Remember the Alamo - Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (good books to read for young adults .txt) 📗

rights, he found his enemy had already surrendered them. The house was empty. Nothing of its old splendor remained. Every one of its properties had been scattered. The poor Senora walked through the desolate rooms with a heartache.

"It was precisely in this spot that the sideboard stood, Roberto!--the sideboard that my cousin Johar presented to me. It came from the City of Mexico, and there was not another like it. I shall regret it all my life."

"Maria, my dearest, it might have been worse. The silver which adorned it is safe. Those r--monks did not find out its hiding-place, and I bought you a far more beautiful sideboard in New Orleans; the very newest style, Maria."

"Roberto! Roberto! How happy you make me! To be sure my cousin Johar's sideboard was already shabby--and to have a sideboard from New Orleans, that, indeed, is something to talk about!"

"Besides, which, dearest one, I bought new furniture for the parlors, and for your own apartments; also for Antonia's and Isabel's rooms. Indeed, Maria, I thought it best to provide afresh for the whole house."

"How wonderful! No wife in San Antonio has a husband so good. I will never condescend to speak of you when other women talk of their husbands. New furniture for my whole house! The thing is inconceivably charming. But when, Roberto, will these things arrive? Is there danger on the road they are coming? Might not some one take them away? I shall not be able to sleep until I am sure they are safe."

"I chartered a schooner in New Orleans, and came with them to the Bay of Espiritu Santo. There I saw them placed upon wagons, and only left them after the customs had been paid in the interior--sixty miles away. You may hire servants at once to prepare the rooms: the furniture will be here in about three days."

"I am the happiest woman in the world, Roberto!" And she really felt herself to be so. Thoughtful love could have devised nothing more likely to bridge pleasantly and surely over the transition between the past and the coming life. Every fresh piece of furniture unpacked was a new wonder and a new delight. With her satin skirts tucked daintily clear of soil, and her mantilla wrapped around her head and shoulders, she went from room to room, interesting herself in every strip of carpet, and every yard of drapery. Her delight was infectious. The doctor smiled to find himself comparing shades, and gravely considering the arrangement of chairs and tables.

But how was it possible for so loving a husband and father to avoid sharing the pleasure he had provided? And Isabel was even more excited than her mother. All this grandeur had a double meaning to her; it would reflect honor upon the betrothal receptions which would be given for Luis and herself--"amber satin and white lace is exactly what I should have desired, Antonia," she said delightedly. "How exceedingly suitable it will be to me! And those delicious chintzes and dimities for our bedrooms! Did you ever conceive of things so beautiful?"

Antonia was quite ready to echo her delight. Housekeeping and homemaking, in all its ways, was her lovable talent. It was really Antonia who saw all the plans and the desires of the Senora thoroughly carried out. It was her clever fingers and natural taste which gave to every room that air of comfort and refinement which all felt and admired, but which seemed to elude their power to imitate.

On the fourth of July the doctor and his family ate together their first dinner in their renovated home. The day was one that he never forgot, and he was glad to link it with a domestic occurrence so happy and so fortunate.

Sometimes silently, sometimes with a few words to his boys, he had always, on this festival, drank his glass of fine Xeres to the honor and glory of the land he loved. This day he spoke her name proudly. He recalled the wonders of her past progress; he anticipated the blessings which she would bring to Texas; he said, as he lifted the glass in his hand, and let the happy tears flow down his browned and thinned face:

"My wife and daughters, I believe I shall live to see the lone star set in the glorious assemblage of her sister stars! I shall live to say, I dwell in San Antonio, which is the loveliest city in the loveliest State of the American Union. For, dear ones, I was born an American citizen, and I ask this favor of God, that I may also die an American citizen."

"MI ROBERTO, when you die I shall not long survive you. And now that the house is made so beautiful! With so much new furniture! How can you speak of dying?"

"And, my dear father, remember how you have toiled and suffered for THE INDEPENDENCE OF TEXAS."

"Because, Antonia, I would have Texas go free into a union of free States. This was the hope of Houston. 'We can have help,' he often said to his little army; 'a word will call help from Nacogdoches,--but we will emancipate ourselves. If we go into the American States, we will go as equals; we will go as men who have won the right to say: LET US DWELL UNDER THE SAME FLAG, FOR WE ARE BROTHERS!'"


CHAPTER XVIII. UNDER ONE FLAG.

"And through thee I believe
In the noble and great, who are gone."

