Life of the Marlows: A True Story of Frontier Life of Early Days

Chapter III: Scenes and Adventures in Mexico

21 In the spring of ’77, rumors of the wonders of SouthAmerica having reached them, Dr. Marlow and the boys, together with about thirty others, mostly relatives, sold off their stock, bought mules, wagons and other necessities for a long journey, and began a trip overland to the balmy clime and flowery land of the tropics. It was a lovely morning in March when they started on their long journey, the soft south breeze made the tall grasses growing on the prairie nod a farewell to them, and the meadow larks sang a glad carol that the beauties and benefits of the old Lone Star State might live in their memories, as well as the trials and dangers. The company generally made it convenient to camp at or near some small town, where such a long train of covered wagons and the fine animals ridden by the boys invariably attracted much attention. One evening while camped at a small town near Fort Worth, an unusually large crowd of visitors came out to see them and among these was a veritable dude and tenderfoot who was out from the New England States on a visit to the wild and woolly West. He was dressed in a regulation soup-plate hat, toothpick shoes, and eye glass and high pressure collar and cuffs, and his effeminate ways and mode of speech were laughable in the extreme to those free westerners there in camp. George and Willie1 had pervious to this acquired to a great degree of perfection that art of ventriloquism, and they concluded to have some scenes and adventures in mexico Chapter III 1 Williamson, Jr. was twenty-four years old in the spring of 1877; George was twenty-one. 22 ⁄ CHAPTER III sport at the dude’s expense. Accordingly, as soon as a sufficient crowd had gathered about, all were startled by the sudden and alarming shrieking of an infant, screaming as if in pain. The sound evidently came from somewhere about the clothes of the dude, and all eyes were turned in his direction. Then came the barking and snarling of an angry dog immediately behind him, at which he sprang into the air with an exclamation of alarm, which turned to amazement on finding nothing at his heels but empty air. Then the imaginary baby commenced to yell again from his coat pocket, and one of the little boys from the wagons ran out and offered the dude a nursing bottle filled with milk, at which everybody roared with laughter, and amid the shouts of the crowd his dudeship beat a hasty retreat in the direction of town. Again, one pleasant evening when all were encamped on the banks of a little stream near Waco, the boys made much sport and fun for the company at the expense of the Irish cook. It was after supper and they were all lying around the camp fires smoking and telling stories of adventures and frontier life, when a deep and ghostly voice from out among the bushes called in thundering tones for Pat to drop those frying pans and come outside. The bewildered Irishman looked up from his work in amazement, and as the voice still called him in loud and commanding tones to come out, he finally gathered up a heavy neck-yoke and made a bound for the brush. “Pat, you’re an Irish villain,” said the voice. “You steal whisky and get drunk. You’re a Pope-hating Fenian and a potato-eating Mick from Cork.” Pat by this time was crazy mad and was beating around out in the bushes like a wild Comanche Indian, using more brogue and profanity than would have stocked up a wake, and flying in all directions to meet his imaginary foe. He was given the grand laugh and let into the secret, finally, but didn’t take to the joke very kindly and wouldn’t speak to Willie or George for a week. In three months after starting they reached Corpus Christi, where the second cook, a Mexican, disappeared with a horse, saddle and bridle, and what other loose things he could carry with him. It will not do to trust a Mexican.2 2 This racist slur no doubt accurately reflected the view of many Anglo Texans of the period. SCENES AND ADVENTURES IN MEXICO ⁄ 23 Here they found that the troublesome times in Old Mexico3 would not...