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969
women who founded the first homes, worshiped in the first humble chapels erected to God on these western hills and boundless prairies now crowded with temples and churches and schools and institutions of learning, while the multitudinous tramp of a million feet are still heard in the distance coming this way to enjoy what these pioneer mothers purchased by their sacrifice and privation. It was not given to many of these leaders to enter into the fruits of their labors. This splendid civilization we enjoy today, the social vines that shelter us, the civic boughs whose clusters feed us, all spring from seed sown, and the harvest of tears reaped by our pioneers, our old settlers. These pioneer women were familiar with much that has passed with the years, so rapidly have conditions changed. Be it said to their honor that in humble homes and with few advantages she did her part well ; there was something in the lullaby that she sang to her children at twilight, in the sublime simplicity of her teachings that fostered a sturdy manhood and patriotism which was inwrought into the stalwart republic, the precursor of the Lone Star State. She has been scalped and tortured by the savage, and her blood has reddened these plains and valleys as an oblation on the altar of empire. Her life and the tragic scenes through which she passed are each a romance whose daring and adventure and sacrifice are the chief actors on its eventful pages. All that is noblest in man is born of woman's constancy and deathless devotion to him. Knighthood found its inspiration in the pathos of her love and the charm of her smiles. Woman loves man, is jealous of his freedom, his liberty, his honor, and for him ,she sacrifices all. Heart and soul are the smallest things she immolates on any altar. The pioneer women of Texas robed themselves out in drudgery and toil that their beauty might reappear in the structure their devoted hands built to liberty and progress. They buried themselves in these western solitudes,