Louisa of Woods' Crossing: A Story of the Texas Frontier

By James Kaye

Louisa of Woods Crossing is about the Texas frontier just prior to the 1836 War of Texas Independence. The fourteen year-old heroine of the story lived during times of hardships and dangers including nightmarish depredations by hostile Indians inclined to barbarous acts. Nothing was more feared than raids on cabins and the terrifying abductions of teen-aged girls. The family homestead on the Lavaca River was that of the typical log cabin with fi elds, pastures, and the customary animals except for two red wolf watchdogs adopted as orphaned pups. The story is also an endearing one of close friendships with other pioneer girls.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 15, 2007
• ISBN: 9781469119977

James Kaye

James Kaye is a retired research biologist from the National Park Service working first in Carlsbad Caverns, then Padre Island, Joshua Tree, Death Valley, Channel Islands and lastly Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, during which Kaye wrote thirty papers in science journals on plant and animal subjects. Other interests were (are) in the art of British artist John William Waterhouse with three papers on his life and works in art journals; two being in The British Art Journal. Kaye also wrote five articles on the 1800s pioneer era of Texas, his home State, appearing in history journals and four novels based on Texas history; one being A British Butterfly Collector on the Texas Frontier. When a teenager, Kaye collected butterflies in Texas and of the obstacles encountered as written in the Dedication to all collectors of them. In 1948 on a summer vacation trip in Green Mountain Falls and when Midland trains were still running through the town, and when on hikes up along the Crystal Creek waterfalls, Kaye collected specimens of the so-called Rocky Mountain Apollos commonly known as The Snow Butterfly of the Mountains (Fig. 33). His interest in them and in the history of Green Mountain Falls as well as that of Ute Pass inspired much of the storylines in The Falls of Green Mountain Novella, sometimes known as a “long short story.”

Book preview

Louisa of Woods’ Crossing

A Story of the Texas Frontier

by James Kaye

Copyright ©2007 by James Kaye.

Library of Congress Control Number:           2006908297

ISBN:                         Hardcover                        978-1-4257-3389-6

ISBN:                         Softcover                          978-1-4257-3388-9

ISBN:                         Ebookr                             978-1-4691-1997-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

34009

Contents

PREFACE

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

A TREATISE

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PREFACE

Louisa of Woods’ Crossing is an endearing story of a courageous and adventuresome fourteen year-old girl who lived on the frontier of Texas in the 1830s. It was a time when pioneer families suffered through the hardships and dangers of settlement including nightmarish depredations by hostile Indians inclined to barbarous acts. All during the long fifty year history of the frontier nothing was more feared than raids on cabins and of the terrifying abductions of teen-aged girls and young women of childbearing age. Most of the hundreds abducted for the purpose never returned or were heard of again. The relatively few who were rescued or managed to escape, or were ransomed back to their families, all told of extreme cruelty and of immoral acts against their persons too shameful to speak of.

A frontier has been described as a boundary where opposing forces come together with all their differences (Rountree). Forces on the Texas frontier were those of Native Americans opposing European settlers with the cultural differences between them of so-called savagery and civilization. But it was also a time when the Indians themselves were at odds with others of their own color in near constant tribal wars. Moreover, during the time span of this novel, pioneer Texas was on the verge of a revolution against a Mexican government soliciting help from the Indians to set flames to the frontier and to fill the air with the screams of Texan women and children.

Louisa of Woods’ Crossing is about all of the above of Anglo-Americans against Hispanics; Indians against pioneers; Indians against other Indians; and of Indian raids and abductions. In the latter especially are harrowing tales of terrorism, heroism, tears, and tragedy.

On the quieter home front, Louisa of Woods’ Crossing is the story of a true family in a real location with a log cabin for a home typical of the times with fields, pastures, and the customary animals. Less usual however in this story are two red wolf watchdogs adopted into the family as orphaned pups that in turn adopted Louisa as the alpha female of their pack. They were loyal to her, obedient, and protective. And woven throughout the story are heartwarming relationships between Louisa Woods from the Lavaca River and her friends Amy McClure and Paige DeWitt of nearby Peach Creek.

