The Black Jacks Read Online Free Page B

had made the most of the gift. Of the numerous plantations along the Brazos, his Grand Cane was one of the finest. He was among a handful of planters—along with John Sweeney on the San Bernard, Captain John Duncan on Caney Creek, and Colonel James Morgan on Galveston Bay—who had successfully and profitably cultivated sugarcane. Most of the Black Jacks, eternally devoted to their captain and bound by a friendship with one another forged in the crucible of battle, had also settled in the vicinity, creating a settlement bearing the same name as McAllen's plantation.
    He had built his home on a bluff overlooking the placid green waters of the lower Brazos. With the help of some of his Black Jacks and the four slaves he bought at the Galveston auction, he had constructed a large, rambling, two-story structure of his own design. It was build of cottonwood logs, hewn and counter-hewn. The roof sported post oak shingles, made with a drawing knife. The floor was of ash, hand sawed and planed.
    Downstairs, two large rooms were placed on either side of a twelve-foot-wide hall, with two smaller ones—a pantry and McAllen's study—behind them. Six polished walnut columns marked the front gallery, which ran the full width of the house. The back gallery connected the house with a stone kitchen that had a huge fireplace for cooking. Upstairs in the main house were four more rooms. Doors, window frames, and interior woodwork was all solid walnut. Interior walls were plastered. Each room had its own old-fashioned sandstone fireplace.
    At the base of the bluff he had built a landing. The Brazos was navigable here, and as early as 1830 the steamboat Ariel, owned and commanded by Stephen F. Austin's cousin, Henry, had ventured a considerable distance upriver. Later, the Ocean and the Yellowstone made the trip, although the former soon sank, breaking deep on the bar that made passage at the river's mouth a treacherous proposition. The Yellowstone had quit the Brazos for the Galveston-Houston trade shortly thereafter, but the small stern-wheeler Laura plied the river now during periods of high water.
    It was by steamboat that McAllen shipped his sugar downriver and brought material comforts up from the thriving gulf port of Quintana. As a wedding gift for Leah he had promised to furnish Grand Cane in high style. He had been able to make such a promise, and keep it, because the steamboats could transport marble, furniture, carriages, and all manner of creature comforts, some of which would not have made it overland by wagon freight.
    For Leah, then, McAllen had provided every fireplace in the house with a black marble mantel. In the dining room and parlor downstairs, brass chandeliers with crystal prisms depended from decorated ceilings. A square rosewood piano stood in the corner of the parlor. Damask drapes adorned the windows. Large gold-framed mirrors, eight feet tall, graced the dining room. Heavy mahogany, walnut, and rosewood furniture filled every room. Leah had ordered three hundred dollars' worth of silverware, including cream pot, teapot, coffee urn, sugar bowl, salt spoons, and dozens of other utensils. These, she had told McAllen, were essential accessories for the set of English china her parents had given them as a wedding present. How could she be expected to entertain properly with anything less?
    There lay the problem, mused McAllen, as he rode up the tree-lined lane toward the main house: Leah was accustomed to living in a certain grand manner. Her father, Israel Pierce, was one of Galveston's chief merchants. His house—where McAllen had first met Leah at a ball given in honor of the "heroes" of the revolution—was a true showplace. Leah had never in her life wanted for anything, and she wasn't about to start now, even if she did live on a somewhat remote frontier plantation. As a consequence, McAllen had spent nearly every penny of profit from three years of good crops to keep her happy. That cut against the grain of the