All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography

…

“… Councils, doctors, priests,
Are but the signs that point us to the spring
Whence flow thy living waters. From thyself, direct,
The secret comes to all worthy to find it.”

Very light was my soul that happy morning, and I might well be happy. Such moments as I had spent alone with God are both sacrificial and sacramental. They are strong with absolution, and the soul comes out of them justified, and full of hope.

The following day I called Mary and Lilly to me, and told them that our stock of money was getting low, and that as I was now quite well I must find something to do which would make us a living.

“Have you thought of this necessity, my dears?” I asked. Both answered they had thought a great deal about it. Then I said,

“Mary, what in your opinion is the best thing to try?”

“A first class school for girls,” was her ready reply. “You like to teach big girls, Mamma, and I can take charge of the little ones.”

I saw dissent on Lilly’s face, and I asked, “Is that your opinion also, Lilly?”

“No, indeed!” she answered promptly. “I have often asked Mary, what good there would be in opening a school, when there were no scholars. The school I went to before the fever has not re-opened, nor has the school Calvin went to. There are no scholars for either of them, because there is no money to pay the teachers. And there is no money either to buy school dresses, and shoes and books and such things. I was talking to Lulu Jordan a few days since, and she told me, she could not go to school because she had only one decent suit, and she had to save that for church.”

“Well, then, Lilly, have you any idea as to what we can do?”

“Yes, Mamma. I would rent a proper room, very near the great shops, and fit it up to sell books, papers, fine stationery for girls’ love letters, pretty ribbons, tarlatans of all colors for dancing dresses, cheap laces – oh, everything that girls and women want, and especially embroidery silks and threads and patterns. I would buy the best tea you can get, and give ladies a cup of tea, and an Albert biscuit, and charge them fifteen cents for it. Don’t laugh, Mamma; yes, do laugh, Mamma. It is so good to hear you laugh again. You know I could attend to the tea department. I’d like to do it.”

I can see her bright eager face as I write these words, and also Mary’s calm dissenting smile, which was both critical and disapproving.

“What do you say, Mary, to this plan?” I asked.

“A plan that you should keep a shop, Mamma? It is absurd. Grandmother would never speak to us again.”

“I don’t think she fatigues herself with speaking to us now,” said Lilly; “and when she does send us a letter, it generally spoils two or three whole days.”

“No shop of any kind would make our living,” continued Mary. “Mamma could not make any shop pay. Mamma does not have the qualities that make a shopkeeper.”

I listened with interest to this conversation. Evidently my daughters had not a high opinion of my commercial ability, and I may as well admit here, that their estimate was a just one. I had no business tact. I could calculate neither profit nor loss. I had no power to judge of probabilities. Certainly I had intuitions, often singularly wise ones, but I had no more experience than the two girls who were discussing me. I was, however, a little piqued at Mary’s assertion that, “Mamma could not make any shop pay,” and I asked her why she made such a statement.

“Because, dear Mamma,” she answered, “you would be cheated both in your buying and your selling. I have heard Papa say often, that you paid too much for all you bought, and you know when we were in Cook’s house and had such quantities of eggs and chickens, that you sold some, and every one paid you less than market price, or mostly paid you nothing at all.”

This question with its asides and amendments kept us talking all day; for a norther had sprung up, and it was too cold for any of us to venture outside. Just as the dim came on, and Lilly rose to light the candles, and I to throw some cedar logs on the fire, there was a knock at the door, and Mayor Williams came in. Mary helped him off with his coat, and he sat down before the blazing fire, and took Alice upon his knee.

“Mrs. Barr,” he said, “I want to have a little talk with you and the girls, so if you will ask me to a cup of tea, we can discuss what I have come to say over it.”

“In ten minutes,” I said, “supper will be ready;” and I went to the dining-room to hurry forward its service. I knew whatever business he wished to discuss must in his opinion be important, or he would not have come to the house in a norther. As soon therefore as we were seated at the table, I said, “We have been talking all day, Mr. Williams, of work and business, and of how we are to make money.”

“And I,” he answered, “have been talking to General Waul about your position, and I think he has shown me a way that you can follow.”

“General Waul!” I ejaculated. “I do not know him at all. Who is General Waul?”

“He would feel much hurt at your asking such a question. He was the Commander of Waul’s Legion, and a man of mark during the war.”

“Is he a soldier now?”

“No. He is now the most prominent lawyer in Galveston. His estate is on the main land, but he wishes to get board and lodging for himself and Mrs. Waul in a family where there are no lodgers. I told him about your position, and it came to this: He says he will pay you one hundred dollars a month for their board and lodging. He says also, that he can bring with him four or five other lawyers, and I think I can assure you of two of my friends, and there is Scotch Brown, Barton, East, Sutherland, Miller, Thomas, and others whom Mr. Barr nursed through the fever, and who will be glad to return in this way the kindness he showed them.”

“O Mr. Williams!” I answered. “I am most grateful to you. I may not at first manage as well as I should like, but I will do my best.”

“And we will help you, all we can, Mamma,” said Mary and Lilly. So without having once thought of such a thing, I felt myself committed to running a boarding-house for the Lawyer’s Mess, and such other gentlemen as seemed advisable. My first question regarded the house.

“Shall I have to move?” I asked. “Or will this dwelling be suitable?”

“You will have to move at once,” was the answer. “This place is too far from the business part of the town; it never had a pleasant name; and its fatal record during the fever would terrify guests. I have just the house proper for your purpose in my mind. It was empty during the fever, and there is no one in it now, but there will be tenants, if you do not take it, tomorrow.”

“Where is it?”

