And then, through the splendid tropical country, to Marshall. I must return to Marshall, Texas, some day and be disillusioned, or else I shall go down to my grave accusing myself of having passed Paradise in the train, and not "stopped off" there. What an exasperating reflection for a deathbed! I should never forgive myself. But perhaps it is not so beautiful as it seems. In any case studies "from the life" would be immensely interesting. I caught a few glimpses which entertained me prodigiously. There was the negro dandy walking painfully in patent-leather boots that were made for some man with ordinary feet, with a fan in his hand and a large flower in his button-hole, an old stove-pipe hat on his head, and a very corpulent handleless umbrella under his arm. There was another, similarly caparisoned, escorting three belles for a walk in the neighbouring jungle, the ladies all wearing white cloth gloves and black cloth boots that squelched out spaciously as they put their feet down. And alas! there was the black coquette, with her bunch of crimson flowers behind her ear, her black satin skirt and white muslin jacket, her parasol of black satin lined with crimson--and how she flirts up the green slope, with a half-acre smile on her face! She looks back at every other step to see which, if any, of the black men, or the brown, or the yellow, on the station platform is going to follow her expansive charms, and so she disappears, this piebald siren, into the groves, her parasol flashing back Parthian gleams of crimson as she goes. But every one, man, woman, or child, black, brown, or yellow, was a study, so I must go back to Marshall some day.
At present, however, we are whirling away again through the lovely woodland, and the whole afternoon passes in an unbroken panorama of forest views, with great glades of meadow breaking away to right and left, and patches of maize and cotton suddenly interrupting the stately procession of timber. And then Jefferson. Is Jefferson more prettily situated than Marshall? I cannot say. But Jefferson lies back among the trees with an interval of orchard and corn-land between it and the railway line, and looks a very charming retreat indeed. A fat negro comes on board on duty of some kind connected with the brake, and a witty little half-breed boy comes on after him. The fat negro is the brown boy's butt. And he nearly bursts with wrath at the hybrid urchin's chaff, and threatens, between gasps, a retaliation that cannot find utterance in words. But the brown boy is relentless, and though the train is rapidly increasing in its speed, he clings to the step and taunts the negro who dare not leave his look-out post. But he knows very well where the fat man will get off, and suddenly, with a parting personality, the little wretch drops off the step, just as a ripe apple might drop off a branch. And then the fat man has to get off. The speed is really dangerous, but he climbs down the steps backwards, thinking apparently only of his tormentor, and still breathing forth fire and slaughter; and then lets go. Is he killed? Not a bit of it. He lands on his feet without apparently even jarring his obese person, and when we look back, we see that he is already throwing stones at the small boy, whose batteries are replying briskly. I wonder if the hippopotamus ever caught the flea? And if he did, what he did to him?