All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography Part 27

"He was so impetuous, that it was impossible to question him, and in such a hurry that I had hardly time to put my hat on properly; so in a few minutes we were mounting the long flight of steps leading to the Capitol entrance. Here we met Mr. Raymond, who is state treasurer, and Mr. Scot almost shouted, 'Here's your accountant, Raymond! Here's a leal Scot from the city o' Glasgo, and later from the city o'

Memphis! Here's the very man you and your legislators are wanting!'"

"And then what, Robert?"

"Then Bentley laughed heartily, and introduced me to Mr. Raymond, and while Scot and Bentley sat down on the top step, and fanned themselves with their Panama hats, I had a talk with Mr. Raymond, the result of which was that he took me to a committee room, and showed me its long table piled high and higher with bills and papers.

"'We have had three men here,' said Mr. Raymond, 'and all of them have thrown up the job. Will you try it?' I told him I would gladly do so, and then he hoped I would manage it; and I answered, I had never yet seen the tangle of figures I could not manage.

"'I believe you will clear up this mess,' he said, 'and if you do the House will be grateful. In the meantime we will pay you five dollars a day--hours from ten to four including an hour for lunch. Will that be satisfactory?' I said it would, and he replied, 'Then do get to work at once.' I then asked permission to remove my coat while working, and he laughed like a boy and said, 'Sure! I shall wonder if you don't take off your waistcoat, and your necktie, also.' Then I was left to study the laws governing my work and explaining what I had to do."

"Can you explain it to me, Robert?" I asked.

"I think perhaps you might understand it, if----"

"Of course I can understand it; that is not what I mean. Is it interesting? Is it worth while? Or is it all dollars and cents?"

"It is all dollars and cents--commissions paid to certain men for buying goods for the military board, advances made by different houses, et cetera. You see, Milly," he continued, "the Republic of Texas has just been bought by the United States. Some of her debts the United States a.s.sumes, some she must pay, or has paid herself; and there are agreements covering a score of points of this kind. It is a very intricate piece of business, I a.s.sure you."

"But you can do it, Robert?" I asked.

"Quite easily, when I get the agreements clearly in my mind. I shall do that in a few days, and I like such work. I like it, Milly, as other men like sport, or scientific experiments. Now, Milly, you can look for a house; the trunks will surely be here in a week or ten days, and then we will make another home."

If I have made friends with my readers by this time they will not need to be told how happy I was, how grateful in my heart of hearts to G.o.d, the Giver of all good things, how sure I felt that this wonderful stepping into a fine position was only His doing. I recalled Mr.

Bentley's jump to the roof of the coach, and the little scornful feeling with which I regarded it as a bit of "show off." I recalled my own shyness at all his kind advances during the "nooning" and my petty, angry wonder that Robert should find him so entertaining. Yet the Honorable Mr. Bentley had been the road to Lawyer Scot, Councillor to the House, and Scot the road to State Treasurer Raymond; and quite independent of my approval the way prepared had been strictly followed to the end proposed, and with that rapidity of events which can only spring from intelligence and power beyond human foresight. Nothing in all my life has so irresistibly convinced me, that the steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord, and that He delighteth in His ways, as this wonderful preparation made ready for us, when we arrived at the place appointed. No intimation of it had been given us, which was fortunate, for if we had been expecting something of the kind, we might have worried and interfered, and tied the hands, or delayed in some way those beyond who were arranging our affairs. For this reason the big events of life are rarely announced beforehand, but when least looked for, the thing we have vainly sought, steals quietly into our possession.

In ten days we heard that the trunks were at Bastrop, and I immediately began to look for a small house. Empty houses, however, were not plentiful, almost everybody owned their own home, and such as were to rent, were few and far between. All of them were in the hands of Lawyer Scot, and I called on him one morning to ask about a little place that seemed suitable. Because he had taken so kindly to Robert, I tried to look as pretty as possible. I put on a clean white frock, with blue satin belt and bows, and a very pretty white sunbonnet. For the white sunbonnets of the Texan girl were things of beauty, and as they were removed on entering a room, I soon learned that the very act of removal communicated a pleasant surprise and a revelation of unsuspected charm. I was wishful to win the good will of one who had been so readily a friend to us. I succeeded very well. He looked up a little glumly as I entered, but when I lifted my sunbonnet, made him a curtsey, and said with a smile, "I am Robert Barr's wife," he was delighted. He offered me his chair, and his fan, he had fresh drinking water drawn, he put up windows, he pulled down shades, he was all smiles and graciousness. And I permitted his attentions. I knew that every one made him like me better, and I wished that he might praise me to Robert, for it does the best of husbands good to be reminded by other men, that they have somehow managed to win a paragon.

Then I told him about the house and he said, "It was not good enough."

He told me to remember I would have many calls from the ladies connected with the Administration; and I answered I did not want a house that lady callers might approve, but one suitable for a home for Robert and my children. This sentiment agreed with his natural, primitive ideas of wifehood, and he heartily approved my views, but still he would not hear of the cottage I had selected. Finally he admitted that its water supply was poor, and that the house itself had not a good name. "People who mind freets," he continued, "talk about it being unlucky, and point out that every one that lives in it, comes to grief of some kind." But he was willing to warrant that I was above noticing things of that kind.

