Letters of a Woman Homesteader | Page 9

two "Johnny Rebs" could have enjoyed each other's company as
Zebulon Pike and myself did. He was so small and so old, but so
cheerful and so sprightly, and a real Southerner! He had a big, open
fireplace with backlogs and andirons. How I enjoyed it all! How we
feasted on some of the deer killed "yisteddy," and real corn-pone baked
in a skillet down on the hearth. He was so full of happy recollections
and had a few that were not so happy! He is, in some way, a kinsman of
Pike of Pike's Peak fame, and he came west "jist arter the wah" on
some expedition and "jist stayed." He told me about his home life back

in Yell County, and I feel that I know all the "young uns."
There was George Henry, his only brother; and there were Phoebe and
"Mothie," whose real name is Martha; and poor little Mary Ann, whose
death was described so feelingly that no one could keep back the tears.
Lastly there was little Mandy, the baby and his favorite, but who, I am
afraid, was a selfish little beast since she had to have her prunellas
when all the rest of the "young uns" had to wear shoes that old Uncle
Buck made out of rawhide. But then "her eyes were blue as
morning-glories and her hair was jist like corn-silk, so yaller and
fluffy." Bless his simple, honest heart! His own eyes are blue and kind,
and his poor, thin little shoulders are so round that they almost meet in
front. How he loved to talk of his boyhood days! I can almost see his
father and George Henry as they marched away to the "wah" together,
and the poor little mother's despair as she waited day after day for some
word, that never came.
Poor little Mary Ann was drowned in the bayou, where she was trying
to get water-lilies. She had wanted a white dress all her life and so,
when she was dead, they took down the white cross-bar curtains and
Mother made the little shroud by the light of a tallow dip. But, being
made by hand, it took all the next day, too, so that they buried her by
moonlight down back of the orchard under the big elm where the
children had always had their swing. And they lined and covered her
grave with big, fragrant water-lilies. As they lowered the poor little
home-made coffin into the grave the mockingbirds began to sing and
they sang all that dewy, moonlight night. Then little Mandy's wedding
to Judge Carter's son Jim was described. She wore a "cream-colored
poplin with a red rose throwed up in it," and the lace that was on
Grandma's wedding dress. There were bowers of sweet Southern roses
and honeysuckle and wistaria. Don't you know she was a dainty bride?
At last it came out that he had not heard from home since he left it.
"Don't you ever write?" I asked. "No, I am not an eddicated man,
although I started to school. Yes'm, I started along of the rest, but they
told me it was a Yankee teacher and I was 'fraid, so when I got most to
the schoolhouse I hid in the bushes with my spelling-book, so that is all

the learning I ever got. But my mother was an eddicated woman, yes'm,
she could both read and write. I have the Bible she give me yit. Yes'm,
you jist wait and I'll show you." After some rummaging in a box he
came back with a small leather-bound Bible with print so small it was
hard to read. After turning to the record of births and deaths he handed
it to me, his wrinkled old face shining with pride as he said, "There, my
mother wrote that with her own hand." I took the book and after a little
deciphered that "Zebulon Pike Parker was born Feb. 10, 1830," written
in the stiff, difficult style of long ago and written with pokeberry ink.
He said his mother used to read about some "old feller that was jist
covered with biles," so I read Job to him, and he was full of surprise
they didn't "git some cherry bark and some sasparilly and bile it good
and gin it to him."
He had a side room to his cabin, which was his bedroom; so that night
he spread down a buffalo robe and two bearskins before the fire for
Jerrine and me. After making sure there were no moths in them, I
spread blankets over them and put a sleepy, happy little girl to bed, for
he had insisted on making molasses candy for her because they
happened to be born on the same day of the month. And