Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-10-31
A TEXAS BED.

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A TEXAS BED.
q. w. KendaIrs Last sIOry-A C0rn
Cob Mattress ana ocean She'll Pill
IOws-ReeOIieefIOns OF other Hard
Reds.
The New Orleans Picayltne of the 9th,
pub fishes an editorial letter from George w.
Kendall, dated on the 18th inst. from his
home in Texas 1t is probably the last
that ever came from his pen. az he died
suddenly ten DAYS after its date, of con-
gestiye chill. II is so genial and character
istic Of the man, that We present the most
Of it below:
i see that there is a fair prospect that
Columbus, on the Colorado, will soon be
reached by railroad cars, the bridge across
the river being under construction. The
finished, Alleyton, a one-horse provisional
town, heretofore of some note, will be left.
where il always belonged, ont in the
cold' Ii is very likely that many per-
sonsof defective memory, who have re-
mained over night at Alleyton. have for
gotten the bed on which they tried 10
sleep there, but my recoilections are too
vivid. i have been an and on ali sorts of
beds-beds which have little rest and less
sIeep-but the hardest bed / ever found
was at Alleyton, some years since. / have
slept on the ground pretty much all the
way from Galveston to Fort Laramie. /
recollect having a hard night of it, once
upon time, on the Wakarussa, in Kan.
sas had crawled into wagon to find
shelter from thunder shower. Ourrihes.
siK~shooters and double barreled guns had
all been slowed away helter skelter in the
wagon 10 keep them from getting wet.
was lying promiscuously and miseellanes
ously in among them the lightning be-
gan to flash and frolic about us, when
heard a sinister remark from Col. III. C. Y,
rOosting on the ground outside, which
made me uneasy If lightning should
strike that wagon, said he, Il wonder how
many balls would perforate our friend K p
! groped about and diverted thesmuzzles of
as many guns and pistols from my vital
parts as | could lay hands upon. | did
not wish TO be made either target or a
transparency did not wish to have as
many holes in me as there is in sieve.
But passed more unpleasant night some
years since at Alleyton,
Once upon time in New Mexico, on
bitter cold night, / tried to crawl into an
oven in yard-an oven from which
bach of bread had recently been taken.
We we're prisoners at the time, lot of us,
and with but slim show of blankets to
keep us warm. 1t was single-bedded
oyen-room for one-and knew that it
was warm. l thought that / was smart as
l commenced surreptitiously to crawl head
first into that oven, but some fellow
prisoner was smarter than me-he had
pre-empted-had crawled in first, and
unceremoniously kicked me out as I at
tempted to follow. did not like it, but /
| said nothing; it was free oven. and some
one had located ahead of me.
was once peDned in the old Jesuit's
prison in Chihuahua, in the same room
with the noted Hidalgo who raised the
first grito against Spanish rule, and from
| which he was taken out to be shot. / did
not like it. was also confined two nights in
the same convent in Queretaro from which
| Maximilian, Miramon and Mejia were
led ont TO eKecution-perhaps in the same
room. / recollect that the floor was of
stone, and hard-very hard l went
through fit of the smallpox or varieloid
on the earth floor of little adobe church
in the outskirts of the city OF Mexico. had
hard time of it, but not so hard as / once
| had at Alleyton, because at Alleyton ex-
| pected better things.
| had passed two nights in the stage be-
tween San Antonio and Alleyton; and on
reaching the latter was of course in fair
plight for a little rest after the jolting of
such Journey. I was conducted to a room,
after putting a postprandial pipe, and in
| that room was the outline of bed. Ny
frame was somewhat shattered and out of
! repair, and thinks | to myself, "Pll reconS
| struct on that base" or in that bed. But it
| was of no use.
! As we get old our memory grows defec-
! tive; but | shall never forget that bed at
Alleyton-no, never. was tired and sleepy
! when | entered it, but after threshing and
| rolling about for five minutes was as wide
awake as ever was in my life. The sheets
| and blankets may have been clean-I do
not say they were not; but the mattress and
pillow bothered me in more ways than one.
| | did not open either, but after prospecting
about on both for a space in search OF a soft
spot aud after trying the process known as
the "laying on of hands," | came 10 this
CONCLUSION, viz that the pillow was stuffed
with pecan shells and the mattress with
corn cobs When a man has no ocular de-
monstration, he is obliged TO resort to his
feelings / have never meddled much with
any other poetry than ready made-that is
poetry made by other people-but parodies
will sometimes get into the heads of people
who are not poets. Atall events, as rolled
about in that bed at Alleyton, one of Tom
Moore's beautiful songs came into my head
and cruci6ed it in this way while thresh'
ing the mattress
"You may twist. you may turn, you may squirm
Rs you will.
But the ends Of those cOrn-cobs will stick in yoU
still
viii stick in you still;"
and hurt Won, smartlv. At Columbus
\ hope they will have softer pillows and mat
tresses. Yours, etc, q. w. X.