Friendships between the three girls and the secrets they shared with coming-of-age experiences and anxieties were likely little different among girls of pioneer times than those of today. Girls, then, were still just girls talking as girls do and doing as girls do, and having to deal in life with the cards dealt them [written by a father of five daughters]. But shuffled into their deck was a wild card; that of an aboriginal half naked Tonkawa girl who wandered into their lives from out of the wilderness.

The site of the former John, Elizabeth, and Louisa Woods homestead is situated on a long-ago wagon road first built in 1828 that forded the Lavaca River in Lavaca County not far from Moulton, Texas. Some area historians still refer to the old homestead as Woods’ Place or Woods’ Crossing, or The Crossing at Woods’ Place [see back Cover]; thus the title of this story. The, then, Béjar to San Felipe route through Gonzales that forded the Lavaca at Woods’ Place is no longer there or is the original 1800s log cabin with an adjacent adobe stockade for defense against Indians. The family cemetery close to the river surrounded by a wrought iron fence remains intact however and buried in it are the remains of Sarah Louise (Louisa) Woods, the young heroine of this story.

For purposes of the narration four of the six characters living at Peach Creek are fictional though their names are based upon historical surnames of the location and period. Of the numerous characters in Gonzales all but four are true people and their stories are based on true events. Only the dialogue is fictional. The four Mexican soldiers in Gonzales are true to history. All structures and locations are (were) real as the Turner Hotel, Smith General Store, Kimball Hat Shop, DeWitt Tavern, the Guadalupe River Ferry, and the seven municipal squares. Just across from Market Square was a small fort having a small cannon used for defense of the settlement against Indian raids. Just the roar and smoke of the little cannon with each piece of scrap iron grapeshot whistling its own tune through the air terrified them.

[All but two of the thirty-one structures in Gonzales during the time span of this novel, including those above and a new school under construction, were burned to the ground the night of March 12, 1836, as a scorched earth policy in advance of the invading Mexican army following the fall of the Alamo. Many accounts of the Alamo battle are found in the literature and the subsequent Runaway Scrape from Gonzales with all the panic and hardship is well told by Crook, Windle, and with some details given in the Epilogue of this story. De la Peña speaks of the muddy roads and difficult travel when heavy wagons bogged down to the axles.]

Throughout the novel, information of additional interest and importance is set aside in brackets [ ] as that above. Such tidbits of data are said of by J. Frank Dobie (in Jenkins) as little touches of reality that are as necessary in historical narration as are salt and pepper to a soup or vegetable.

The two Tonkawa Indians in the story are fictional but their characterizations are based upon anthropological studies of the Tonkawas as they once lived in central Texas including some knowledge of their difficult language spoken with peculiar glottal stops, and with clucking and clicking sounds made with the tongue.

[The Tonkaweya (the origin of the English name, Tonkawa) are what the Waco (Caddoan) Indians called them meaning they all stay together (Webb). Such may have been true enough but Tickan-wa-tics (pronounced with clicking sounds made with tip of the tongue) are what the Tonkawas called themselves meaning the most human of peoples (Hoijer, Newcomb). Other Indians however thought quite differently of the Tonkawas and called them things less flattering. But as Cooper said: American Indians give very different accounts of their own tribe from that which is given by other people.]

Information on the Comanches—aptly called the Terrors of the Plains—likewise follows studies of the people including firsthand accounts of ethnologists who studied them; pioneers and military who fought them; individuals who suffered from them; and the artists and photographers who painted and photographed them. But present-day treatments of Native Americans as said by Carter tend to mar the truths of their ethnic history. Such treatments are generally those of sentimentalists who tend to gloss over Indian barbarism that, though well documented, is often slighted or ignored.

