A	>>	B	>>	C	>>	D	>>	E
F	>>	G	>>	H	>>	I	>>	J
K	>>	L	>>	M	>>	N	>>	O
P	>>	R	>>	S	>>	T	>>	U
V	>>	W	>>			X	>>	Z

Oliver Goldsmith - "She Stoops to Conquer"

Gertrude Atherton - "Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend, by Sir"

Don Marquis - "Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers"

Thomas Love Peacock - "Crotchet Castle"

Remember the Alamo

A >> Amelia E. Barr >> Remember the Alamo



Scanned with Calera WordScan Plus 2.0
donated by: Calera Recognition Systems
475 Potrero
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
1-408-720-8300
mikel@calera.com Mike Lynch


Remember the Alamo
By
AMELIA E. BARR




REMEMBER THE ALAMO
----
CHAPTER I.
THE CITY IN THE WILDERNESS.


"What, are you stepping westward?" "Yea."
* * * * *
Yet who would stop or fear to advance,
Though home or shelter there was none,
With such a sky to lead him on!"
--WORDSWORTH.

"Ah! cool night wind, tremulous stars,
Ah! glimmering water,
Fitful earth murmur,
Dreaming woods!"
--ARNOLD.


In A. D. sixteen hundred and ninety-two, a few Franciscan
monks began to build a city. The site chosen was a lovely
wilderness hundreds of miles away from civilization on every
side, and surrounded by savage and warlike tribes. But the
spot was as beautiful as the garden of God. It was shielded
by picturesque mountains, watered by two rivers, carpeted with
flowers innumerable, shaded by noble trees joyful with
the notes of a multitude of singing birds. To breathe the
balmy atmosphere was to be conscious of some rarer and finer
life, and the beauty of the sunny skies--marvellous at dawn
and eve with tints of saffron and amethyst and opal--was like
a dream of heaven.

One of the rivers was fed by a hundred springs situated in the
midst of charming bowers. The monks called it the San
Antonio; and on its banks they built three noble Missions.
The shining white stone of the neighborhood rose in graceful
domes and spires above the green trees. Sculptures, basso-
relievos, and lines of gorgeous coloring adorned the
exteriors. Within, were splendid altars and the appealing
charms of incense, fine vestures and fine music; while from
the belfreys, bells sweet and resonant called to the savages,
who paused spell-bound and half-afraid to listen.

Certainly these priests had to fight as well as to pray. The
Indians did not suffer them to take possession of their Eden
without passionate and practical protest. But what the monks
had taken, they kept; and the fort and the soldier followed
the priest and the Cross. Ere long, the beautiful Mission
became a beautiful city, about which a sort of fame full of
romance and mystery gathered. Throughout the south and west,
up the great highway of the Mississippi, on the busy streets
of New York, and among the silent hills of New England, men
spoke of San Antonio, as in the seventeenth century they spoke
of Peru; as in the eighteenth century they spoke of Delhi, and
Agra, and the Great Mogul.

Sanguine French traders carried thither rich ventures in fancy
wares from New Orleans; and Spanish dons from the wealthy
cities of Central Mexico, and from the splendid homes of
Chihuahua, came there to buy. And from the villages of
Connecticut, and the woods of Tennessee, and the lagoons of
Mississippi, adventurous Americans entered the Texan territory
at Nacogdoches. They went through the land, buying horses and
lending their ready rifles and stout hearts to every effort of
that constantly increasing body of Texans, who, even in their
swaddling bands, had begun to cry Freedom!

At length this cry became a clamor that shook even the old
viceroyal palace in Mexico; while in San Antonio it gave a
certain pitch to all conversation, and made men wear their
cloaks, and set their beavers, and display their arms, with
that demonstrative air of independence they called los
Americano. For, though the Americans were numerically few,
they were like the pinch of salt in a pottage--they gave the
snap and savor to the whole community.

Over this Franciscan-Moorish city the sun set with an
incomparable glory one evening in May, eighteen thirty-five.
The white, flat-roofed, terraced houses--each one in its
flowery court--and the domes and spires of the Missions, with
their gilded crosses, had a mirage-like beauty in the rare,
soft atmosphere, as if a dream of Old Spain had been
materialized in a wilderness of the New World.

But human life in all its essentials was in San Antonio, as it
was and has been in all other cities since the world began.
Women were in their homes, dressing and cooking, nursing their
children and dreaming of their lovers. Men were in the
market-places, buying and selling, talking of politics and
anticipating war. And yet in spite of these fixed
attributes, San Antonio was a city penetrated with romantic
elements, and constantly picturesque.

