University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
PRAIRIE EDEN.

—Texan MSS.

A LONE Indian stood on the summit of the
mound.

It was in the centre of one of those prairies
which, in their boundless view, their vast
horizon, remind us of the ocean, only for
waves of foam, we behold emerald grass,
tossing with gentle undulations, their summits
crested by the roses of the wild rising into
view, like sea foam, tinted by the last glow of
a setting sun.

These prairies, like the ocean, have their
islands—green mounds, that rise above the
boundless level, blossoming on their banks,
with flowers and vines; crowned on the summit
with aged trees, that stand in circular
groups, like the solemn mourners over the
dead centuries.

A lone Indian, leaning on his rifle, his muscular
form, attired in a panther's hide, which
left his sinewy arms and broad chest, bare to
the light, stood on the summit of a green
island, in the centre of that boundless prairie.

His head was drooped, his dark eye, fixed
by strange emotions, glared with an immoveable
gaze over the glorious view.

Around the prairie that rolled away, far
into the distance, until it became lost in the
hazy line of the horizon, above the blue sky
of a summer's day, dimpled only by a group
of snowy clouds, that seemed to undulate in
mid-air, the clear azure gleaming distinctly
through their feathery folds, even as a virgin's
bosom looks more beautiful through a veil of
lace; by his side, a massive oak, the broad
green leaves almost touching the tuft on his
shaven brow- Alone that Indian stood, his
body turned to the west, while, with his face
over his shoulder, he gazed long and sadly
upon the eastern land.

It was a sad gaze, eloquent as a smile
upon the lips of a dying man, whose veins are
racked by superhuman torture.

The trees of the Island Grove were all
around him. Giant oaks, not more than
twenty in number, circled on a space some
three hundred yards square. Their trunks
were like the huge pillars of some temple,
reared in the wilderness to God; massive as
blocks of granite, and encrusted with the
thick bark, that had been hardening for centuries.
Three hundred years had written
their dusky memories upon that rugged rind
of the ancient oaken trees. White moss
clothed their far-spreading branches, and
graceful vine blossoms trembled among their
leaves of luxuriant green.

A hundred men might have encamped with
ease beneath each grand old oak, and found
shelter from the sun and rain, in the shadow,
the silence, the fragrant air of the green island
of the boundless prairie.

The sod, smooth as a floor, and covered
with dark green moss, was sprinkled with
flowers, whose unnumbered shapes of graceful
beauty and dyes of rainbow loveliness,
neither pencil nor pen can ever paint. Upon

the foliage quivered the drops of last night's
shower.

And in the centre of the island, a spring of
clear, cold water bubbled into light, between
two huge rocks, and without a visible outlet,
kept murmuring and sparkling forever, always
clear, cold and pure.

The Indian gazed to the west, and the silent
eloquence of his deep eye found vent in
his rude Indian tongue.

`My fathers dwelt here, when these giant
trees were saplings, not higher than my rifle,
Where are they now? Before this knoll itself
was reared, as the grave of warriors, Red
Men were upon this soil, the Kings, the Prophets
of their people. Where are they now?
The bones of the mighty men rest in the bosom
of this knoll—but their children, where
are they? Look for them far away by the
great Salt Lake, in the land of the setting
sun!'

Once more the Indian turned his eye to the
east, as though in the dim line of the horizon
he already discerned the banners and bayonets
of White civilization, and then turning
sadly away, he sat him down by the waters of
the island spring.

`Water, that comes from the caverns where
my fathers sleep, I drink from your fountain,
once more, and drink for the last time, ere I
depart forever!'

Bathing his hands and brow in the pure
element of the Island fountain, he went on
his way toward the west and came back no
more.