Simply, however, brutality was the inherent nature of aboriginal peoples wherever in the world and such had been with Amerindians since long before White Men ever set foot on the Atlantic shores. Even long after the Mayflower first landed in 1620 Indians continued for another two hundred and fifty years well into the 1870s—even a decade after the U.S. Civil was over—to continue their own civil wars to kill and mutilate one another by the thousands. Indians killed far more of their own color than any ever between Indians and White Man soldiers and settlers (Ewers). When historians write of Indian wars, meaning Indian/White Wars, they tend to ignore the equally bloody Indian/Indian Wars that are well documented in history and discussed in the Treatise.

The intent, however, of this novel and the Treatise is not to mar truths though it is important to note here, in truth, that the peoples of the pioneer era—both the red men and the white—are culturally not those of today as revealed through the pages of this book. It is of interest to know, also in truth, that there were no Comanche Indians in Texas before the 1700s and that their brief one hundred and fifty year history in the State was one of brutality (Fehrenbach). Wallace referred to Comanche warfare in Texas as barbaric and, relative to that, Day (et. al.) wrote of Indian prisoners being treated with extreme cruelty.

It wasn’t long after arrival of the first Europeans in Texas that Comanches and Kiowas began abducting pioneer girls and young women of childbearing ages. Older women were killed and the first captured were in the 1830s—the time span of this novel—and abductions continued for another thirty years with the last of record being a ten year-old girl in 1868. But during that time hundreds were abducted and while most were never heard from again those that survived initial capture no doubt lived miserable lives (Lee) as breeders. Zesch has concluded that most of the Comanche people living today have the blood of captive women flowing through their veins; that of Anglo, Hispanic, and of other Indians.

The Treatise at the end of this story is an in-depth continuation of the above subjects but to include it here would make a novel Preface much too long to read. The Treatise can be read by turning to it following this Preface or after the story but either way it expounds realistically and graphically upon the struggles of the times between Europeans and Amerindians. Such between them explains the Treatise title, The Inexorable Law of Survival or The Law of Competitive Elimination; a story in itself.

Though the story following is principally that of a young girl and of her adventures, friendships, and of sometimes harrowing experiences, the asides throughout provide comments, citations, and quotations pertinent to the Indian/pioneer history of her time and those that support and authenticate the story. Louisa of Woods’ Crossing is, therefore, also a history book as well as notations of Indian peoples and their cultures.

The purpose, though, is not to discuss how things could have been, or should have been, but as they were. This author however may well be guilty of that suggested by Axtell that the language used in presenting accounts of social conflict inevitably reveals moral judgments by the writer. That may well be true in this (my) case for after a number of critical reviews and rewrites of pertinent Chapters some empathy for the Indians of Texas goes to the Tonkawas though other writers may think differently.

Prior to the 1836 Texas Revolution the province of Coahuila y Téjas [later the Republic, then the State of Texas] was under Mexican rule as part of the Departmento de Béjar (BAY-har) pronounced as a two-syllable word. Béjar was named after the town in the Spanish Province of Salamanca of the same spelling and pronunciation. The name also paid homage to the Spanish duke de Béjar who was a brother of the marqués de Valero, the namesake for the Mission San Antonio de Valero better known today as The Alamo. The name of the mission gave rise to that of the city today and the river through it but during the Revolution era San Antonio was known only as Béjar though sometimes spoken of as San Antonio de Béjar.

The time span of this novel is a short one, only a year from the spring of 1835 to that of the next just before the War of Texas Independence. But it was in the spring of 1828 that José María Sánchez y Tapia, a Mexican writer, described springtime vistas along the Béjar to San Felipe Road that crossed the Lavaca River of this story: The countryside is bedecked with wildflowers and when one inhales the perfume of them the soul seems to revel in joy. In the spring of 1836 Enrique de la Peña, a Mexican Lt. Colonel who fought at the Alamo, wrote of the beauty of Texas and of the same vistas: The fields of flowers are of an exquisite variety in varied colors.

It was in the spring of 1835 when fields of wildflowers and fruit trees were in bloom that Louisa of Woods’ Crossing also reveled in the colors and scents of the bouquets that she picked for the joy of them (see Cover picture).

