All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography

Mrs. Durham was the wife of George Durham, an Englishman from my own North Country, and an attaché of the comptroller’s office. Robert was his associate, 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 amusement. 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 passed 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 attitude.

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 butter, venison roasted with sweet herbs, or the broiled breasts 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 passed 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. Simcox, 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 latitudes – 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 quantity, 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,

“Ladies, I’m picking my steps over an unkent road. I will not believe that anybody has traveled it afore me.”

“It is the Major, of course!” sighed Mrs. Tannin, shaking her head sadly.

“Yes, Mrs. Tannin, it’s the Major. The man is in perfect agony. He has been raving about his room for three days and nights, and Dr. Alexander says the trouble is like to go on for weeks, or even months.”

“Whatever is the matter, Mrs. R – ?” I asked.

“That Comanche arrow, I reckon,” said Mrs. Smith.

“Perhaps it is the dengue fever,” suggested Mrs. East.

The little woman shook her head. “It is neither one, nor the other,” she answered. “It is nothing natural, or ordinary. I’m sorry for the man. ’Deed am I, but I cannot for the life of me, help a quiet snicker when not seen. Ladies, the Major is cutting a whole set of new teeth.”

“Impossible!”

“’Deed it is the very truth. The doctor lanced his gums this morning, as if he was a baby, and I saw the teeth all ready to be born, as it were. The Major was swearing and groaning, and the doctor, who is very religious, telling him ‘to be quiet,’ and me trembling with fear, and begging Ben for his pistol.”

“Did he give it to you?”

“Finally he threw it down on the table, and told me to ‘hobble the thing,’ which I did by locking it up in my own drawer, and putting the key in my pocket,” and she tapped her pocket significantly, to intimate that it was still there.

“Was it Dr. Litten,” I asked, “who operated?”

“No,” she answered. “It was Dr. Alexander, and he was very irritating, calling Ben an old baby, who made more fuss about cutting teeth than the whole twenty-two babies in Austin, whom he knew, that day, were sucking their mother’s milk and cutting their teeth. I thought then the Major would strike him – sure! And again when he was wiping his lance, and said, very kind like, ‘Major, I do pity you,’ my man answered furiously, ‘Be off with your pity, and don’t come here again with it.’”

Some one remarked that it was a dreadful situation, and then the little wife declared, “It wasn’t like Ben to make a fuss about pain. He had come home one day,” she said, “with a Comanche feather sticking out of his back, and had suffered everything but death, and been as meek and mild as any Christian could be. And yet now!” she continued, “he is raging around like a mad bull; he is smashing my china vases, and flinging his broth out of the window, and swearing at the new teeth till he hasn’t another word left – forbye, he vows he will have the first and the last of them pulled out, as sure and quick as they come. O ladies, it is dreadful! Dreadful!” And then she looked at us with such a comical, lugubrious expression, that further restraint was out of the question. For Mrs. R – was between laughing and crying, and I am afraid we all laughed a little with her. But the incident, though so unusual, was, however, a fact, though how it came to pass, let the doctors tell. We could do nothing but sympathize and offer to make all sorts of nice, soft, mushy dishes for the Major’s sore gums. When Robert came home I did not try to keep the Major’s condition from him, and I felt sure he was contemplating the effect the news would make in his office the next morning; for undoubtedly men love gossip, though they usually call it politics.

I do not know how far this pleasant, homely visiting was imitated by the women living on the outlying ranches and plantations, but I think it likely something of the same kind exists in all tropic countries, where the dwellings of friends are far apart. It was, however, only a superficial quality of the real Texan woman, who was, when I knew her, more than half a century ago, brave and resourceful, especially when her environment was anxious and dangerous. They were then nearly without exception fine riders and crack shots, and quite able, when the men of the household were away, to manage their ranches or plantations, and keep such faithful guard over their families and household, that I never once in ten years, heard of any Indian, or other tragedy occurring.

I have dwelt a little on the character of the Texan woman, because she was in superficial matters and in all her environments a new creation to me. No one knows better than I do, that woman, in all essential characteristics, is the same yesterday, today, and forever, yet the readiness with which she lends herself to the variations of race, climate, caste, creed, nationality, and conditions of every kind, is the greatest charm of her feminality. Thus, in detailing the scene with Mrs. R – , I was instinctively led to picture a group of Scotchwomen, sitting socially together and listening to a similar story. I could see them, not in comfortable lounging gowns, but corseted, collared, cuffed, and belted to the last point of endurance and sewing, of course, for a Ladies’ Aid, or Dorcas Society. If, into the midst of such a group was flung the news of a man near ninety years old cutting a new set of teeth, I know it would be received with looks of frigid disapproval. If assured that it was not an unseemly joke, but an undoubted fact, they would still disapprove such a departure from the decorum of old age.

Perhaps some one might suggest there was a mistake, “it being a circumstance clean beyond the bounds of probability”; then, if told the medical man had seen the new teeth, the question would be, what medical man? And, if he was not one attending their family, his skill would be as certainly doubted, as would be the orthodoxy of any minister, they did not “sit under.” If, finally, the incident got a tardy, grudging admission, some one would “suppose the fact – if it was a fact – ought to be reported to the Royal Society of Surgeons and Physicians in London”; and some one else would be certain to answer, “The Royal Society is already well acquainted with the like of such cases. It has published accounts of them more often than you think. My mother has read the same – whiles.”

