A Light In The Darkness

     As a child, when I visited my grandmother, Emily Roberta Wilkes Leigh, in S. Mississippi during the summers, it was usually too hot to get to sleep easily. With the rhythmic sound of the fan as it oscillated back and forth (or later the comforting "roar" of the attic fan), my Mamo would tell me wonderful stories about when she was a girl or something about her family that she had been told, and before I knew it, I was asleep. I heard these stories over and over and never grew tired of hearing them. Here follows one story that my grandmother told me. After doing a good deal of ancestor research, I have come to believe that it is about her uncle -- her mother's (Mary Humphrey Barnes) brother, Jacob Pope Barnes. I'll give my reasoning at the end of the story.

    It seems that the hero of our story was living and farming in Marion County, Mississippi. He was unmarried and had been "keeping company" with a young lady in the county. Jacob (assuming that this is about him) and his family had been living and working in Marion County, Mississippi ever since his ancestors had arrived there from North Carolina a generation or so before. He kept hearing interesting rumors about land ownership in the new state of Texas (joined the Union in 1845), so for whatever reason, he made up his mind he would go west to Texas. He asked his young lady to marry him and go with him, but she was not the adventurous type and didn't want to leave her parents to go to unknown territory.

     He put together his few clothes, Bible, gun, a few tools, and made his farewells. After saying good bye to his family, he rode his old mule to the home of his sweetheart to say good bye to her and her family. She had not changed her mind; she didn't want to go to Texas. They parted and her father, in the spirit of Christian friendship and concern for this young man, traded Jacob a younger, stronger mule for the old one he had been riding. With his heart broken, Jacob and the mule set off at dusk for Texas. They rode a good way through the wooded areas of S. Mississippi, headed toward Louisiana and on to Texas. Jacob dozed, perhaps dreaming of his sweetheart, and let the mule continue on.

     Jacob must have slept for a couple of hours as it was pitch black when he awoke. The mule was still plodding along when, all of a sudden he stopped. No prodding could get him to move on. Jacob did everything he knew to do to get him to start moving again. Finally, Jacob saw a pin-prick of a light ahead of him. He got off the mule and walked toward the light, maybe a camp fire. He couldn’t tell what kind of light it was. As he got closer, he was relieved that it was coming from a cabin which seemed to be occupied. Jacob thought that, maybe, he would find a kind family who would allow him to sleep in their barn for the rest of the night so that he (and the mule) could get a fresh start in the morning. He knocked on the cabin door. A man answered. Jacob started to introduce himself, when he realized that the man looked very familiar. Then he saw his sweetheart walk up behind the man. It was then that he recognized the cabin and the members of his sweetheart’s family. He was back at his sweetheart's home. It was a few minutes before he and the family realized what had happened. The mule had walked in a circle and had gone back to "his home." Jacob had slept through the entire circuitous journey. They were back where they started.

     I’m sorry to report that Jacob’s departure and then re-appearance did not change his sweetheart’s mind about leaving her parents. I was told that the next morning, Jacob and the mule set out again for Texas, again alone. Each time I was told the story, I hoped for a different ending. But it was not to be. Man and mule finally got there. Jacob eventually married another, raised a family, and died at the age of 44 on February 1, 1877. And, as my Aunt Anne E. Leigh, my other story teller, used to tell me, "No one knows what happened to the mule"!

Note: I have attributed this story to Jacob Pope Barnes as he seems to have been the only member of my family who went to Texas from Mississippi before the middle of the 20th Century!