James Kaye

Chapter One

LOUISA

On a hot and humid day in May of 1835 Coahuila y Téjas, a province of Mexico, fourteen year-old Sarah Louise Woods known fondly to friends and family as ‘Louisa’ sat reading on the roofed front porch of her family’s ‘dogtrot’ cabin. Such structures of the times built of hand hewn logs, whip sawn boards, and froe split shingles, were a style of pioneer era construction known also as ‘dog run,’ ‘saddlebag,’ ‘double-pen,’ or, simply, as ‘double cabins’ (Jordan). Such structures were essentially two side-by-side cabins with space enough between them to make a wide passageway when covered by a common roof (see below). The homestead watchdogs that customarily lived there gave rise to the names of ‘dogtrot’ and ‘dog run’ cabins.

Chapter1.jpg

EGGLESTON HOUSE

Gonzales, Texas

1845

On that particular afternoon typical with prevailing breezes from off the Gulf of Mexico, and with the perfumed scents of wildflowers from across the countryside, Louisa sat leisurely on the porch in one of her father’s handmade ladder back chairs. She wore that day her usual attire of a full length high necked calico or gingham dress with a muslin petticoat under, though sometimes a chemise that also functioned as a nightgown. A flour sack apron that hung from around her waist was everyday wear for women of the times to keep dresses cleaner when busy with homestead chores. Moreover, aprons proved useful for wiping one’s hands and/or brows on the hotter and more humid days, and if used for the purpose aprons held vegetables from the garden and eggs from the hen house.

Such everyday wear as Louisa wore, all handmade, was the casual attire of her day before dressier and more fashionable store-bought clothing was readily available on the frontier. Only Louisa’s nicest dresses and hats were factory made for Easter, birthday, and/or Sunday go-to-meetings (see Cover) and such wear was orderable from a Godey’s Lady’s Book; the woman’s fashion magazine of the times illustrated with etchings, colored fashion plates, serial stories, and verses. Other apparel ordered when needed was such as button shoes, long stockings, dressier gloves, and now and then a new parasol or reticule. But mail orders took weeks, and fashions could come and go while awaiting deliveries.

Louisa sat slouched with a second chair pulled close to prop up her knees for a book rest. The hems of her dress and petticoat lay draped across the tops of her knees to catch breezes under. Though Louisa sat comfortable, to her, and not really caring about her position, it was a most unladylike way to sit that her mother would surely object to if she looked out and saw Louisa sitting as she was.

Sit up straight! her mother would surely fuss with a furrowed brow. Keep your feet on the floor… and for heaven’s sake young lady act like one and keep your dress down! her mother would surely say. But, as said, the day was hot and lifted hems caught breezes under.

It was bad enough for a lady to show one’s stockings, but exposing any part of one’s lower legs—er, limbs—as Louisa now sat doing and, God-forbid, as high as one’s knees was… well… disgraceful. Anyway, at age fourteen going on fifteen but wanting to be sixteen already, tomboy Louisa felt rebellious anyway of always having to sit straight and, hardest of all, to act like a lady.

Moreover, Victorian era decency and decorum 6,000 miles away and months of travel over land and sea from someone not her Queen anyway seemed out-of-place to Louisa sitting on her own front porch on a hot afternoon on the wild frontier of nowhere but more and wilder frontier. Moreover, the family lived more than a mile from the nearest neighbor and it seemed at times to Louisa that she might as well live on the dark side of the moon. And who, for God’s sakes! but her parents would see her sitting with her dress lifted and knees showing? No one she could imagine.

Louisa wished at times she had been born a boy. After all, boys didn’t have to wear bonnets with bows and ribbons, long dresses with petticoats, or sometimes those horrid, often ruffled, pantalets under it all to hide one’s stockings when wearing shorter dresses out in public. Besides, boys wore never-washed buckskin britches and walked around barefooted and bare-chested whenever they wanted. A boy could tan himself as brown as a nut, but not a girl who had to wear ‘coal-scuttle’ sun bonnets. Moreover, boys when skinny-dipping—as Louisa once peeked and watched some do—cavort about and swing out on ropes as bare-assed as the day they were born, for God’s sakes! but not a girl.