"Indeed, Mr. Scot," I answered, "you would lose your warranty. I notice them very much. The atmosphere of a house tells me plainly, what kind of people live in it."

"Of an empty house?" he asked.

"There are very few empty houses," I answered, "very few indeed. I knew of one on the busiest corner of a busy street in Chicago. It looked empty. It looked _dead_. You felt sure neither mortals, nor the bodiless were in its vacant rooms."

We continued this conversation until the lawyer appeared to remember with a shock, that we were talking of things startlingly foreign to a lawyer's office, and he ended his next sentence with the information that he had the McArthur place to rent--"a clean, nice house in good company, and without an ugly past to reckon with. I will go with Robert," he added, "and we will look it over together."

Robert subsequently took the house. He said I could make any shelter look homelike, and though small, I also saw that it possessed some possibilities. It was a wood building of two stories. There was one large room into which we entered at once, a thing so English that it won my instant approval. It was well lighted by four large windows, and had a little stoop at the front door with a balcony above it. The roof of this room was unplastered, but the want was partly hidden by a ceiling of strong domestic. The walls were covered with the same material, and then papered. On one side there was a wide fireplace, and a door leading into a room beyond.

This room was smaller and no attempt had been made in it to hide the boarding and shingling, except that they had been whitewashed, and of course that decoration could be again applied. An unpainted stairway in this room led to two large rooms above, and a door opened into a yard containing the kitchen, and a small stable. Robert saw all the inconveniences in their unvarnished literalness. I saw them as picturesque irregularities to be accepted with the rest of their environment. Indeed when our trunks arrived, and I stood once more on my own hearth, I liked the idea of bringing a pretty home out of such apparently incongruous materials. I knew that I could do it. With great and repeated suffering I had bought this knowledge. I had paid the price. Good! What we buy, and pay for, is part of ourselves.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. ROBERT BARR]

Chairs and tables and such things were to be purchased and I chose the home made articles. Among them was a high four-poster bedstead, that reminded me of the century-old bedsteads in English farmhouses. But I liked it because it could be draped with white netting to exclude flies and mosquitoes. But I did not get a trundle bed to roll under it. My enthusiasm concerning trundle beds had cooled, and Mary and Lilly had their individual cots in the room going out of mine.

I remember the three weeks in which I was making a pretty home out of these four rooms of boarding and shingles as one of the happiest periods of my life. I had plenty of fine bedding, and table damask, china and plate, some favorite books, and bits of bric-a-brac, a few pictures and rugs, and a good deal of Berlin wool work, and fancy needlework. At night when we had had dinner, and talked over Robert's experiences at the Capitol, Robert put up shelves here and there for me, hung mosquito nets and shades, and with paint and brush beautified many rough and soiled corners.

Never before had I been so proud of my handsome, clever husband, and I am sure that with elbows bare, and an ap.r.o.n on, I was more charming to him, than I had ever been before. On looking back I find one sure evidence of our perfect love at this time--we hung a number of pictures, and did not have one frown, or cross word about the work.

Now if anything will make two people certain of each other's want of taste, or incorrect eyesight, it is hanging pictures; and if any two doubt this, I advise them to spend an afternoon together in the employment. Robert and I, in these perfect days, never had a doubtful word about any picture, unless his request that a water color portrait of himself, might be turned to the wall when he was in the house, may be taken as coming from some dissatisfaction. It is only necessary to say, I pretended not to hear his request, and that the cherubic boy in a short jacket and square cap disappeared in a way beyond my finding out.

Some weeks of pure happiness followed our settlement, calm-hearted weeks, full of rich content. I made a great many acquaintances, and a few intimate friends. In such a community as the Austin of that date, this result was unavoidable. For _color_ not money was the dividing line, and the consequence was a real democracy. Every good white man was the social equal of every other good white man, but one drop of negro blood put its owner far below social recognition.

And women are never democrats. There is always in their societies an exclusive set. This set in Austin was not as I expected composed mainly of the families connected with the Administration. It was a much more mixed affair. Its leaders were Mrs. Tom Green, and Mrs.

George Durham. Mrs. Green was young, clever, and intimately and decidedly Texan. She was witty and sarcastic, and many were afraid of her criticisms. She dressed well, and entertained delightfully, in Texan fashion, the ladies she chose to honor.

Mrs. Durham was the wife of George Durham, an Englishman from my own North Country, and an attache of the comptroller's office. Robert was his a.s.sociate, and they were excellent friends. I saw little of him, but he frequently sent me birds, venison, and other spoils of his rifle. For he was a fine sportsman, and spent his hours of recreation hunting on the prairie, "shooting for glory" as Texans say of a man, who hunts not for food, but for amus.e.m.e.nt. The Durhams lived in a small log house on the road to the ferry. Every one coming into town, and every one going out of town pa.s.sed Mrs. Durham's. Her sitting-room was as entertaining as the local news in the weekly paper. There was no restraint in Mrs. Durham's company; people could be themselves without fear of criticism. She was not pretty, not stylish, not clever, not in the least fashionable, but she was the favorite of women, who were all of these things. There were no carpets on her floors, and there was a bed in the room wherein her friends congregated. She did not go to entertainments, and I never saw a cup of tea served in her house, yet she was the most popular woman in Austin, and not to be free of Mrs. Durham's primitive log house, was to be without the hall mark of the inner circle.