"Yes! I believe that there lived
Others like thee in the past.
Not like the men of the crowd.
Who all around me to-day,
Bluster, or cringe, and make life
Hideous, and arid, and vile,
But souls temper'd with fire,
Fervent, heroic, and good;
Helpers, and friends of mankind."
--ARNOLD.

"Our armor now may rust, our idle scimitars
Hang by our sides for ornament, not use.
Children shall beat our atabals and drums;
And all the noisy trades of war no more
Shall wake the peaceful morn."
--DRYDEN.

As the years go on they bring many changes--changes that come as naturally as the seasons--that tend as naturally to anticipated growth and decay--that scarcely startle the subjects of them, till a lengthened-out period of time discloses their vitality and extent. Between the ages of twenty and thirty, ten years do not seem very destructive to life. The woman at eighteen, and twenty-eight, if changed, is usually ripened and improved; the man at thirty, finer and more mature than he was at twenty. But when this same period is placed to women and men who are either approaching fifty, or have passed it, the change is distinctly felt.

It was even confessed by the Senora one exquisite morning in the beginning of March, though the sun was shining warmly, and the flowers blooming, and the birds singing, and all nature rejoicing, as though it was the first season of creation.

"I am far from being as gay and strong as I wish to be, Roberto," she, said; "and today, consider what a company there is coming! And if General Houston is to be added to it, I shall be as weary as I shall be happy."

"He is the simplest of men; a cup of coffee, a bit of steak--"

"SAN BLAS! That is how you talk! But is, it possible to receive him like a common mortal? He is a hero, and, besides that, among hidalgos de casa Solar" (gentlemen of known property)--

"Well, then, you have servants, Maria, my dear one."

"Servants! Bah! Of what use are they, Roberto, since they also have got hold of American ideas?"

"Isabel and Antonia will be here."

"Let me only enumerate to you, Roberto. Thomas and his wife and four children arrived last night. You may at this moment hear the little Maria crying. I dare say Pepita is washing the child, and using soap which is very disagreeable. I have always admired the wife of Thomas, but I think she is too fond of her own way with the children. I give her advices which she does not take."

"They are her own children, dearest."

"Holy Maria! They are also my own grandchildren."

"Well, well, we must remember that Abbie is a little Puritan. She believes in bringing up children strictly, and it is good; for Thomas would spoil them. As for Isabel's boys--"

"God be blessed! Isabel's boys are entirely charming. They have been corrected at my own knee. There are not more beautifully behaved boys in the christened world."

"And Antonia's little Christina?"

"She is already an angel. Ah, Roberto! If I had only died when I was as innocent as that dear one!"

"I am thankful you did not die, Maria. How dark my life would have been without you!"

"Beloved, then I am glad I am not in the kingdom of heaven; though, if one dies like Christina, one escapes purgatory. Roberto, when I rise I am very stiff: I think, indeed, I have some rheumatism."

"That is not unlikely; and also Maria, you have now some years."

"Let that be confessed; but the good God knows that I lost all my youth in that awful flight of 'thirty-six."

"Maria, we all left or lost something on that dark journey. To-day, we shall recover its full value."

"To be sure--that is what is said--we shall see. Will you now send Dolores to me? I must arrange my toilet with some haste; and tell me, Roberto, what dress is your preference; it is your eyes, beloved, I wish to please."

Robert Worth was not too old to feel charmed and touched by the compliment. And he was not a thoughtless or churlish husband; he knew how to repay such a wifely compliment, and it was a pleasant sight to see the aged companions standing hand in hand before the handsome suits which Dolores had spread out for her mistress to examine.

He looked at the purple and the black and the white robes, and then he looked at the face beside him. It was faded, and had lost its oval shape; but its coloring was yet beautiful, and the large, dark eyes tender and bright below the snow-white hair. After a few minutes' consideration, he touched, gently, a robe of white satin. "Put this on, Maria," he said, "and your white mantilla, and your best jewels. The occasion will excuse the utmost splendor."

The choice delighted her. She had really wished to wear it, and some one's judgment to endorse her own inclinations was all that was necessary to confirm her wish. Dolores found her in the most delightful temper. She sat before the glass, smiling and talking, while her maid piled high the snowy plaits and curls and crowned them with the jewelled comb, only worn on very great festivals. Her form was still good, and the white satin fell gracefully from her throat to her small feet. Besides, whatever of loss or gain had marred her once fine proportions, was entirely concealed by the