Years passed on, and that prairie of the
wilderness was left to solitude and God. In
the tall grass the deer, with branching horns
and mild eyes, moved over the flowers, the
roses, the dahlias and the lilies of the desert,
without a fear. Along the summit of the island
came herds of wild cattle, drinking one
by one at the pure spring—gazing for a moment
at the boundless yiew, and then dashing
away through the sea of undulating grass, like
a cloud hurled by a thunder storm. Some
times the wolf, gaunt and lean, and treacherous
as a hypocrite, stole over the sod of the
island grove, and the caguar, with its flashing
eye and sleek fur, dipped his blood-streaked
jaws, in the clear wave of the island fountain.

But man came nevermore along the prairie.
The Indian—search for him toward the
west, in the land of the setting sun. The
White Man—yonder, in the region of the
rising sun he dwells, his footsteps have
never pressed this virgin soil.

Ten years passed, and a strange sight was
seen one summer morning upon the summit of
the island grove.

A large mansion, reared in the space between
those circling trees, and built of massive
logs, disclosed its lofty hall door, its
many windows, and its steep roof, varied by
numerous chimnies, to the beams of the rising
sun.

The huge trees stretched forth their boughs
above its roof, and the vines trailed in festoons
about its windows. Its black timbers looked
out from the graceful drapery of the white
moss, hanging like a silvery shroud from
branch to branch and from tree to tree.

Altogether, this huge mansion looked like
a baronial fabric of the Middle Ages, invested
as it was with the tokens of a barbarous luxury,
something between savage grandeur and
refined civilization. It was two stories in
height, with four spacious rooms on a floor.
These rooms were divided on the first floor,
by a spacious hall; on the second by a corridor.

Instead of paint or plaster, the walls of log
were concealed by hangings of various hues
and devices, some of dark green Cordovan
leather, edged with gold, some of the richest
silk. The chairs, the tables, the fire places,
and the stairway, were all on the same scale
of antique grandeur, mingling luxury and
rudeness in every detail.

From the centre of their island grove, this
spacious mansion rose, with the green sod all

around it, the trees half closing it from the sun
and rain, the cool fountain bubbling near it,
some few paces to the west.

Yonder, north of the grove, you behold
fields of emerald corn, with small huts, built
of logs, rising from the quivering leaves. On
the prairie graze herds of sleek cattle, iheir
dappled sides contrasting with the rich grass
around, the quivering beds of wild flowers beneath.
And at the morning time, a column
of blue smoke rises over the tops of the trees,
and glows, like the white breast of a bird
turned to the rising sun. It is incense from
the fireside of the Prairie Home.

Who is it that dwells within the prairie
home?

A father and his three children.

That father, a man of slender form, grey
hairs, and sad aspect. He was known by the
name of Jacob Grywin. The nearest neighbort—who
lived only ten miles from the island
grove—looked with wonder, mingled with
some awe, upon the sad, stern man, who had
so suddenly erected his home in the wilderness.

He came—no one knew whither. In the
year 1840, after the young Texas had struggled
into Independence, through the bloody
clouds of Soliad, the Alamo and San Jancentho,
the emigrant first appeared on the prairie,
and with his family of three children, his
retainers—some fifty in number, and mostly
from the `States'—some dozen German colonisis,
and as many slaves, reared the mansion,
known by the appropriate name—Prairie
Eden.

Two years had passed, and the unknown
emigrant, living in a kind of barbarous splendour,
beheld his children rising round him,
like fruit and flowers, nursed into vigorous
bloom by the air of the wilderness.

His sons presented a strong contrast. John,
aged twenty-one, was a man of stalwart, yet
graceful propoetions, with a dark brown visage,
strongly marked with aquiline features,
and shadowed by dark hair and beard. He
was a magnificent horseman and a fearless
hunter. As he mounted his dark bay horse,
with his riffe, `Old King Death,' as he quaintly
called it, slung over his shoulder, his long
hair floating in the wind, and his eagle-like
features, marked boldly out against the sky,
he looked for all the world, like a true knight
of the chivalric age.