Taking all things together, the life lived by the women of Austin at that date was a joyous, genial existence. All had plenty of servants, and they could not then give notice, nor yet pack their little parcel and go without notice so then houses once comfortably ordered, remained so for lengthy periods. Their chief employment appeared to be an endless tucking of fine muslin, and inserting lace in the same.

Very little but white swiss or mull was worn, and morning and evening dresses were known by the amount of tucking and lace which adorned them. Some of the women chewed snuff without cessation, and such women, neither "tucked," nor "inserted." They simply rocked to-and-fro, and put in a word occasionally. It must be remembered, that the majority of women who "dipped" had likely formed the habit, when it was their only physical tranquilizer, through days and nights of terror, and pain, and watchfulness; and that the habit once formed is difficult to break, even if they desired to break it, which was not a common att.i.tude.

In 1856, I knew of only two pianos in the city of Austin, one was in the Governor's mansion, the other belonged to a rich Jewish family called Henricks. I think there were certainly more scattered in the large lonely planter's houses outside the city, but in the city itself, I remember only these two. There was no book store in the city, and books were not obvious in private houses; and if there had been any literary want felt, there was wealth enough to have satisfied it.

How did the women amuse themselves? I often asked myself this question. There was no theatre, no hall for lectures or concerts, no public library, no public entertainments of any kind, except an occasional ball during the sitting of the legislature. Yet for all this, and all this, I reiterate my statement that the women of Austin fifty-six years ago lived a joyous and genial life. It was their pleasant and constant custom to send word to some chosen lady, that they, with Mrs. A. and Mrs. B. were coming to spend the following day with her. If the day was hot, they arrived soon after nine o'clock, got quickly into loose garments and slippers, took out their tucking, and palm leaf fans, and subsided into rocking-chairs. They could all talk well, and by noon were all ready for the delicious dinner sure to be prepared. It consisted usually of young chicken fried in b.u.t.ter, venison roasted with sweet herbs, or the broiled b.r.e.a.s.t.s of quails, which cost them about ten cents a dozen, or, if later in the season, a pot-pie of wild turkey. Strong coffee always accompanied the meal, and if any lady could by good luck, or good management, secure milk or cream for a tapioca pudding, or a dish of cup custard, the occasion was memorable. About four o'clock they began to dress, and the carryall arrived; because after half-past-four the invasion of the male might be expected, and it was a point of honor to throw a little mystery around these meetings. Robert once asked me how we had pa.s.sed the time.

"In different ways," I answered.

"You talk of course?" he continued.

"Yes, we talk."

"What about?"

"Many things."

"Can you not tell me some of them?"

"It is not worth while, Robert."

"You do not wish to tell me?"

"Perhaps."

"It might be, that you are afraid to tell."

"It might be."

"Tell me, Milly. Don't be provoking."

"You never tell me, Robert, what George Durham, and Mr. Simc.o.x, and Wash Hill, and the rest of your companions talk about. You always say, if I ask you, 'It is not worth telling.'"

But when the evening shadows fell, and we sat outside under the great planets shining above us--and apparently twice the size they appear in more northern lat.i.tudes--the sweet influences of the Pleiades were too powerful to resist, and I generally then confided to Robert any touching or amusing incident, that had been talked over by us. But sometimes Orion was in the ascendant, and his binding virtues helped me to keep silence, and to be provoking. It must have been Orion at these times, for there is naturally nothing secretive about me.

Our topics were nearly always strictly local, and men dearly love local topics, for instance there was a very pretty old lady frequently present, no matter where the meeting was held. She was a Mrs. R----, aged about sixty-five, the wife of an old Texan Major who had been in every scrimmage that had occurred between the Trinity and the Rio Grande. He was a hale, handsome man far in his eighties, and had virtually lived with his rifle in his hand--on the whole a rather unmanageable human quant.i.ty, except in the hands of his pretty little wife. Being near neighbors she was in my house nearly every day, and perhaps the most welcome visitor we had. She was a Highland Scotch woman, from the city of Perth, still beautiful, and always dressed with piquant suggestion of her native land. Robert paid her great attention, and she sent Robert, three or four days every week, a basin of the Scotch broth he loved so naturally, and to which I had never been able to impart the national flavor.

One day when there was a small gathering in my parlor she joined it.

Every one immediately noticed that the pretty pink color of her cheeks had vanished, and that she looked jaded and half-angry. For a moment I thought she was going to cry. Not at all! She flushed pinker than ever, and in an hysterical voice, blended of anger and pity, and the faintest suggestion of laughter, said,