Furthermore, boys wrestled and did headstands, cartwheels, and somersaults. Boys walked on their hands with no concern about dresses falling down around their waists and their unmentionables showing [also inexpressibles, sit down upons and unwhisperables]. Moreover, boys climbed trees, shinnied up ropes, built tree houses, and hung by their knees with, again, no worry about anything under showing, even if boys wore anything under. And just for the sport of it boys challenged one another to see who could spit or pee the farthest, or write their names on the ground and dot ‘i’s, or cross ‘t’s and ‘x’s. Boys with long names such as Maximilian or Timothy had difficulties spelling them in full, what with all the letters, dots, and crosses. But with a full bladder and enough practice to squeeze one’s self off and on to stop and start, and do the dots and crosses, a boy could do it and brag about his penmanship. And nicknames like Max and Tim were easy enough to write twice, or with letters as big and as far out as one could reach; another cause for bragging. But a girl, even with the shortest of names like ‘Tina’ could only make puddles. And there wasn’t the slightest of chances to cross the ‘T’ or dot the ‘i.’ Moreover, a full bladder only made bigger puddles. Yep! It was true all right! Boys had things more fun to do, for God’s sakes!

Still more, it seemed to Louisa, that if boys wanted to spit, scratch themselves indecently, and cuss by saying hell-fire, crap, bass-ackwards, or Gol-derned—the latter usually said in reference to girls—a whole lot wasn’t said about it. And boys could hide out somewhere while telling bald-faced lies and tall tales, smutty jokes, and all the while smoking grapevine or puffing on corncob pipes. But a girl wasn’t allowed to smoke, spit, scratch indecently, cuss, or prop up her legs—er her limbs—said politely of by ladies. In fact, anything done with a girl’s limbs above her head like doing headstands, walking on one’s hands, or hanging by one’s knees was an absolute no-no. And anything that necessitated a girl to spread her limbs for any reason just wasn’t done, or at least not talked about in well mannered or mixed company. Girls sometimes did, however, and giggle among themselves in the privacy of bedrooms or out in secret hiding places.

A girl with any measure of tutoring in deportment, expression, elocution, proper grammar, and poise, had to sit, stand, walk straight, and speak properly. A girl always had to act like a lady, especially to keep her dress down when the wind blew and, for God’s sake! not let boys peek under. For Louisa, there would be no way, for God’s sake, that she would be allowed like boys to skinny-dip and/or walk about bare-breasted even though Louisa sometimes thought of such things just for the ‘heck’ of doing them and for the derring-do with everything of a girl showing. Well, boys do for God’s sakes! That is, showing everything when skinny-dipping. And swinging out on ropes wasn’t the only things swinging. Louisa knew that for a fact.

As for speaking properly, the most that Louisa could ever say in addition to heck that might be considered profane, and still get frowned at if heard, was drat or darn, dang it or dad-blame it, with a for God’s sake tacked on for emphasis to any of the aforementioned oaths. Louisa sometimes did express What in the Sam Hill? [The Devil] and with another for God’s sakes tacked on when she questioned something to the utmost of her disapproval. But Louisa said a lot of for God’s sakes! about a lot of things just for the heck of saying them that made Louisa feel… well… sophisticated. And, after all, even her mother said for God’s sakes when telling her to keep her dress down or sit up straight.

Louisa was now fourteen, going on fifteen, though feeling already like going on sixteen, what with all the urges that girls her age have, and talk about and giggle over. After all, for God’s sake, Louisa knew of girls her age who at fourteen had… well… done it already. At least they bragged they had. But what girl of fourteen going on fifteen doesn’t want by sixteen to have done it already, or maybe by fifteen, and more than once. Louisa had… well… thought about such things by the time she was thirteen… well actually when only ten and had watched those skinny-dipping boys. The things she saw swinging like such did didn’t leave much to the imagination as to where on girls they went, but the how used exactly was still unsure.

