care of a professional teacher, though the responsibility of seven
other children might have furnished her with an excuse for doing so.

In the most enchanting city of Texas the future novelist was
surrounded by the romantic myths of Indian lore. On a day long past,
the miracle of the San Antonio River and its valley had burst upon the
enraptured eyes of Tremanos, the young Apache brave, from the hilltop
to which he had climbed with weary footsteps, followed by the gaunt
shadow of death, dazed by the phantoms on the distant horizon, lured
on by mystic spirit music brought to him on the wings of the scorching
winds; and he had gone with glad heart down into the rich and verdant
plains of "Tejas, the Beautiful."

Not far from the picturesque old city of San Antonio was the Huisache,
one of the three springs which join to form the San Antonio River.
Along its banks the gray dove's sad note was heard. When the two
Indian sisters, "Flower of Gladness" and "Flower of Pity," used to
come down to drink from the Spring of the Huisache the song of the
dove was all of joy. A youthful Indian brave of rare enchantment came
into their lives and brought love and treachery, and the assassin's
knife felled the Indian youth on the brink of the Huisache. "Flower of
Pity," coming to the spring, found the lifeless form of the young
warrior and snatched the knife from the wound and plunged it into her
own heart. A little later "Flower of Gladness" found her sister and
the Indian brave dead by the water's edge and straightway went mad.
Manitou graciously allowed the poor lost soul to find a voice for its
woes in the note of the dove and henceforth she was the mourning dove.
The lives of the youth and maiden, floating out in white clouds of
mist, descended into the earth and became two living springs which
united with the Huisache to form the San Antonio River.