On this evening, as the hour of the Angelus approached, the
narrow streets and the great squares were crowded with a
humanity that assaulted and captured the senses at once; so
vivid and so various were its component parts. A tall sinewy
American with a rifle across his shoulder was paying some
money to a Mexican in blue velvet and red silk, whose breast
was covered with little silver images of his favorite saints.
A party of Mexican officers were strolling to the Alamo; some
in white linen and scarlet sashes, others glittering with
color and golden ornaments. Side by side with these were
monks of various orders: the Franciscan in his blue gown and
large white hat; the Capuchin in his brown serge; the Brother
of Mercy in his white flowing robes. Add to these
diversities, Indian peons in ancient sandals, women dressed as
in the days of Cortez and Pizarro, Mexican vendors of every
kind, Jewish traders, negro servants, rancheros curvetting on
their horses, Apache and Comanche braves on spying
expeditions: and, in this various crowd, yet by no means of
it, small groups of Americans; watchful, silent, armed to the
teeth: and the mind may catch a glimpse of what the streets of
San Antonio were in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and
thirty-five.

It was just before sunset that the city was always at its
gayest point. Yet, at the first toll of the Angelus, a
silence like that of enchantment fell upon it. As a mother
cries hush to a noisy child, so the angel of the city seemed
in this evening bell to bespeak a minute for holy thought. It
was only a minute, for with the last note there was even an
access of tumult. The doors and windows of the better houses
were thrown open, ladies began to appear on the balconies,
there was a sound of laughter and merry greetings, and the
tiny cloud of the cigarette in every direction.

But amid this sunset glamour of splendid color, of velvet, and
silk, and gold embroidery, the man who would have certainly
first attracted a stranger's eye wore the plain and ugly
costume common at that day to all American gentlemen. Only
black cloth and white linen and a row palmetto hat with a
black ribbon around it; but he wore his simple garments with
the air of a man having authority, and he returned the
continual salutations of rich and poor, like one who had been
long familiar with public appreciation.

It was Dr. Robert Worth, a physician whose fame had penetrated
to the utmost boundaries of the territories of New Spain. He
had been twenty-seven years in San Antonio. He was a familiar
friend in every home. In sickness and in death he had come
close to the hearts in them. Protected at first by the
powerful Urrea family, he had found it easy to retain his
nationality, and yet live down envy and suspicion. The rich
had shown him their gratitude with gold; the poor he had never
sent unrelieved away, and they had given him their love.

When in the second year of his residence he married Dona Maria
Flores, he gave, even to doubtful officials, security for his
political intentions. And his future conduct had seemed to
warrant their fullest confidence. In those never ceasing
American invasions between eighteen hundred and three and
eighteen hundred and thirty-two, he had been the friend and
succourer of his countrymen, but never their confederate;
their adviser, but never their confidant.

He was a tall, muscular man of a distinguished appearance.
His hair was white. His face was handsome and good to see.
He was laconic in speech, but his eyes were closely observant
of all within their range, and they asked searching questions.
He had a reverent soul, wisely tolerant as to creeds, and he
loved his country with a passion which absence from it
constantly intensified. He was believed to be a thoroughly
practical man, fond of accumulating land and gold; but his
daughter Antonia knew that he had in reality a noble
imagination. When he spoke to her of the woods, she felt the
echoes of the forest ring through the room; when of the sea,
its walls melted away in an horizon of long rolling waves.

He was thinking of Antonia as he walked slowly to his home in
the suburbs of the city. Of all his children she was the
nearest to him. She had his mother's beauty. She had also
his mother's upright rectitude of nature. The Iberian
strain had passed her absolutely by. She was a northern rose
in a tropical garden. As he drew near to his own gates, he
involuntarily quickened his steps. He knew that Antonia would
be waiting. He could see among the thick flowering shrubs her
tall slim figure clothed in white. As she came swiftly down
the dim aisles to meet him, he felt a sentiment of worship for
her. She concentrated in herself his memory of home, mother,
and country. She embodied, in the perfectness of their mental
companionship, that rarest and sweetest of ties--a beloved
child, who is also a wise friend and a sympathetic comrade.
As he entered the garden she slipped her hand into his. He
clasped it tightly. His smile answered her smile. There was
no need for any words of salutation.