It was on a lazy afternoon that hot and humid day that Louisa’s head nodded on occasion while reading. Curled up asleep on the porch beside her snoring, and while sometimes running in their sleep—chasing squirrels or cottontails no doubt—lay watchdogs Diablo [Devil] and Growler that were male red wolf litter mates tamed by Louisa and her parents from the time they were month-old cubs; now more than a year ago. The two wolves were found in a den in the bank of the river and, for whatever reason, had been abandoned. Louisa and her father heard them whimpering and Louisa crawled in to pull them out.

[Red Wolves, Canis rufus, resembling the coyote in color though larger with larger paws and with coarser pelage were once common in southern, central, and eastern Texas during the time span of this novel though now they are rare and found naturally only in extreme eastern Texas and western Louisiana. Four to seven young are usually born in a den dug into a hillside or bank (Davis).]

Three other litter mates in the den were already dead from starvation. Louisa and her father buried them near their den but carried the two weak survivors back home and nursed them back to good health. Louisa otherwise cared for them with occasional baths and brushing, and at all times with affectionate pats, hugs, and kisses. In return they wagged their tails, whined, and licked her face.

Now fully grown [males 70 to 90 pounds] and like the pack animals that wolves are, Louisa became the alpha female—the leader of their pack—and they were obedient, loyal, and protective. [In captivity wolves often grow up docile and will greet human friends as pack mates (Allen).] Moreover, they followed her everywhere and ran with her, and however far in play that Louisa hid they always found her quickly by sniffing out her trail.

The two wolf dogs as Louisa thought of them got their names because Diablo was such a little devil as a pup playfully stalking, chasing, pouncing on, tumbling with, nipping at, chewing on, and otherwise tormenting his brother who growled in defense.

But now they slept peacefully. And Louisa’s mother, Elizabeth, hummed to herself inside the cabin while doing the never ending woman’s work of everyday chores. Louisa’s father, John, tended to farm animals out by the barn and pens. Close around the house Louisa and her mother cared for the garden and chickens. But Louisa now sat as previously described, catching breezes under, while doing her daily reading superintended by both parents for home school homework.

Louisa perused for the moment the happy ending to the bittersweet tale of long haired Rapunzel from an 1815 set of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Like Louisa, Rapunzel was only fourteen though with much longer hair. At the end of the story Rapunzel married a handsome prince who took her to his castle in a far away place where they lived happily ever after. Louisa was a bookworm; an avid reader of poems, adventure stories, and fairy tales.

Louisa closed her eyes sighing at the happy ending for Rapunzel while aimlessly pulling on her own long hair and while daydreaming about handsome princes and fairy tale castles in faraway places. Would she meet her handsome prince at age fourteen? Such things were fun to think about.

When about the age of ten, thoughts of why boys were boys and what made them different from girls were already of erotic interest. It was mostly after that aforementioned occasion when Louisa and her ‘bosom buddy’ of the same age, Amy McClure, hid out by the river and ogled the skinny-dipping boys.

For God’s sake Amy! Louisa exclaimed in a whisper as she pointed, breathlessly. Look at their things!

What do you think I’m looking at? Amy exclaimed in reply as both girls gazed wider and wider-eyed upon what made boys boys and what made girls look.

And on another occasion—actually more than once—the two precocious nymphets studied with more than just idle curiosity the manly details of naked statues, like the one of David, etched in titillating detail in an illustrated book of classical art. Utterances of For God’s sakes! were sniggered back and forth with further pointing as each page turned. And it wasn’t at all surprising that the curious two girls, agape with wonder, gazed longest on the statues bare of fig leaves.

