It was in the spring of the year away back in time when there landed at the town of St. Francisville, or Bayou Sara, a small periagua, or canoe, containing two young men clad in skins, with a camp-kettle, guns, some curiously painted skins, Indian bows, quivers, and Indian curiosities. Their hair was long, their unshaven beards were full and flowing, and in all their appearance they were wild and savage. There were but few houses in the hamlet below the hill. Among these was one of more pretensions than the rest. It was a store, and the merchant was an Irishman. There was near it a neat family carriage. One of the young savages went into this store to find materials for writing to his home-friends, from whom he had been separated for many long months. He found in the store three ladies. Two were young, the other was an aged matron. They seemed not only surprised at the novel apparition before them, but alarmed. This surprise seemed to increase when they saw the young savage rapidly filling, upon the counter, a sheet of paper. They desisted from their shopping, and watched intently the wild savage. When his letter was completed, he politely desired the accommodating merchant to send it for him to the post-office. Then lifting his gray wolf-skin cap from his head, he bowed politely to the ladies and turned to leave the store and their presence. The salutation was gracefully acknowledged, and especially by the matron. Very soon they joined the curious crowd who were examining the contents of the canoe, now placed on the land to await the coming of a steamer that was freighting with cotton above. One of the young ladies seemed much interested and made many inquiries. A bow and quiver was given into her hand. The latter was fashioned from the skin of a Mexican tiger, and was filled with arrows. One of these was bloody, and its history was asked of the youth she had met in the store. It was the blood of a Pawnee chief who, by this arrow, had been slain in battle, and was the gift to the youth from the daughter of the fallen chief, together with the bow and quiver of the Indian who had slain her father, and who was in turn killed by a chief of her tribe.
How beautiful she was to this wanderer of the wilderness! Months upon months had passed away, and he had only looked upon the blank and unmeaning features of the desert savage woman. With these his heart had no sympathy. Like the panther of their plains they were swift of foot, symmetrical in form, wild, untamed and untamable, fierce and unfeeling; and were not formed by nature for sympathy or social union with the higher organizations of civilized man. His dream of romance was being realized. The vacuum in his heart was filling. How in contrast were his feelings and appearance! Clad as a savage, his skin was covered with the fabric of an Indian woman, closely fitting, with moccasins on his feet, and a gray wolf-skin cap upon his head—his long, black hair with the luxuriant growth of two years curling over his shoulders, and his beard, like the wing of night fluttering in the breeze, waving down from his chin to his breast in ringlets, glossy and beautiful. He was lithe as a savage, and seemed to be one. In his heart were kindling soft emotions, and memories of maidens he had known—now far, far away—came crowding upon that heart. Before him stood the embodiment of beauty and grace, attired with costly and beautiful fabrics which flowed about her person like the white vapor upon the breezes of spring. Elegance was in her every attitude, and grace in every movement. Her features and her eyes beamed with a curious wish to learn the story of the strange wild being before her. Their two hearts were in sympathy; but to each other it was a secret. How strangely they had met! How strangely they were feeling! How soon they were to part! "Where is he from? Where is he going?" asked her eyes; and he looked: "Who are you; and where is your home, beautiful being, so strangely and so unexpectedly met?"
An arrow was shot from the bow to gratify a request. She followed the quivering thing with her eye, as it sped like a shaft of light to its destined mark. To retrieve it she walked with the youth to where, fixed in a bale of cotton, it trembled, some hundred yards away. Slowly she returned by the youth's side, and drooped her head, listening to the wild mountain adventures he was telling—the chase of the elk, the antelope, and the wild buffalo; the hazardous ride through the wild prairies, expanding away in the distance to kiss the horizon; the stealthy wiles of the revengeful savage; the fierce fight of savage men; the race for very life, when the foe followed; and the bivouac upon the prairie's breast, with the weary horse sleeping and resting by his side. Will he ever forget the speaking of the beaming features of that beautiful creature, when she lifted her head and looked into his face? A frown darkened the matron's features as her élève returned to the curious group which was listening to the narrative of the older of the two strangers. It said: "What did you leave me for? Why this indiscretion?" Ah! how often old women forget they were once young!
The steamer is coming. She is here; and the trappings of the wanderers are on board. The young wild man stands alone upon the upper deck. His eyes pierce to where stands the sylph he leaves with reluctance. She is looking at him. He lifts his cap and bows farewell. She waves her kerchief in return. The steamer speeds away. They are parted. Has that brief interview left an impression upon those two young hearts to endure beyond a day? Will she dream of the dark beard, curled and flowing—of the darker eye which looked and spoke? and will the wild story of the western wilderness come in the silent darkness of her chamber, and make her nestle closer to her pillow? Will her heart ask: "Shall I ever meet him again?"
