After a long day’s snail-like progress, the train stopping every few miles to take a load of wet and soggy wood, and every few minutes to get up steam, slipping, sliding, and sometimes refusing point-blank to budge until all the men got out in the mud and slush to “giv her a shove,” we reached Houston after midnight, tired, cold, hungry, and cross, to find no conveyance at the muddy, inhospitable shed of a depot to carry us to a hotel.
One of our fellow-passengers, who had also sat by the Beaumont fire, procured a carriage from a stable near by, and in the wee hours of the morning our party tumbled into the “Old Capitol.” I believe there is a new hotel of the same name on the spot now, of which Houstonians are justly proud; and, as our advance in the refinement of life is measured by the depths from which we started, they will not be offended if reminded that the “Old Capitol,” in war-times, was about as wretched a hostelry as could have been found on the face of this continent.
A small bucket, filled with cold meat and sweet-potatoes by the hostess of the Beaumont tavern, to serve in case of delay, was so liberally shared with the other hungry passengers of the train, that we were famished when we arrived at Houston. Nothing whatever to eat was procurable at that late hour. Sabe managed to kindle a fire in the grate of our chilly chamber, already filled with half-burned coals, ashes, scraps of paper, stumps, and quids of discarded tobacco, and we were made more comfortable by a cup of coffee from our own camp supply.
Upon the edge of boasted grazing prairies, where the grass furnished boundless pasturage for cattle too numerous to be counted, not a drop of milk could be had for patient baby, who had almost forgotten the taste of the only food he ought to have had, not a particle of butter to soften the dry sweet-potato he had to eat, not even a piece of broiled steak. Milk and butter, we were coolly told, were out of season (one would have thought they were vegetables and fruit like green peas and peaches), and the meat, tough and stringy, was fried to the consistency of leather.
A dark purple calico dress and black cloth sacque, my hair combed straight back à la chinoise, and protected from dust by a cap of chenille, a home-made palmetto hat of the “wash-bowl” pattern, with a fold of black bombazine around the crown, constituted the costume in which I had traveled and camped. The first morning in that unique hotel, decked out in my black bombazine, my hair in the broad, spreading bands over the ears, as was the fashion, I sallied out to breakfast. A freshly shaved gentleman in broadcloth passed and repassed me with a perplexed look that attracted my notice. Glances of inquiry were exchanged, followed by peals of laughter; the outfit of our Beaumont friend had been even shabbier than mine, and each found the other metamorphosed by change of clothes almost beyond recognition. While enjoying a hearty laugh over the affair, another butterfly emerged from the chrysalis state, and we stoutly refused to recognize my husband fresh from the barber and boot-black.
Drums were beating, flags flying, and the whole city in holiday attire, streets filled with crowds jostling their way toward a grand stand erected on a broad open space in Main Street, where, with some music, more speeches, and most cheers, a pretty young lady in a blue silk evening-dress presented in the name of the “Lone Star State” (as Texas loved to call herself) a superb sword to the gallant general whose dashing heroism had wrested their island city from the grasp of the foe, and much more to the same effect. General Magruder, whose soldierly bearing was somewhat marred by an unfortunate lisp in his utterance, conveying the impression of effeminate affectation, graciously received it, and, refusing the assistance of his aide, buckled it himself about his gorgeous uniform with a solemn oath that it should never be sheathed while the enemy was on Confederate soil, etc., all very grand, glittering, and impressive. I can not but smile now when the scene comes back to me, as I stood in the thickest of the throng, holding Henry by the hand, my heart almost bursting with proud emotion, my eyes dim with grateful tears, and hoping the boy was inhaling patriotism with every breath, though still too young to understand and appreciate the greatness of the occasion. That the elegant sword was borrowed for the presentation from a veteran of the war with Mexico, and was only typical of a more magnificent weapon to be substituted later when circumstances would permit, and was to be returned with thanks to its owner that very night, did not cause a ripple of a derisive smile. Every emotion was merged in patriotic fervor.
Years after, when General Magruder became our guest in a foreign land, how uproariously we laughed at the incident when he repeated, in his peculiarly halting lisp, portions of the gushing address, and in his inimitable way went through the motions of buckling on the borrowed saber, which, by the way, the donors had never been able to replace!
CHAPTER X.
TRAVELING THROUGH TEXAS—NEARING THE RIO GRANDE.
Once in Texas, we moved around with our fast-vanishing lares et penates as business or convenience required. The dear baby succumbed to the first illness he ever had, and one beautiful April day his little body was carried to the cemetery at Houston and buried, as was our blessed Saviour, in a tomb belonging to another. The cradle that had been kindly loaned us by a neighbor, and the various little cups and mugs, also borrowed, were returned, the medicine-bottles put out of sight, and I sat down desolate and lonely in the empty room, with no heart to do any more, feeling that there was nothing now to do but to lie down and die.
My husband, whose energy was all-controlling, and who knew no such word as fail, rose above every emergency. It seems now, when I recall it all, the heavier were the blows, the stouter his resistance. I actually learned in those days to feel something discouraging had happened when he came into my presence with a brighter smile and more cheerful words than usual. His was one of those rare natures to persevere and resist against the blows that would have prostrated almost any other man. He had contracts to move Government cotton to the frontier, which afforded him opportunities to move his own; and in following up that cotton we took more than one trip to the Rio Grande, repeating the camping out, minus the tent, which was patriotically turned over to General Magruder upon our arrival at Houston.