There could be no doubt that males—boys—were quite different than how the two girls saw themselves in fronts of mirrors and before each other when bathing together. Boys didn’t have breasts like girls, but boys had those… well those things that girls didn’t; the causes of their fascination. But in all their innocence at age fourteen, going on fifteen, Louisa and Amy knew nothing, yet, of… well… doing it other than thoughts of it.

Ever so often that hot afternoon while reading, Louisa’s attention was attracted to the whirring of ruby-throated and/or black-chinned hummingbirds sipping nectar from scarlet penstemon, red sage, orange lantana, and sweet scented coral honeysuckles growing along the front porch. Rose-colored morning glories, and those that were white, blue, and purple, grew along with lavender passionflowers and white wood roses on the western sunny end of the porch.

Along with the hummers, colorful red admirals, buckeyes, painted ladies, orange tips, checkered whites, and black-and-yellow giant and tiger swallowtail butterflies fed at the flowers. Sometimes dainty little day-flying bumblebee hawkmoths visited the honeysuckles. Plastered up beneath the roof eave was a mud nest lined with grass and feathers of a pair of fork-tailed barn swallows that busily fed their young, mornings, afternoons, and evenings. Four pairs of baby black eyes looked down at Louisa whenever she looked up to say hello.

All year each year a pair of wrens foraged around the cabin when the male sang songs in triplets loud and clear, teakettle teakettle teakettle that sometimes sounded more like wheateater wheateater wheateater. With his head cocked back, widely gaped, and with tail held high, the male always sang loudly for a bird of such a little size. It seemed that the wider his gape the louder his voice, and the higher the frequency the more his song appealed to his lady friend. Moreover, the pair seemed never still while poking here and prying there for juicy things to eat. Louisa thought of them as little busybodies as if meddling into anything and everything.

Out across the countryside the hot May sun created thermal breezes that swayed tree tops and spawned whirling ‘dust devils.’ And when they passed nearby Louisa liked to run or walk into the middle of them while holding down her dress with one hand, onto her bonnet with the other, and feeling her hair swirl about her face and tickling her nose.

The ever widening tops of dust devils reached upward to dot the azure sky with the ubiquitous summertime flat bottomed cumulus clouds. The billowing cotton-ball tops changed continually into fanciful shapes and figures that Louisa imagined were the animals, people, and castles in her fairy tale stories.

Louisa gazed, half asleep, downhill to the river. On hotter days she daydreamed of going there alone and in the privacy of dense trees and dark shadows be daring enough to show more of herself than just knees, and to skinny-dip like boys do. Louisa thought, maybe, of having to hide among river reeds like the nymph, Syrinx, who Louisa read about in her mythology books, to hide from lurking fauns and satyrs. Or, especially, to avoid the leering eyes of the lustful Pan—God of woods and pastures and of herds and flocks—always playing a flute and searching for nubile nymphs. Louisa mused.

That lovesick god of pastures, Pan,

Who was half a goat and half a man.

He chased young nymphs for lustful deeds

That made poor Syrinx hide out in reeds.

But Louisa was never permitted to go to the river alone. Her parents worried about wild animals that might… well… eat her, and lurking Indians that might abduct her and… well… . Well Louisa didn’t want to think about such things. But Louisa thought such parental warnings of wild animals and lurking Indians were just easy excuses to say no to be alone by the river. Louisa mused, however, that storybook bugbears such as trolls, ogres, Centaurs, fauns, and satyrs, might be scarier; but not to exclude otherworld spooks, ghosts, and hobgoblins.

The river meandered on across the verdant landscape southward from the cabin for about one hundred miles until it mixed its freshness with the saline waters of the Gulf of Mexico in Lavaca and Matagorda Bays.

[The Lavaca River rises in the southwestern corner of Fayette County and flows eventually into Lavaca Bay. The name in Spanish means ‘the cow’ that was originally used by Spanish explorers to refer to the buffalo (Bollaert).]

Louisa thought of the fun of paddling a canoe down the Lavaca like Sacagawea might do, all the way to the Gulf, fishing and hunting along the way. But, of course, for God’s sake! that was something only boys would be allowed to do.