“In the pleasantest part of Tremont Street, next door to your friend Dr. Estabrook. If you do not mind the cold, meet me at the doctor’s tomorrow at twelve o’clock, and I will go with you to the owner, and see that no advantage is taken of you.”

I could not help a smile. My business incompetency must indeed be flagrantly palpable, to make my business friend think it necessary to leave his official duties to protect me. Then I told him what my daughters’ opinion of it was, and so gave myself up to their management and advice. And there was a happy, hopeful feeling in every heart at our simple table. The way, and the work shown me, was not the way and the work I would have chosen; but we talked ourselves into a kind of enthusiasm concerning it. I made little of the cold or the labor of the removal, and was only anxious for the morning, that I might begin to get away from the house in which I had suffered such loss and sorrow.

I turned my thoughts persistently to the new house, to the new work, and the new life; and my heart thrilled, as in years gone by, to the warm, bright hope that had been given it. It was so naturally easy for me to hope when things came to me unexpectedly, with all the sanguine air of godsends. To this day, I have the same disposition, and find it hard to consider my good hope baseless. A seed must have been on the spot where a flower blooms.

In a week we were settled in the house on Tremont Street, and soon after General and Mrs. Waul took possession of its best room. I had had some fears about Mrs. Waul, who I was told had been a great beauty and a social leader in Washington and New Orleans. I found her in many respects a delightful woman, thoroughly good-natured, freely frank, in manner witty, clever in conversation, and still beautiful. She was also easily pleased, and whatever she asked was generally as advantageous to myself as to her. Thus a few days after she came to live with us, she said to me, as we were sitting together in the parlor,

“This is a very pleasant room.” I assented, and she continued, “and it would be much more pleasant if differently arranged.”

“How would you arrange it?” I asked.

She stood up and looked carefully around. “Why, my dear,” she answered in her pretty, patronizing manner, “in arranging a room, you must follow the same rule as in dressing a woman. A woman makes all she can of her strong points, brings them into notice, puts them forward, and so on. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes,” I answered, “but there is no harm in that.”

“Just so, and a room ought to have its strong points considered in the same way; that is, the handsomest or prettiest piece of furniture should be opposite the door, so that it may be the first thing that catches the visitor’s notice. Suppose we try it?”

I said, “I should like to do so;” and calling the table boy, I told him to get some one to help him move furniture, and come to the parlor. Then Mrs. Waul took the management of affairs, and in fifteen minutes the room had changed its character. It had been a quiet, orderly parlor, not often visited by any one; she gave it that air of ease and languor, so conducive to social intimacy. I do not know how she managed it, but the result she anticipated quickly followed. That evening after dinner, the piano was standing open opposite the parlor door, and Doctor Burnet sauntered into the room, and sat down before it. Moved perhaps by love’s tender phantasy, he struck a few chords and began to sing “Lorene.” Mrs. Waul and Major Hume and several others came in to listen, and then lingered there. By and by, some one started “There’s Life in the Old Land Yet,” a young gentleman from Baltimore thrilled the house with the magical strains of “My Maryland,” and was followed by a captain of a late Texas regiment, declaring in melodious numbers, his everlasting devotion to “The Bonnie Blue Flag that bears the Single Star.”

Every one seemed to enjoy that hour of song and conversation after dinner, and it had actually been induced by nothing more personal than the movement of a few chairs and tables, and the cheerful face of an open piano.

For a couple of months all appeared to be going well. I had twelve boarders, and my income from them was about a hundred dollars a week. That sum appeared to me a large amount for household expenses, and I was sure I must be making money. But one day something happened which caused me to make an investigation, and to my dismay, I found I had been exceeding my income every week. Without going into details, which would interest no one, I utterly failed to check this tendency to excess in the wrong direction and I was seriously unhappy and anxious.

Towards the end of May, Mrs. Waul and the General went to their own home, the heat grew oppressive, there were whispers of fever, and the rest of the boarders began to scatter. Some went north, some to Austin or San Antonio; here and there they went, most of them leaving part or whole of their bills “until their return.” By the first of June we were nearly alone, but I found it was an ordinary experience, and I faced it as cheerfully as I could. In my heart I was glad. I was sick for solitude. I had been living among people until I did not know myself. I said to my soul, “Now we will have a few days of quiet and peace, then I will look after money again.” And I really did throw off all care. I would not think of what I was owing, or of what people owed me. I let the children do as they wished, and I reveled in long hours of silence. And solitude is such a potential thing. We hear voices in solitude, we never hear in the hurry and turmoil of life; we receive counsels and comforts, we get under no other condition,

“For to be alone with Silence,
Is to be alone with God.”

So I let the world and all its cares “go” for three days, and at the end of them, I was ready to look my perplexities in the face.

“Children,” I said, “we shall have no boarders until October; very well, we will clear the house of all servants but little Polly. We will live as quietly as possible, and spend no money that can be helped.” But I could not easily carry out this intention. I had three boarders, and they did not wish to change, and promised to bring me enough transient guests to carry the house through the summer. In a way, they kept this promise, and I managed to get through the next four months not uncomfortably. For I was sure, that when my old boarders returned to Galveston, they would return to my house and table.

I was reckoning without my host. Late in September I had a letter from Mrs. Waul, saying that the General was going to New Orleans to conduct an important law case, and as he would be detained all winter she intended to go with him. This was a great disappointment in many respects. They had given a certain very respectable tone to the house, they had been kind to my daughters, and the simple presence of the General was a protection we should miss. Nearly all of my old boarders owed me money, and I thought this fact alone would bring them back, but it did not. One had married and gone to housekeeping. Others found my rates too high, they were obliged to economize after their summer’s trip, et cetera; they had all a sufficient excuse for leaving, but that did not help the situation, as far as I was concerned.