San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-09-01
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Kensel Point is a long neck of land lying
parallel to the main shore, and almost
severed from it by lard locked harbor,
opening eastward through narrow inlet
into the broad Hilbury bay. The neck is
connected at the western end with the main
land by a long sweep of sand beach, generally
some fifty yards or more in width, but in high
tides or easterly storms often quite covered
in some parts. A carriage road winds round
over this beach to Willowtree dock, where
the steamboat touches morning and evening,
on her way to and from the city From the
dock the ground rises abruptly to the high
table land above, which constitutes the major
portion of the point.
Half a mile from the dock, along the har
Dor shore, back from and above the road,
stood the old Halliburton homestead, a square,
two story building painted dull, washy
red, and looking rather shabby and weather
beaten without, but comfortable and pleasant
within. Here Kit Grale and her father came
to live now, and to take new start in life.
The ground slopes away into the road in
front, to which a rain quilted path leads
straight from the door. The broad space on
either hand was covered by a rank growth of
long wild grass, and shaded by the spreading
branches of venerable horse chestnuts. A
private lane leads up the steep ascent back of
the house. between the locust thiCEet and the
apple orchard, and then runs away back
through level farm lands, woods, and salt
meadows. to the sound Below the slope in
front of the old house and beyond the road,
row Of great old poplars stands, and from
hi; laI ha u-h
away, over which the tapping tides eternally
rise and fall, in their ceaseless ebb and flow.
The road skirts the harbor shore the whole
length of the neck, from the steamboat land
ing to the light on the bar at the inlet. And
along this road, at varying intervals, stand
the four or five houses, where are the homes
of all the jewellers on Kensel Point. Back of
the neck, on the lonely sound shore, is the
dangerous ledge called Gull reef, where the
crew of the Gallowshields went so bravely to
their death, that wild night between October
and November, twenty-one years before.
Exit, girl" Sad Grale, thoughtfully and
sadly. (t,ley set together on the front porch,
in the pleasant summer twilight watching
toe rising tide ripping brightly through the
foliage of the green trees, tapping and tink
ling on the pebbly sands with bubbling
music i1describably sweet, Kit, girl" he
said, Il was thinkin' O. George Just now
your uncle, Kit, that you never seen. Poor
Geo-ce Tie sound O. the water ripplin' on
the shore there makes me mournful like,
though there's no music to my thinkin' like
the sound O the winds an waves. He were
u true heart, Kit, If ever were one. An
was a-thinkin' how uncommon strange that
should so knockin' about salt water an fresh
for twenty year. an then come back after ali
an turn landSman on this same point, where
the tide an wind drove us ashore that night"
Kit Grale had lived through her childhood
in their little old house at the head of Hill
bury harbor, a bright, careless, hearty child,
forever in mischief, and giving her mother
no little disquetude by perpetually getting
afioat in any craft that offered, from six
foot scow to old Tommy Crockel's long boat,
with mast and sail She took to the water
as naturally as duck, and seemed utterly
reckless of danger. So it came about that
she early became expert in water craft, and
by constant exercise and exposure to air and
sun acquired insensibly hardy constitution
and q self reliant feeling of strength that has
stood her in good stead, and will to the end
of her life. At the age of IA Kit was sud-
denly and roughly awakened from the
thoughtless dream of youth by the death of
her mother. Her grief at this time had
something almost awful in its strength, its
utter abandonment, its wild despair, its
angry, even fierce, rejection of sympathy and
consolation. And when the iptoerable bit
terness of the pain wore off with time, as it
ever does and must, she came out of
the fiery trial with a new found con-
seriousness of duty to be done and
character to be formed. The wildness
was gone out of her laugh, and was replaced
by settled cheerfulness and buoyancy Of
spirits that kept her CHEEKY of heart and
face, and sustained her nobly in time of need
The craving for perpetual action and adven-
ture, the hasty reckSessness of her child life,
settled into steady unfaltering devotion to
a fixed purpose and a thoughtful habit of ar
ranging all the little incidents that make up
life, with reference to the direct or ultimate
furtherance of that object. This purpose of
her life to which she now made everything
subservient, was to fill, as nearly as might
be, her mothers place, and make up to her
father the loss Of his wife.
And all through the troubles which fol
lowed 50 thickly, she never failed him, even
In his rna5 AeIisO- h+ ------sau khs~ @As-JS -
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