Confederate notes so rapidly depreciated, their purchasing power was reduced to a minimum. In the interior of the country, where these notes were current, there were scarcely any goods. San Antonio, the chief trading-point of Texas, had a working population of thrifty Germans, who cultivated market-gardens and raised poultry. This shrewd class, and the ease-loving Mexicans, refused to accept any currency other than specie in exchange for goods or labor; and buyers whose purses did not contain the genuine article had to lead lives of great self-denial. Women whose husbands, in the army or Confederate Congress, were paid in the depreciated paper currency, fared very badly. I recall meeting, in those trying days, a very bright, intelligent woman, born in the “White House” and educated in Europe, whose husband represented the State of Texas in the Confederate Congress at Richmond, and hearing her say that her “gude man’s” monthly salary was not sufficient to supply her table with vegetables for a week! Nothing remarkable was said or thought of one family in Houston who paid five dollars every day for a measure of Irish potatoes for their dinner, as it was understood that they brought a whole bed-tick stuffed with Confederate money from Louisiana! I remember well paying thirty dollars for a pair of flimsy, paper-sole Congress shoes, that were not fit to be seen after ten days’ wear. My crowning extravagance was the last purchase made in that currency, when ninety dollars was paid for one yard and a half of common blue cotton denims, to make little Henry a pair of pantaloons! He often says, with a quaint smile, that he once owned a ninety-dollar pair of trousers, and wishes he had them now, but, alas! they were too greatly needed to keep—he had to put them on in a hurry, such was his emergency.
CHAPTER XII.
FINAL TRIP TO THE RIO GRANDE—MATAMORAS OCCUPIED BY THE FRENCH—WAITING!—MARTHA BEFORE THE ALCALDE—WAR OVER!
We made a final trip to Mexico, the following September, and had almost our first experience in camping during stormy weather. From San Antonio to Laredo everything was soaked. We often experienced great difficulty in making camp-fires—more than once starting in the early morning, all damp and miserable, and without the usual hot coffee. Near the Frio we met the only American train I saw, accompanied with a woman (it was not unusual to see women in Mexican trains, making chocolate and tortillas for their teamster lords). A Texas teamster, with a wife and two children, returning from the Rio Grande, was camping by the road-side in a drenching rain, dismally trying with wet chips and twigs to make a fire, as they had no cooked provisions. Pitying their forlorn condition, we shared our cold coffee and hard-tack with them, for which they were exceedingly grateful. The poor woman told me that her husband was hauling Government cotton with his only team, and she accompanied him, because they lived in such an isolated part of the country she was afraid to remain at home alone with the little ones.
The third day brought us to the Nueces River, which was rushing, boiling, and seething, from the overflow of its springs far up the country, and by the unusual rise the ford was obliterated. Here we found ourselves five miles from any forage. Teams and horsemen had been there for days waiting to cross, and their cattle had devoured all the grass. Ours were almost famished, while “green fields and pastures new” waved at us from the opposite shore.
A number of wagons on the other side were caught also by the flood; and their freight, consisting chiefly of bags of perishable goods, was being transported across the angry stream in improvised floats of rawhides, with Mexicans swimming at the four corners and guiding them. My husband at once thought that if these men could be hired to take our baggage over in the same way, we might be able to cross in the empty wagons. The banks of the stream were deep, almost perpendicular. One of the men of our party, who was riding a tall horse, at last volunteered to search for the ford by crossing back and forth two or three times. The rushing waters of the narrow stream wet the pommel of Mr. Dodds’s saddle, but he succeeded in finding what he considered a safe place to venture. In the meager Spanish I could muster by the aid of an old “Ollendorff,” the Mexicans were engaged to unload and transport the contents of the wagon. After it was emptied, and the big cotton cover removed, Zell, our darky driver, seated himself behind the mules; I laid aside all superfluous articles of dress, took my seat on the very top rail of the wagon, planted my feet firmly on a soap-box, with my hands above my head, grasped the curved wooden frame intended to support the cover, shut my eyes, said, “All ready!” and held my breath. Dodds on his horse, and my husband on an ambulance-mule, each with a handful of pebbles, rode on either side of the team. “Now start!” Zell gave a sharp “click” and a cut with his whip, and down the steep bank of the river the four mules plunged. Touching cold water, there was a feint to hold back, but Zell’s whip, the outriders’ vigorous use of pebbles which were fired at them, and the shouts and whoops of all the teamsters gathered on the bank to see the fun, forced them to plunge in. For a moment they were out of sight, then their heads emerged from the water, which was pouring over their backs. They would have floated helplessly down the rapid current but for the shouting, yelling, cracking of whips, and firing of pebbles, which so confused them they could neither stop nor balk. Never for an instant losing my grip or self-possession, wet up to my knees, soap-box careering down the tide, we rushed up that steep and slippery bank triumphant! The outriders went back for the rest of our belongings, an empty ambulance, Henry, and my colored maid Martha. Dodds brought the last two over behind him on his horse. Then my husband drove over the ambulance, while Dodds, with stones, whip, and shouts, assisted him. Loading up and moving slowly off, we were inspirited by the applause of the astonished spectators, who had not the courage to follow in our footsteps.
