The following story of Southern life and manners won a prize offered by a Boston newspaper, and was written by a young lady in Boston, a teacher in one of the advanced schools of that city. She has never visited the South, but the faithful local color and character drawing shows an intimate acquaintance with the works of Mrs. H. B. Stowe, Albion W. Tourgee and other well known chroniclers of Southern life. Everyone living in the South will recognize the accurate portraits of Southern types of character and realistic description of life among the Southern planters.
Will you go, Penelope?” asked Cyrus.
“It is my duty,” I said. “It is a grand mission to go to Texas and carry what light I can to its benighted inhabitants. The school I am offered will pay me well, and if I can teach the savage people of that region something of our culture and refinement, I shall be happy.”
“Well, then, goodbye,” said Cyrus, offering me his hand.
I had never seen him so passionately aroused.
I took his hand for a second and then got upon the train that was to bear me to my new field of duty.
Cyrus and I had been engaged to be married for fifteen years. He was professor of chemistry in the Massachusetts State University. I had received an offer of $40 a month to teach a private school in a little town in Texas, and had accepted it. Cyrus received $20 per month from his chair in the university. He had waited for fifteen years for me to save up enough money for us to get married. I seized this chance in Texas, resolved to live economically, and in fifteen more years, if I kept the school that long, we could marry.
My board was to cost me nothing, as the DeVeres, one of the oldest and most aristocratic families anywhere in the South, offered me a place in their home. There were several children in the family, and they were anxious to secure a competent teacher for the little school which they attended.
The station where I got off was called Houston, and I found there a team waiting to convey me to Vereton, the little town six miles away, which was my destination.
The driver was a colored man, who approached me and asked respectfully if I was Miss Cook. My trunk was placed in the vehicle, which was an old rickety ambulance drawn by a pair of wretched mules, and I mounted beside the driver, whose name, he said, was Pete.