The full moon had risen. The white house stood clearly out in
its radiance. The lattices were wide open and the parlor
lighted. They walked slowly towards it, between hedges of
white camelias and scarlet japonicas. Vanilla, patchuli,
verbena, wild wandering honeysuckle--a hundred other scents--
perfumed the light, warm air. As they came near the house
there was a sound of music, soft and tinkling, with a
rhythmic accent as pulsating as a beating heart.

"It is Don Luis, father."

"Ah! He plays well--and he looks well."

They had advanced to where Don Luis was distinctly visible.
He was within the room, but leaning against the open door,
playing upon a mandolin. Robert Worth smiled as he offered
his hand to him. It was impossible not to smile at a youth so
handsome, and so charming--a youth who had all the romance of
the past in his name, his home, his picturesque costume; and
all the enchantments of hope and great enthusiasms in his
future.

"Luis, I am glad to see you; and I felt your music as soon as
I heard it."

He was glancing inquiringly around the room as he spoke; and
Antonia answered the look:

"Mother and Isabel are supping with Dona Valdez. There is to
be a dance. I am waiting for you, father. You must put on
your velvet vest."

"And you, Luis?"

"I do not go. I asked the judge for the appointment. He
refused me. Very well! I care not to drink chocolate and
dance in his house. One hand washes the other, and one cousin
should help another."

"Why did he refuse you?"

"Who can tell?" but Luis shrugged his shoulders expressively,
and added, "He gave the office to Blas-Sangre."

"Ah!"

"Yes, it is so--naturally;--Blas-Sangre is rich, and when the
devil of money condescends to appear, every little devil rises
up to do him homage."

"Let it pass, Luis. Suppose you sing me that last verse
again. It had a taking charm. The music was like a boat
rocking on the water."

"So it ought to be. I learned the words in New Orleans. The
music came from the heart of my mandolin. Listen, Senor!

"`Row young oarsman, row, young oarsman,
Into the crypt of the night we float:
Fair, faint moonbeams wash and wander,
Wash and wander about the boat.
Not a fetter is here to bind us,
Love and memory lose their spell;
Friends that we have left behind us,
Prisoners of content,--farewell!'"

"You are a wizard, Luis, and I have had a sail with you.
Now, come with us, and show those dandy soldiers from the
Alamo how to dance."

"Pardon! I have not yet ceased to cross myself at the affront
of this morning. And the Senora Valdez is in the same mind as
her husband. I should be received by her like a dog at mass.
I am going to-morrow to the American colony on the Colorado."

"Be careful, Luis. These Austin colonists are giving great
trouble--there have been whispers of very strong measures. I
speak as a friend."

"My heart to yours! But let me tell you this about the
Americans--their drum is in the hands of one who knows how to
beat it."

"As a matter of hearsay, are you aware that three detachments
of troops are on their way from Mexico?"

"For Texas?"

"For Texas."

"What are three detachments? Can a few thousand men put Texas
under lock and key? I assure you not, Senor; but now I must
say adieu!

He took the doctor's hand, and, as he held it, turned his
luminous face and splendid eyes upon Antonia. A sympathetic
smile brightened her own face like a flame. Then he went
silently away, and Antonia watched him disappear among the
shrubbery.

"Come, Antonia! I am ready. We must not keep the Senora
waiting too long."

"I am ready also, father." Her voice was almost sad, and yet
it had a tone of annoyance in it--"Don Luis is so imprudent,"
she said. "He is always in trouble. He is full of
enthusiasms; he is as impossible as his favorite, Don
Quixote."

"And I thank God, Antonia, that I can yet feel with him. Woe
to the centuries without Quixotes! Nothing will remain to
them but--Sancho Panzas."


CHAPTER II.

ANTONIA AND ISABEL.

"He various changes of the world had known,
And some vicissitudes of human fate,
Still altering, never in a steady state
Good after ill, and after pain delight,
Alternate, like the scenes of day and night."

"Ladies whose bright eyes
Rain influence."

"But who the limits of that power shall trace,
Which a brave people into life can bring,
Or hide at will, for freedom combating
By just revenge inflamed?"


For many years there had never been any doubt in the mind of
Robert Worth as to the ultimate destiny of Texas, though he was
by no means an adventurer, and had come into the beautiful
land by a sequence of natural and business-like events. He
was born in New York. In that city he studied his profession,
and in eighteen hundred and three began its practice in an
office near Contoit's Hotel, opposite the City Park. One day
he was summoned there to attend a sick man. His
patient proved to be Don Jaime Urrea, and the rich Mexican
grandee conceived a warm friendship for the young physician.