Soon we found the inviting green, which at a distance looked so tempting, was only a narrow fringe of verdure on the bank; a few rods farther revealed a wide and deep morass, covered with slimy green water, in which were several ox-teams hopelessly stalled. The tired teamsters had fought bravely to get through, but at last had given up, leaving the wagons sunk to the axles in the mud, and the dejected and hungry oxen, with yokes on, standing about wherever they could obtain a foothold.
It seemed hopeless for us to attempt the feat of crossing a bog where so many had failed, but our invincible Dodds rode its length, his horse sinking at every step up to his knees, occasionally deeper. At the distance of two hundred yards, there was a perceptible rise in the surface of the submerged land, and beyond that a pretty fair road leading to a ranch. It was unsafe to attempt to drive the mules over with more than the wagon and empty ambulance. So, by the aid of a stump, I mounted the horse behind Dodds, and rode across the boggy marsh to dry land, descending on another stump. He brought Henry and Martha over in the same way. Then the old tactics were resorted to, by means of whips and pebbles, to encourage the ambulance-mules through the mire, which was often so deep that the traces swept the scummy, green surface. Zell’s team of four had followed the ambulance so long, that it did not require very much urging to keep them close to its rear curtain. A drive of five miles brought us to General Benavides’s ranch. There we camped by the side of a clear, pebbly rivulet, a half-mile from the shepherd’s quarters, where there was something green for the tired, hungry mules, and a low growth of bushes affording me a rustic retreat, while I indulged in an extra wash out of the horse-bucket, and hung all the wet things out to dry.
The surrounding country was rolling and beautiful, the growth stubby mesquite, very little grass, and that only in patches here and there.
We soon had a crackling fire, some coffee, fried bacon, and hard-tack, after which the refreshed party rested a while, discussing the events of the day, and congratulating one another on the perseverance that brought us finally to such a delightful camping-spot. While the smoldering brands still glowed and the strong odor of the frying-pan hovered over the débris of our appetizing supper, Henry rolled himself up in his blanket under the ambulance, and we pinned down the curtains and curled up inside to sleep. The moon shone brightly. I lay for a long time peeping through a crack at the lovely scene around me, too enraptured with its beauty to sleep. Mesquite has the light foliage of the myrtle, and grows in graceful clusters, shading the ground so that no grass flourishes beneath, here forming a slight hedge, there a bower, presenting in the deceptive moonlight all the effects of a charming piece of landscape-gardening, with even the accessory of a purling stream meandering through it in this instance. There was a bit of clearing, necessary for our camping and cooking, and the ambulance was drawn up by the side of it. In the night my husband’s quick ear detected strange sounds issuing from our impromptu kitchen, and, peeping out, saw—what, tired as he knew I was, he felt I must see also—a whole congregation of prairie-wolves (coyotes) around the remnant of fire, enjoying the departing odor of fried meat, a regular circle of them seated on their haunches with heads turned up in the air like great ferocious dogs. A few preliminary low barks, and the meeting was opened by the most extraordinary long and mournful howls, all in unison; the wails gradually died down to a low, low key and an occasional snap. Then one gaunt old veteran began a solo harangue: it really seemed that he was wailing out such a pitiful story of grievances that, before he concluded, the sympathy of the whole audience was aroused, and his plaint was joined by other prolonged and distressing sounds that seemed a chorus of lamentations. I was so surprised and startled, that I did not at first think of our boy sleeping on the ground almost at the very tail of one of the ferocious howlers. When I made a stealthy motion to rouse the child, quick as a flash those beasts slid away, among the bushes here and there, fading noiselessly out of sight, like shadows in the moonlight.
Laredo had assumed a business air since our visit of the previous year. The little muchachos had become so accustomed to the sight of ambulances and teams that the last entrance into town was not triumphant. Proceeding to Matamoras, on the Mexican side of the river, we found the road narrow, with the thick brushwood lining the sides literally festooned with bits of cotton from passing teams. On the first day, as we drove slowly along this monotonous country road, my husband’s watchful eye perceived, in a small opening by the side of the ambulance, a huge rattlesnake coiled, with head erect, forked tongue, and glistening eyes, following in an almost imperceptible motion the fitful efforts of a large frog vainly trying to get out of his way. The snake had fastened his eyes on the eyes of the frog; the poor creature could not even wink, he could not escape the fascinating gaze. Turning his body, though not his head, he would make a pitiful little squeak and a desperate effort to jump; but the wretched frog could not jump backward. Every motion he made was accompanied by a corresponding motion of the wily serpent. So intent were they that we alighted from the vehicle, and Mr. Dodds stood near with pistol in hand; neither the snake nor the frog seemed to have consciousness of the presence of any other object than the one upon which its eyes were fixed. At last the head of the serpent slowly approached nearer and nearer its victim, the poor creature made one despairing croak that sounded almost human in its agony, and leaped into the full distended jaws of the rattlesnake! At the same instant the watchful Mr. Dodds fired his pistol with such accurate aim that the vertebra was struck close to the head, the jaws suddenly relaxed and fell open, and out sprang Mr. Frog! If ever a frog made haste to get away, that frog was the one. He was out of his enchantment, out of the jaws of death, and out of our sight in an instant. The thirteen rattles that tipped the tail of that enterprising snake remained in my possession for many years, a memento of the incident.