All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography Part 38

"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 antic.i.p.ated 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 G.o.d."

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.

On the first of November I closed the house. My money was gone. I could not collect what was owing me, but I was not a dollar in debt; and I was determined to keep clear of that terror. Many tried to persuade me to hold on, but on the threshold of hope I had already lost many days; and I knew in my soul, that this phase of my life was over. What was to come next, I knew not, but this at least was over. I had learned the lessons it had to teach me, and though my future was unknown and uncertain, I had seen that in life, we have constantly to take some leap in the dark.

I gave myself a few days rest with my children, and waited. I was glad that this serving of tables, and mingling with people to whom I was quite indifferent was over. Both duties had been disagreeable, and it was only my left hand I had given to the work. I had taken no pride or pleasure in it, even when it was apparently very successful, and I felt no special regret when compelled to give it up. Yet in the sum of character it had been of great gain to me. I learned two lessons under its discipline that have made all my life since easier than it would have been. To what school was I to go next?

There seemed to be so few outlets to our life that I was troubled by the way any movement appeared to be hedged in. We could return to Austin, which Mary thought the best thing to do. "People mostly live on the government in Austin," she said, "and so they have ready money." Lilly opposed the return to Austin very warmly. "I think it will be foolish to go back to Austin," she answered. "Without dear Papa, we shall find everything very different. Let us go to a new place, where we are not tied and hampered by the past. Even San Antonio would be better than Austin."

I remember this discussion so well. It was on a dark, cold November morning. There was a blazing fire of cedar logs on the hearth, but the wind roared down the wide chimney, and the rain smote the window panes in pa.s.sionate gusts. Mary was braiding a flannel sacque, Lilly was sitting beside Alice, who was lying on the sofa sick with a cold, and I was walking slowly about the room, inwardly trembling at the sound of doors opening into the future. I was glad of the storm. Often I had felt the crus.h.i.+ng sense of bright suns.h.i.+ne when in trouble; the wind and the rain and the gloom were in sympathy with my mood; suns.h.i.+ne would have given me a sense of mockery, or at least of indifference.

Suddenly Lilly said, "Mamma! What about Memphis? Papa had good friends there. Mr. Fackler----"

I heard no more. A voice clear and imperative said, "GO TO NEW YORK!"

The command was peremptory, and from some deeper region there came with it, an indisputable convincingness. Of some things I might be uncertain, _but not of this_. Without a moment's hesitation I obeyed the command given me. I turned with a cheerful smile, and an alert manner to my children, and said, "My dears, we will go to New York."

"O Mamma, how glad I am!" cried Lilly. "We shall be half-way to England, when we are in New York."

Then I told them of the order I had just received, and as I spoke I felt my heart burn, and my face flush, and my voice set itself to its old strong, happy tone, and the girls caught its cheerful influence, and we were soon discussing what was to be done, with the greatest interest and pleasure. For I knew the voice that had spoken--it was one, that had never yet deceived me.

I had nothing except my furniture, and old furniture sold for very little, but I knew G.o.d would not send me a journey, without providing the means; so I began there and then to prepare for it. I sold my piano to a friend at private sale, and I got a lawyer, who was in my debt, to collect what money was still due me from old boarders. He was quite successful and I hoped the proceeds of the auction added to these would raise my fund to five hundred dollars.

"G.o.d and five hundred dollars will be sufficient," I said to my children; and they smiled and nodded, and were as confident and hopeful as myself.

On the night of the sixth of November, while I was talking to the auctioneer about the sale, a letter was given me. I saw the postmark was Austin, and I laid it carelessly down on the chimney piece, and went on with the conversation. After the auctioneer had gone, we had a cup of tea and some oysters, and I forgot all about the letter, until I was closing the house for the night. Then I lifted it carelessly, and took it upstairs with me. Lilly noticed it in my hand, and asked where it was from?

"Austin," I answered.

"Read it, Mamma."

As I opened it, a slip of paper fluttered to the floor. It was a check from the auctioneer, with whom I had left the furniture of my Austin home for sale. When I reached Galveston, I told Robert the agreement made with them, left the affairs in his hands, and had ever since forgotten all about it. Indeed if I had remembered it, I would have been sure Robert had collected the proceeds long ago. But here was a check made out to myself, for one hundred and eighty dollars, being the last payment due on the goods they had sold. They sent it with sympathetic words, and nothing that ever came to me had so much the air of a "G.o.dsend."

