The Louisiana populist., 1895-06-14

ueSeTl Ol plies anu SOllluuc. VI iiteAS
voice save their own when the wind
stirs them has this wilderness of pines.
Scattered here and there sawmill ap-
pears, seeming lost amid its depths, on
its edges housed in frail, rough, plank
shanties dwell a few wild and lonely
looking "setters," but through its great
heart little of life is visible or audible.
A few roads used mainly by lumber
teams penetrate its solitudes, the plain
est trails being those used by the cattle
that range its wastes. One wonders
where these half-wild beasts find for
age to round out their carcasses so
bravely, these woods look so nude of all
green things save the tops of the SER
led ranks of trees or the scrubby small
growth peculiar to these pine wastes.
The dim and lonesome roads wind on
and on, you cross hallow depressions,
narrow and sand-bedded, which in the
states east of Texas would be little
brooks of murmuring water, but here
they are dry and desolate looking sand
beds. Occasionally you reach creek
even gloomier-looking than its dwarf
ish kinsman. Its banks are wastes of
deeper sand, its shallow water sinks
silently and slowly past between its
grassless banks, then slouches into
deep, forbidding pools on whose brink
you instinctively hesitate before per-
mitting your horse to drink.
Then your road skirts basin, acres
In extent, filled with a dirty white
ooze of mud and water, containing
vegetation coarse and sparse, remind
ing one oddly somehow of the stealthy
Indian that so lately roamed through
these wilds. Sometimes these basins,
shallower and drier, are dotted with
groups of scrubby persimmon trees
these, in the vernacular, are termed
"persimmon fats" Deer and turkeys
are said to inhabit these solitary woods,
but neither living or dead have they
been visible to my eyes. Sometimes
not often-a little prairie breaks the
monotony of these serried ranks of
pines. On and about these the people
cluster, their frail, mud-chimneyed
little houses encroach on the great
forest. In the little fields women and
children toll beside the men through
the spring and again in the cotton dur
ing the autumn. Oh, the loneliness Of
these lives! The churchless Sabbaths,
when men and boys gather to play
games and the women to chatter and
take snuff. Oh, the delight of seeing
newspaper after a month of depriva-
tion. The satisfaction it is to know
that there is a world that lives and
moves and that some time one will get
out of the Texas pine woods and live
in that world too. At eventide you
hear, perhaps, from some little farm
stead a woman's shrill voice calling the
cows home from the pine woods. You
see the men feeding their prairie ponies
with ground peanuts and vines which
take the place Of corn when the drought
cuts short that important grain, as in
the past season. Soon they gather
within doors and have supper by lamp
light. Sometimes some very sagacious
man tests your knowledge of geogra-
ply by queries that make you feel
youreslf lineal descendant of the wise
Solomon.
''Is not Australia in South Amer
ica?"
Docs not England Join the United
States?"
have really been asked these ques-
tions and recovered sufficient presence
Of mind to return correct answers.
In the early morning you roof your
head with a sunbonnet, the universal
feminine head garb here, Nonnet with
a crown that cleaves the air, tall and
grand as a mountain peak. Tim you
set forth through the dense fog on
bee line across the prairie to your
schoolroom. Your feet sink deep ia
the sandy path, and, perhaps, a
"norther" meets you. 1t is a warrior
from away up north and it fights hard.
Unwittingly the tears stream from
your red-rimmed eyes, your skirts lash
furiously In the sweeping wind. But.
like the prairie ponies, you learn to
bow your head, arch your back, and
press on. The school edifice is con-
structed of the omnipresent pine
planks, without any "cornders," as a
Mississippi negro once said of house
Of similar architecture. The children
are not bad, but 1t is hard to keep them
quiet. In their restlessness they re-
mind one of nothing SO much as the
terrible screw worm. Their sports are
intensely realistic. They are hounds;
they hunt down one of their number as
deer. They bay him with genuine
houndlike baying; they tear him to the
ground, and, with huge wooden knives
the huntsmen slay him. Or, as cow
boys. they bunch" each other as cat
tie, forcing the refractory ones back to
the range" and the lowing and bel
lowing is SO true to life 1t makes one
shiver to hear it. This is life in ''thc
piney," as the prairie dwellers term it.
Farther on toward Plantersville the