At that very time, France had just ceded to the United States
the territory of Louisiana, and its western boundary was a
subject about which Americans were then angrily disputing.
They asserted that it was the Rio Grande; but Spain, who
naturally did not want Americans so near her own territory,
denied the claim, and made the Sabine River the dividing line.
And as Spain had been the original possessor of Louisiana, she
considered herself authority on the subject.

The question was on every tongue, and it was but natural that
it should be discussed by Urrea and his physician. In fact,
they talked continually of the disputed boundary, and of
Mexico. And Mexico was then a name to conjure by. She was as
yet a part of Spain, and a sharer in all her ancient glories.
She was a land of romance, and her very name tasted on the
lips, of gold, and of silver, and of precious stones. Urrea
easily persuaded the young man to return to Mexico with him.

The following year there was a suspicious number of American
visitors and traders in San Antonio, and one of the Urreas was
sent with a considerable number of troops to garrison the
city. For Spain was well aware that, however statesmen might
settle the question, the young and adventurous of the American
people considered Texas United States territory, and would be
well inclined to take possession of it by force of arms, if an
opportunity offered.

Robert Worth accompanied General Urrea to San Antonio, and the
visit was decisive as to his future life. The country
enchanted him. He was smitten with love for it, as men are
smitten with a beautiful face. And the white Moorish city had
one special charm for him--it was seldom quite free from
Americans, Among the mediaeval loungers in the narrow streets,
it filled his heart with joy to see at intervals two or three
big men in buckskin or homespun. And he did not much wonder
that the Morisco-Hispano-Mexican feared these Anglo-Americans,
and suspected them of an intention to add Texan to their
names.

His inclination to remain in San Antonio was settled by
his marriage. Dona Maria Flores, though connected with the
great Mexican families of Yturbide and Landesa, owned much
property in San Antonio. She had been born within its limits,
and educated in its convent, and a visit to Mexico and New
Orleans had only strengthened her attachment to her own city.
She was a very pretty woman, with an affectionate nature, but
she was not intellectual. Even in the convent the sisters had
not considered her clever.

But men often live very happily with commonplace wives, and
Robert Worth had never regretted that his Maria did not play
on the piano, and paint on velvet, and work fine embroideries
for the altars. They had passed nearly twenty-six years
together in more than ordinary content and prosperity. Yet no
life is without cares and contentions, and Robert Worth had
had to face circumstances several times, which had brought the
real man to the front.

The education of his children had been such a crisis. He had
two sons and two daughters, and for them he anticipated a
wider and grander career than he had chosen for himself.
When his eldest child, Thomas, had reached the age of
fourteen, he determined to send him to New York. He spoke to
Dona Maria of this intention. He described Columbia to her
with all the affectionate pride of a student for his alma
mater. The boy's grandmother also still lived in the home
wherein, he himself had grown to manhood. His eyes filled
with tears when he remembered the red brick house in Canal
Street, with its white door and dormer windows, and its one
cherry tree in the strip of garden behind.

But Dona Maria's national and religious principles, or rather
prejudices, were very strong. She regarded the college of San
Juan de Lateran in Mexico as the fountainhead of knowledge.
Her confessor had told her so. All the Yturbides and Landesas
had graduated at San Juan.

But the resolute father would have none of San Juan. "I know
all about it, Maria," he said. "They will teach Thomas Latin
very thoroughly. They will make him proficient in theology
and metaphysics. They will let him dabble in algebra and
Spanish literature; and with great pomp, they will give him
his degree, and `the power of interpreting Aristotle all
over the world.' What kind of an education is that, for a man
who may have to fight the battles of life in this century?"

And since the father carried his point it is immaterial what
precise methods he used. Men are not fools even in a contest
with women. They usually get their own way, if they take the
trouble to go wisely and kindly about it. Two years
afterwards, Antonia followed her brother to New York, and this
time, the mother made less opposition. Perhaps she divined
that opposition would have been still more useless than in the
case of the boy. For Robert Worth had one invincible
determination; it was, that this beautiful child, who so much
resembled a mother whom he idolized, should be, during the
most susceptible years of her life, under that mother's
influence.

And he was well repaid for the self-denial her absence
entailed, when Antonia came back to him, alert, self-reliant,
industrious, an intelligent and responsive companion, a neat
and capable housekeeper, who insensibly gave to his home that
American air it lacked, and who set upon his table the well-
cooked meats and delicate dishes which he had often longed
for.