Harry, his brother, a mere boy of sixteen,
with girlish form, and beardless face, along
whose smooth outline flowed his curling brown
hair, compared with John, reminded you of
the quivering sapling beside the hardy oak.—
And yet there was a volume of daring in the
glance of his dark blue eye. John loved him,
as though he was at once father, brother and
friend to girlish Harry,—even as David loved
Jonathan, with a love passing the love of women.

The third child, three years younger than
John, and of course, one year older than
Harry. I see her now, standing upon the
porch of the mansion, her dark hair, plainly
turned aside, from the warm beauty of her
face, while her round arms, full bust, and
passionate eyes, attest an impetuous, nay a
voluptuous woman.

She was indeed one of the women, whom
we call `queenly,' especially in case our
knowledge of queens is limited. Her stature
was commanding. Her complexion, a clear,
deep olive, burning with red bloom on each
cheek. Her lips, full and warm, and tinted
with dewy vermillion. Her forehead, white
and high, with the jet-black hair, shadowing
its outlines.

These words may give you some idea of
'Bel Grywin, but no words can describe how
suddenly her face changed its expression,
now glooming like a thunder storm, the eyes
armed with lightning and the brow gathering
blackness; and in a moment, soft and yielding
and tender, as the face of a slumbering
child.

When the eye of the father rested upon the

faces of his children, the cloud passed from
his brow. But when he was alone, either
striding along the porch of his mansion, in
gazing silently over the great prairie, or passing,
with cat-like step, from room to room,
there was a gloom upon his features, which,
to say the least, was not pleasant to behold.

That sidelong glance toward the window,
or the door, that involuntary start at the sound
of a footstep, what did they mean?

What need Jacob Grywin fear? Centered
in the midst of this prairie, afar from civilization,
and yet surrounded by all its comforts—
nay, its luxuries; his children blooming round
him, and his slaves and laborers ready to do
his will, what had he to fear?

There came a day in the spring of 1842,
when the Proclamation of the Texan President
summoned all good citizens to the western
frontier, in order to defend the soil of the
young state from a threatened invasion.—
Mexico was, of course, known to be the invader,
and the impulse of the invasion, Santa
Anna.

Vague rumors floated over the prairie, telling
of outrages on the frontier, and it soon
became a settled opinion that Santa Anna,
like the Bourbons, could neither forget nor
learn. It became evident that the horrid
butcheries of past years were again to be enacted
on Texan soil. That Santa Anna, who
had been dragged from a swamp, clad in the
garb of one of his lacquey's, after the battle of
San Jacinto—presenting a rather contemptible
image of despair, had not forgiven the
Texans for sparing his life. In a certain view
of the matter he was right, for if even a murderer
forfeited his life, by a series of cold-blooded
butcheries, that murderer was Don
Antonio Lopez De Santa Anna.

Among other rumors it was announced that
Don General Something, from the Oresidio
del Rio Grande, was approaching the western
frontier, in formidable force, his object,
the possession and plunder of San Antonio,
near which still arose the blackened walls of
the Alama.

These rumors reached the solitude of Prairie
Eden. One morning,—it was when the
spring of 1842 was melting into summer.—
John had a mysterious and energetic conversation
with his father; and ere an hour had
passed, the entire population of Prairie Eden,
numbering nearly seventy men of all colors
and nations, had taken horse and rifle, and
ridden away in the direction of San Antonio
De Bexar.

Mr. Jacob Grywin and his daughter 'Bel,
alone remained on the Island knoll.

At the head of the Volunteers of Prairie
Eden rode the brothers, John and Harry. By
their side, the overseeer of the plantation,—
Red Ewen McGregor, a man of gigantic
frame and rude aspect, who seemed connected
with the old man by some mysterious and
indefinable tie.

It was John's object to advance to San Antonio,
with all his disposable force, join his
men with other bands of volunteers, and make
a Texan resistance to the approaching Mexican
army. He did not contemplate an absence
of more than one week from Prairie
Eden. The isolated position of his father's
mansion—so they all said—was it's surest
defence against any predatory attack.

Let us now return to this night in the
spring or early summer of 1842.