a mistress, was too much for human nature to endure; so, all on a sudden, she yielded in full to the majestic colonel's wishes, and "cut sticks" for Texas, flying, as many of us often do, from an imaginary evil, and leaving behind poor little Winnie, innocent and unsuspecting as a lamb, with the great coffee-urn in her trembling hand. How long the fair girl remained thus innocent and unsuspecting, we are yet to know.