Christmas Under Three Flags; Being Memories of Holiday Festivities in the White House with "Old Hickory," in the Palace of H. R. H. Prince of

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE ALCALDE'S DAUGHTER AND HER CHRISTMAS LAMP LONG years ago, while the Mexican standard still waved over the Alamo, San Antonio de Bexar, the most flourishing Catholic Mission east of the Rio Grande, rejoiced in an Alcalde as famous for wisdom and virtue as for piety and goodness. Successful in his public enterprises, he was equally fortunate in his private relations, having a beautiful wife, an inviting home, and a brood of stalwart sons. That they had no daughter was much regretted by both, Donna Inez saying: Boys serve to perpetuate the name and uphold the family honor, but it is the girls who, lifting the domestic burden from the mothers' shoulders, and cheering, comforting the fathers, bless and brighten home, and, when in answer to repeated Novenas of prayer and votive offerings, a daughter was born to them, they, naming her MariaJesusa Pepita, gratefully dedicated her to the Virgin. Growing in beauty and grace and developing many lovable traits, Jesusa more than fulfilled parental hopes. Humoring, petting her father, preparing his pulque, filling his pipe, she became his daily companion and the idol of his heart. Don Pedro's office, adjoining the Alamo, then garrisoned by Mexican troops ordered to report to him and serve him when needed, was really the High Court of Justice where the Mission officials met to consider public matters, whether civil, religious or military. His home, the most spacious and pretentious at the Mission, was a one-story, flat-roof adobe structure, with about fifteen chambers separated by quaint halls, corridors and alcoves, and stood back of the Alamo amid extensive grounds, which, irrigated by a large acequia, teemed with rare, beautiful flowers, with orange, lemon and citron trees, with vine-covered bowers and arcades almost hidden benea...