We were so happy and excited, that we sat talking until nearly three o'clock, and it was at this time, Lilly made a proposition, which at first appeared foolish and distressing. "Mamma," she said, "now that you have got some more money, let me go to Glasgow. I will try to make a friend of grandmother, and perhaps for Papa's sake she will send me to school for two years. By that time you would be settled in some way."

At first I would not listen to such a thing, but gradually the girls persuaded me, that I ought to give up Lilly for Lilly's own sake. And I comforted myself with the thought of her natural bravery and self-sufficiency. Every one liked her, and surely her own kindred would be won by her kind heart, and sunny cheerful disposition. I finally acceded to the plan, and then all conversation afterward made the Glasgow arrangement more firm and certain. But that morning I fell asleep with a fresh, keen pain in my heart; for Lilly, ever since her father's death, had been my great reliance in many ways.

On the ninth we were preparing for the sale, which was to take place in the house, and on the tenth we ate breakfast and had prayers together and then went to the Palmetto House to stay until the _Ariadne_ sailed for New York, which was expected to be on the twelfth; but owing to contrary winds, she did not get over the bar until the following day. During these three days at the hotel, we made our last arrangements and received unlimited kindness both from friends I knew well, and also from many others who had no reason for their attentions, excepting their loving remembrance of my husband.

Among the many who called on us for the latter reason, was a large dry goods merchant called Willis, and he gave me a letter of introduction to a gentleman in New York, who he thought might be able to help me to find suitable employment. I speak of this letter, because it influenced my life for nearly two years. As we could not get away on the twelfth, I took Alice and went once more to those four graves I should never see again. We covered them with flowers and sweet shrubs, and the child wept pa.s.sionately. I had no tears left. I was almost stupefied with grief and anxiety. Four tines in seventeen years, I had broken up my home, and gone to a place I knew not of, to make another; but this removal was the hardest of all. Yet I am ungrateful to say so. From friends known and unknown I received help and comfort.

Difficulties vanished as soon as I met them. Whatever was necessary came to me. My way was cleared before me in the most remarkable manner. Even Mr. Lidstone, the auctioneer, refused to take any payment for selling the furniture, and I was so pleased and grateful at this mark of kindness from a stranger, that I have kept his name green in my memory ever since. It is true that at this time the hearts of all were open to those who had suffered in the great calamity, but more than a year had pa.s.sed since Robert died, and he was yet unforgotten, for much of the sympathy and attention we received was for his sake.

CHAPTER XVIII

I GO TO NEW YORK

"We have not wings, we cannot soar, But we have feet to scale and climb; By slow degrees, by more and more, The cloudy Summits of our time."

"The intellectual aroma of the building, its subtle Library essence, and redolence of Morocco leather, printer's ink and paper, all blended and mellowed with the learned dust of Time."--ASTOR LIBRARY.

On the thirteenth of November, 1868, we went on board the _Ariadne_.

The s.h.i.+p lay at the bar, but there were hopes that a change of wind would give us water sufficient to get over it; but the wind did not change for four days, and it was on the seventeenth, just at sunset that we took our last look at Galveston. Just at the same hour, twelve years before, Robert and I stood together taking a last look at Galveston, before going up the Buffalo Bayou. I gazed on the white houses in their lonely setting of bare shrubs and sea water, until they were only a gray blur on the surrounding gray. I do not speak of what was going on in the heart, it cannot be told, neither can it ever be forgotten.

When I turned my back on Galveston, I faced the future; and there and then, I mentally put a blank into G.o.d's hand by faith, and begged Him to fill it in, as He saw best for His children. For they were His. He had told me to leave my fatherless children to Him, and I took Him on His own word. This promise was guaranteed to me by the veracity of G.o.d. I sat down between Mary and Lilly, and took Alice on my knee, and said,

"Now, dear ones, we shall be yet ten days at sea. It is a holiday for us. We will forget every care, and every sorrow, until we see New York. Be as happy as you can be, for there is nothing we can _do_ on the s.h.i.+p. So let us rest, in the rest given us."

"And you, Mamma?" asked Mary. "Will you rest?"