This assertion, not being deniable, would elicit the reflection that there was then nothing beyond the ordinary in the circumstance, except that such a thing should happen to the Major, “who had always been the most proper of men, a member of St. Jude’s Kirk, and of the very best society”; and this reflection would probably end the matter. There would be no sympathetic words, and no offers of nice, soft, mushy things to eat for a man nearly ninety, who could so flagrantly violate the ordinary Scotch traditions with regard to teething. How women of other nationalities would receive such a piece of news, I leave my readers to decide. One thing is certain, no two groups of different race and environments, creed or education, would take even such a simple household matter in quite the same spirit and manner. Let men be thankful for the variableness of women. It provides them continually with something to admire, or to wonder over.

Among such scenes and people as I have been describing I spent nearly ten years; and the first three or four of these ten were, in some respects, the happiest years of my life. Their very memory is a blessing unto this day, for often, when I am heart and brain weary, it steals upon me, swift and sweet and sure as a vision. I smell the China trees and the pine. I hear the fluting of the wind, and the tinkling of guitars. I see the white-robed girls waltzing in the moonshine down the broad sidewalks of the avenue, and the men, some in full evening dress, and others in all kinds of picturesque frontier fashion, strolling leisurely down its royally wide highway. I am sitting in the little wood house, with its whitewashed ceilings and unpainted stairway and one sits at my side, who left me forty-five years ago. Oh, believe me! He who raised the shade of Helen, had no greater gift than mine!

About the middle of October Robert finished the work intrusted to him by the Ways and Means Committee of the Session of 1856, and finished it so well, and so completely, that Senator J. W. Throckmorton, Chairman of the Senate Committee, and the Honorable C. W. Buckley, Chairman of the House Committee, entered in their report to the House, the following acknowledgment:

The balance sheet will show the exact pecuniary condition of the affairs of the Board in every point, and it is unnecessary to say more upon the subject, than to invite an inspection of it. The Committee were extremely fortunate in procuring the services of a gentleman to act as their Secretary, so well qualified to perform the duties, and so thoroughly versed in book-keeping as Mr. Barr. His qualifications have lightened their labors, and an inspection of the exhibit prepared by him, is only necessary to prove how fortunate we have been in procuring his services.

I was exceedingly proud of this notice, and it was very fortunate for Robert, for Mr. Shaw, the comptroller, immediately offered him the second desk in his office, so that he had his friend, George Durham, for his confrère. I had not even an hour’s time to be anxious, for Robert went at once from the committee room to the comptroller’s office, and in all probability the future was settled for many years. That was what I thought, and I put out of my memory all the sorrowful past, and counted the present as its compensation.

CHAPTER XIV

THE BEGINNING OF STRIFE

“Pride in their port,
Defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of humankind pass by.”

I had written home many times since we left Memphis, and had fully described all that we had seen and heard, as well as all that had happened to us, and I had received several letters in reply to mine. But all had made me a little anxious about my mother’s health, and I knew that she was fretting about our being so far from England. “Death cannot so completely separate us, Milly,” she wrote; “indeed, when I am dead, I shall often be close to you.” She was right. Time and distance are two sharp swords. Distance cuts apart, and time teaches forgetfulness.

Now trouble of all kinds is voluble, and has plenty of words, but happiness was never written down. Happiness is like religion; it is a mystery, and should not be explained or reasoned about. I find it difficult to put into words the pictures of the life full of all things good, which God gave me for the next four years, and I am glad that it had the little shadows necessary for its full flavor and strength. For it is a poor, weak happiness that is devoid of small worries and disagreeables; these things being the tonic bitters without which we should weary even of our pleasures.

So I had differences of opinion with my hired slaves. I did not understand the negro woman then, any better than I understand the Finnish or Irish woman now. I thought right was always right, and that all women, of whatever race, ought to do right; and Robert’s advice about “making allowances” was not agreeable. Robert himself did not always deserve, or, at least obtain, my approval; and my friends did and said things I thought they ought not to do and say. The children would play down at the creek, soil and tear their dresses, and then be sure to show themselves when they were not fit to be seen. Sometimes the dinner was a failure, sometimes the weather was all wrong for my purposes, sometimes I did not get the letter I was expecting.

For my twenty-sixth birthday Robert had bought me a piano, and it did not arrive in Austin until two weeks after it was due. I had not touched a piano for more than a year, and my fingers ached for the ivory keys. Those two weeks were hard to bear. I forgot all my other blessings. I knew that if hope brightened life, patience strengthened it, but I did not want to exercise patience at this time, and I worried all the pleasure out of the gift before I received it. I was sorry enough afterwards, but I could not undo the wrong. I had spoiled the gift by those self-inflicted wounds, which are always lost griefs. The piano has gone, I know not where, but the memory of my fretful unreasonableness is still with me, and can still cause me moments of keen sorrow and chagrin.