The Little Immigrant | Page 7

was born on the Rhine, no one would believe for a moment that I
would buy a human being. They would hate me as I hate myself for
bartering in human flesh."
"I know, I know, Jaffray. I remember when my sister used to send
Josiah out in the morning to work, he would come back in the evening
with his pay that he had earned in the blacksmith shop and give it to her,
and Aunt Caroline would bring her money, too, that she had made by a
hard day's, washing and ironing. Oh, yes, it is all wrong and dreadful,
but we will treat them well and wait for the day to set them free!"
"It will not be long now. There are all sorts of rumors about Lincoln
doing this 'and that."
"You mean about setting the negroes free?"
"Yes."

"But how? People will not just let them walk away!
"Walk away! Oh, little woman, if it could be brought around that way
the threatening clouds would not be so dark ahead! 'Just walk away.'
The President is offering to find a way out. One is to 'compensate'
owners out of Government funds for the release of their slaves; another
is sending them to some warm country for colonization. Of course, he
would ask Congress for an appropriation for this."
For long hours they sat reading the latest news in the day's paper and
discussing the war reports with a very solemn foreboding of coming
events.
CHAPTER V
WHEN the Civil War broke out the women of the South blanched with
the terrible ordeal before them, but never for one moment doubted but
that their beloved ones would come out of it all victorious. To them it
was not conceivable that a cause so plainly one of individual rights
could be lost. Sacrifice upon sacrifice was cheerfully made, even
gloried in by these wonderful women of the South in 1861 and to the
bitter end. Delicately nurtured women denied themselves comforts,
sleep, food and drink; they were reduced to personal hardships which
were met and borne with a sublime fortitude.
When it was all over those families which had possessed wealth and
culture were in the grip of poverty, and it was then that the spirit of
Southern womanhood showed its divine strength. Facing family
troubles with the courage of noble resignation, those women who had
been educated--some abroad--and accomplished, became school
teachers at five dollars a month for a pupil, and many a woman to-day
bears gratitude in her heart for the sweet influence of these school
teachers, which has gone with her into every clime, into every
condition, and proved an unfailing guide to the uplands and the heights.
Many became seamstresses, some governesses and others traveling
companions. But wherever these gentlewoman went they carried
refinement and ideals.

The heroism of the Southern women in the Civil War is an Epic in
American History!

Renestine was the mother now of three little daughters. Jaffray had
gone to Mexico to buy up horses, saddles and commissaries for the
army. Caroline and Josiah were her bodyguards and, faithful servants,
they saved her little anxieties and looked after the welfare of the
children.
Renestine made their little shoes by shaping cloth after their worn ones
and sewing them together with pieces of soft cardboard for soles. She
made coffee by drying beets, and flour by drying potatoes. Her
practical little head was resourceful for any emergency. She felt sad at
the separation from her husband, and her large black eyes were
mournful but not tearful. To be and doing was her spirit. In spare
moments she sat down to her tambourine to do crewel work on a
tapestry picture. It was a large subject--The bard Ossian playing his
harp to Malvino. Ossian seated on the front of some brown rocks,
Malvino seated before him, her hands folded across his knees, full of
tender regard for the gentle musician. This work was her pastime and
recreation. She selected the worsteds and worked her needle out and in,
shading and coloring and outlining with the skill of an artist in paints.
Three years she worked on this picture, almost to the end of the war,
almost as long as Penelope worked on her task awaiting Ulysses' return.
In the meantime Jaftray paid short visits to his family and made them
as comfortable for periods of his absence as he had it in his power to do.
Texas was too far away to be the theatre of battles during the conflict,
so that no real harassing of the families by the invading Northern
soldiers took place, but her people suffered privations and danger just
as much as her sister states and perhaps more after the war was over
and the reconstruction period