"I promise you, I will." I did not mean, that I would drift like a dismantled s.h.i.+p without hope or purpose. No believer in G.o.d ever does that. I meant, that I would cast all my cares and sorrows on Him, who I was sure cared for me. This may seem like presumption to some, and like foolishness to others. It was not presumption. I had been invited, even urged by G.o.d's own word to do so. It was by no means "foolishness" to me. I knew in whom I trusted. G.o.d was then, as He is now, a personality to me. He was not "vortices of atoms," or "streams of tendency," or "Force" or "Nature." Many years afterwards, when I had carefully considered these, and other similarly false ideas, I knelt and prayed with a still deeper conviction--"_Our Father!_"

On the twenty-first we stopped at Key West nearly the whole day. We rambled about the quiet, lovely place and a lady, who saw us looking curiously at her cocoanut trees, came out and talked with us, and sent a dozen to the s.h.i.+p for our refreshment. We bought here a few lovely pieces of snow-white coral for Lilly to take with her to Scotland, and at nightfall left the pretty place with very agreeable memories. I believe it is now entirely altered, is crowded and noisy, and full of business relating to the navy, and the manufacture of tobacco. So I keep my own memory of the beautiful Key. We had a five days pleasant sail after leaving Key West, and on the twenty-sixth of November we were almost in sight of New York. It was Thanksgiving Day, and was observed with the usual ceremonious dinner. During my long stay in the South I had forgotten the inst.i.tution, for it was never kept, or even alluded to; but on this twenty-sixth of November we observed the day heartily, and have never omitted it since. On November twenty-sixth, 1884, being also Thanksgiving Day, I received from Dodd, Mead and Company their first letter to me accepting "Jan Vedder's Wife," just sixteen years after our Thanksgiving upon the s.h.i.+p _Ariadne_.

Early in the morning of the twenty-seventh of November, 1868, we landed in New York. This was already a memorable date to me, being the day on which G.o.d wrought so great a salvation for Robert, in Chicago.

I had it in my memory as I stepped on sh.o.r.e, and went with several of the pa.s.sengers on the _Ariadne_ to a hotel in Fulton Street near Broadway. It was called the Belmont, but I think it was discontinued many years ago. I took it for a good omen, that we should have landed on this date, for I have always been an observer of times and seasons, and in my life there are many days of remembrance--all good ones. "The Scotch always count from an ill date," says the proverb; but my ill dates, except for some special purpose of recollection, are but as dead days taken out of my life and buried.

The next week was mostly spent in securing a good berth for Lilly, and in getting her the proper clothing for the change of climate she was going to make. And in these days I found out how much harder it is to part from the living, than from the dead. Hard enough it is, to lift the little dead child for the last time, and lay it in its coffin; but it is harder to unloose the clinging arms of the living child, to kiss away its parting tears, and mingle loving farewells, while hearts seem breaking. Never had Lilly been so dear and so affectionate. I kept her at my side and held her hand these last days, while I gave her the advice I thought might help her in the difficult position to which she was going. At that time a voyage across the Atlantic was a far more serious undertaking than it is now, and I knew the climate of Scotland, and feared it for a child reared in the semi-tropical heat and suns.h.i.+ne of Texas. I knew also the people among whom her lot would be cast, and I feared that the outspoken girl, so sensitive to injustice of every kind, would not be able at all times to possess her soul in patience.

On the fifth of December I left her on the _Iowa_. The captain promised me to be very kind to her, and he amply fulfilled that promise. It was snowing heavily, but I did not see, or feel it.

Blinded with tears, and faint with grief, I found my way back to the hotel, I don't know how. Through the crowded wharf, and the crowded streets I went; I remember some one stepping between me and some horses, pulling me roughly to the sidewalk, and then saying not unkindly, "You must be more careful. Do you know where you are going?"

Somehow or other I got back to the hotel, and being wet through and exhausted, I went to bed. There I fell into that deep sleep which is G.o.d's gift to those who have sorrow greater than they can bear.

The next day being the Sabbath I remained in the hotel, but on Monday morning I was ready for duty. To obey necessity is the part of wisdom, but I trusted in G.o.d and myself, and I had faith in humanity. On Monday and Tuesday I saw the princ.i.p.als of three ladies' schools, and from two received promise of employment "after the holidays." I had not thought of this contingency, yet it was a very reasonable one, as far as the schools were concerned; but I did not see, how I was to wait with idle hands for a month, on a mere promise. On Tuesday night I had exhausted hope in this direction and as I sat talking with Mary, she said to me, "Dear Mamma, why do you not send a note to Mr.

Beecher? I am sure he could help you. He has a great deal of power."

"O Mary," I answered, "I know all about the promises of clergymen.

Your grandfather was a good man, but he saw so many people, and made so many promises, he never could have remembered either. It is nearly twenty years since I met Mr. Beecher. I dare say he has forgotten even my name."