John, the youngest boy, was still in New York finishing his
course of study; but regarding Isabel, there seemed to be a
tacit relinquishment of the purpose, so inflexibly carried out
with her brothers and sister. Isabel was entirely different
from them. Her father had watched her carefully, and come to
the conviction that it would be impossible to make her nature
take the American mintage. She was as distinctly Iberian as
Antonia was Anglo-American.

In her brothers the admixture of races had been only as alloy
to metal. Thomas Worth was but a darker copy of his father.
John had the romance and sensitive honor of old Spain, mingled
with the love of liberty, and the practical temper, of those
Worths who had defied both Charles the First and George the
Third. But Isabel had no soul-kinship with her father's
people. Robert Worth had seen in the Yturbide residencia in
Mexico the family portraits which they had brought with them
from Castile. Isabel was the Yturbide of her day. She had
all their physical traits, and from her large golden-black
eyes the same passionate soul looked forth. He felt that it
would be utter cruelty to send her among people who must
always be strangers to her.

So Isabel dreamed away her childhood at her mother's side, or
with the sisters in the convent, learning from them such
simple and useless matters as they considered necessary for a
damosel of family and fortune. On the night of the Senora
Valdez's reception, she had astonished every one by the
adorable grace of her dancing, and the captivating way in
which she used her fan. Her fingers touched the guitar as if
they had played it for a thousand years. She sang a Spanish
Romancero of El mio Cid with all the fire and tenderness of a
Castilian maid.

Her father watched her with troubled eyes. He almost felt as
if he had no part in her. And the thought gave him an unusual
anxiety, for he knew this night that the days were fast
approaching which would test to extremity the affection which
bound his family together. He contrived to draw Antonia aside
for a few moments.

"Is she not wonderful?" he asked. "When did she learn
these things? I mean the way in which she does them?"

Isabel was dancing La Cachoucha, and Antonia looked at her
little sister with eyes full of loving speculation. Her
answer dropped slowly from her lips, as if a conviction was
reluctantly expressed:

"The way must be a gift from the past--her soul has been at
school before she was born here. Father, are you troubled?
What is it? Not Isabel, surely?"

"Not Isabel, primarily. Antonia, I have been expecting
something for twenty years. It is coming."

"And you are sorry?"

"I am anxious, that is all. Go back to the dancers. In the
morning we can talk."

In the morning the doctor was called very early by some one
needing his skill. Antonia heard the swift footsteps and
eager voices, and watched him mount the horse always kept
ready saddled for such emergencies, and ride away with the
messenger. The incident in itself was a usual one, but she
was conscious that her soul was moving uneasily and
questioningly in some new and uncertain atmosphere.

She had felt it on her first entrance into Senora Valdez's
gran sala--a something irrepressible in the faces of all the
men present. She remembered that even the servants had been
excited, and that they stood in small groups, talking with
suppressed passion and with much demonstrativeness. And the
officers from the Alamo! How conscious they had been of their
own importance! What airs of condescension and of an almost
insufferable protection they had assumed! Now, that she
recalled the faces of Judge Valdez, and other men of years and
position, she understood that there had been in them something
out of tone with the occasion. In the atmosphere of the festa
she had only felt it. In the solitude of her room she could
apprehend its nature.

For she had been born during those stormy days when Magee and
Bernardo, with twelve hundred Americans, first flung the
banner of Texan independence to the wind; when the fall of
Nacogdoches sent a thrill of sympathy through the United
States, and enabled Cos and Toledo, and the other
revolutionary generals in Mexico, to carry their arms against
Old Spain to the very doors of the vice-royal palace. She
had heard from her father many a time the whole brave,
brilliant story--the same story which has been made in all
ages from the beginning of time. Only the week before, they
had talked it over as they sat under the great fig-tree
together.

"History but repeats itself," the doctor had said then; "for
when the Mexicans drove the Spaniards, with their court
ceremonies, their monopolies and taxes, back to Spain, they
were just doing what the American colonists did, when they
drove the English royalists back to England. It was natural,
too, that the Americans should help the Mexicans, for, at
first, they were but a little band of patriots; and the
American-Saxon has like the Anglo-Saxon an irresistible
impulse to help the weaker side. And oh, Antonia! The cry of
Freedom! Who that has a soul can resist it?"

Copyright (c) 2007. fullstories.net. All rights reserved.