He has gone away; a waif about the land—a feather on the world, driven about, as destiny impels, without fixed intentions; yet buoyant with the ardor of youth, and happy in the excess of youthful hopes, dreamy and wild adventures. He has tasted the savage love of woods and wilds, and the nature—which was born thousands of years ere the teachings of civilization had tamed the wild man into an educated, home-loving being—revives, and the two struggle for mastery in his heart. The bleak mountain-peaks, the wide-extended plain and its wild denizens, and the excitement these give, stirs his bosom, and the wish struggles up to return to them. But the gentler chords of his heart are in tune. The once-loved home, and she, the once-loved and yet-remembered maiden, is there, and it may be she pines for his return. He gazed on the beautiful apparition but a moment gone, and thought of another; and thought begat thought until the loved one he had left rose up to memory's call. He was alone, looking upon the great river through whose turbid waters he was borne away, and he felt he was lengthening a chain linked to his heart which pulled him back—to what, and to whom? It was a vision—a dream with his eyes open: indistinct, unembodied, a very shadow; still it floated about in his imagination, and he was sad. He was in the city—the great Sodom of the West. He was an object of wonder to every curious eye. His wild appearance and gentle manner comported illy, and the thoughtless crowd followed him. Attired now as a civilized being, and feeling that the vagrant life of a savage must lead to grief, he called to mind the tear which stole from the rheumy eyes of the old trapper as he narrated his adventures in the wilderness, and cursed the hour he ever wandered from his home. His life had been a continual danger, his hope had been always to return to his early attachments; but the chain of habit fettered him, and he had learned to love the wild, solitary life, because of its excitements and its dangers. Should he, like this man, come to love the solitude and silence of the wilderness, and find companionship only with his traps and guns?
His resolution was taken, he would renew the strife with the world and go back to busy life. His companion of many dangers and long marches was going to Mexico in search of new adventures. They are alone upon the broad levee—busy men are hurrying to and fro, little heeding the two—a small schooner is dropping and sheeting home her sails; she is up for Tampico, and Gilmanot goes in her; she is throwing off her fastenings. "All aboard," cries the swarthy, whiskered captain—a grasp of the hand—no word was spoken—it was warm and sincere, there was no need of words—each understood that last warm farewell pressure. She is sweeping around Slaughter-house Point—only the topmasts are visible now—and now she is gone. The young adventurer stands alone and the crowd goes hurrying on. How many in desolation of heart have stood alone and unheeded by the busy, passing multitude upon that broad levee! How many tears of misery have moistened its shell-covered summit, when thinking of friends far, far away they should never see again, and when hope had been rooted from the heart!
He wandered to the great square, now so beautifully ornamented with shrubs and flowers which love the sun and the South's fat soil, growing and blooming about the bronze representation of the loved hero who had been her shield and savior in the hour of her peril, Andrew Jackson. Then there were a few trees only, and beneath these, here and there, a rude rural seat or bench. The old, gray cathedral was frowning on the world's sins, so rife around her; and the great, naked square and the mighty muddy river which was hurrying away to the sea. To the most thoughtless will come reflection, and the sweetest face is mellowed by sorrow. Here under these trees, in the midst of a great city, came to the young adventurer reflection and sighing sorrow. His mother and father came up in memory; the home of childhood, his brother, his sister, his friends, all were remembered; his heart flooded over and he wept like a little child. Blessed are they who can cry. It is nature's outlet for grief, and the heart would break if we could not cry. The heart is not desolate when alone in the forest or the boundless grass-clothed plains of the West. Nature is all around you, and her smile is beneficent. There is companionship in the breeze, in the waving grass, the rustling leaves, and the meanings of the wind-swayed limbs of the yielding forest. In the city's multitude to move, and be unknown of all; to hear no recognized voice; to meet no sympathizing smile or eye; to be silent when all are speaking, and to know that not one of all these multitudes share a thought or wish with you—this is desolation, the bitterness of solitude.
A year has gone by, and the youth has found a new home and has made new friends. He is one of the busy world and struggling with it. He is in commerce's mart and is one of the multitude who come and congregate there for gain; in the hall of Justice, where litigants court the smiles and favors of the blind goddess, where right contends against wrong, and is as often trampled as triumphant; and where wisdom lends herself for hire, and bad men rarely meet their dues.
Pestilence had come, and the frightened multitude were fleeing from the scourge. There was one who came and proffered the hospitality of his home—where Hygeia smiled and fever never came. Thither he went, but the poison was in his blood, and as he slept it seized upon his vitals. His suffering was terrible, and for days life's uncertain tenure seemed ready to release her hold on time. In his fever-dream there was flitting about him a fairy form; it would come and go, as the moonlight on the restless wave—a moment seen and in a moment gone. He saw and knew nothing for many days distinctly; he would call for his mother and weep, when only winds would answer. Delirium was in his brain, and wild fancies chased each other; he heard the crowing of cocks and saw his sister; his father would come to him, and he would stretch out his hand and grasp the shadowy nothing. There was a halo of beauty all about him; prismatic hues trembled in the light, and the tones of sweet music floated upon the breeze. He saw angels swimming in the golden light; the blue ether opened, and they came through to greet him and to welcome him to heaven. Then all was darkness, the crisis had come. He slept in oblivious ease—it was long; and awaking, the fever was gone. There was a gentle, sweet, sorrowful face before him—their eyes met; for a moment only he looked—it was she whom he had met and parted from without a hope of ever meeting again when robed as the Indian he stood upon the steamer's deck and waved farewell forever. He reached forth his hand. She took it and approached, saying, "You are better, and will soon be well." He could only press her hand as the tears flooded over his eyes. With a kerchief white as innocence it was wiped away and the hand that held it laid gently on his brow—that touch thrilled his every nerve.
Days went by, and the convalescent was amid the shrubs and flowers of the beautifully ornamented grounds. When he came to the maiden reading in the shade of a great pecan-tree, she bid him to a seat.