Louisa, who was fluent in Spanish [the official language of Coahuila y Téjas], knew that the name of the river, Lavaca, sometimes spelled La Vaca, or La Baca [De la Peña referred to the river as Vaca Creek] meant the cow in Spanish. She knew, too, that the river’s first European name was La Riviere aux Boeufs, or The River of Beeves, given to it by French explorers a century and a half earlier.

In April of 1828 when Louisa was seven, the French biologist Jean Louis [Jon-Louie] Berlandier, who was also studying the Indians of Texas [see Bibliography], crossed the Lavaca at Woods’ Crossing as a member of a Mexican scientific expedition. The group of several men [also including Juan Antonio Padilla, see also Bibliography] stopped for fresh well water and took necessary time to repair a wheel on a wagon loaded with scientific instruments and supplies.

Berlandier who was also fluent in Spanish related that the French explorer, Robert de La Salle [Ren‚ Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle] landed on the Texas coast at Matagorda Bay in 1685 when and where he established Fort Saint Louis on Garcitas Creek. In his explorations of other rivers and creeks that flowed into the bay, La Salle described one river [the Lavaca] as beautiful with fine trees and great numbers of beef-like animals [bison] with curly wool-like hair. Accordingly, La Salle gave the river its then French name La Riviere aux Boeufs.

[The buffaloes come down occasionally in the low country of Texas and at times to near the coast (Bollaert).]

Jean Louis was enamored with pretty Louisa with long dark hair. We have near the same name, he told her in Spanish. I am ‘Louis’ and you are ‘Louisa,’ he said with a grin, to which Louisa commented, also in Spanish, Only you don’t pronounce the ‘s’ in your name. My name would sound funny without an ‘s,’ she laughed. Louisa tried thereafter for awhile to think of herself as Louia without the s but then gave up the idea. Her name just didn’t sound quite right to be pronounced without the s.

Though Jean Louis conversed with Louisa in Spanish she enjoyed hearing his native French. He called her mon chéri [my dear] and mon amie petite [my little friend]. And Louisa giggled when he talked of La Riviere aux Boeufs as though he had a mouth full of mush.

A few years later, Louisa received a letter from Monsieur Berlandier written from his, then, home in Matamoros remembering her, and sent her a watercolor of one of the mescalbean plants called Frijolillo [pictured in Berlandier] that he studied at Woods’ Crossing and elsewhere in Texas. On the back of the watercolor was written: Para Louisa de Louis—Una flor bonita para mi amiga bonita (a pretty flower for my pretty friend).

After the French explorers had come and gone, the Spaniards changed the river’s name from La Riviere aux Boeufs to Lavaca, the cow. The reason of course was to eliminate French names and influences in Texas, and also because the Spanish spoke of bison, or buffaloes, as wild cattle or cows.

[In 1536 Cabeza de Vaca wrote (speaking of bison): These cows are found all over the land and people who live here (the Indians) subsist on their flesh. In 1541, Coronado spoke of Spaniards sustaining themselves on the cows, and of marking their trails across prairies with piles (cairns) of cow bones and cow dung. Coronado also spoke of the prairies being full of cattle and of Indians following the cows and of hunting them and tanning the skins."]

How dumb of them! Louisa mused. The buffaloes that she saw occasionally didn’t look much like the cows her family milked. But, anyway, the name La Riviere aux Boeufs sounded poetic, and how romantic it would be, she thought for herself, to be "Louisa of Woods’ Crossing of La Riviere aux Boeufs."

In her youth, Spanish came easy for Louisa but less so for her parents. One of Louisa’s many books was a Spanish grammar, and when visitors who spoke the language came to the cabin Louisa practiced Spanish with them including her wagon master friend, Julio Del Mar, who delivered freight and mail to the cabin. Louisa heard that many of the indigenous Indians spoke Spanish learned in the missions, and some became eloquent in English and Spanish, as well as their own languages. Some also spoke French from dealings with French traders.

In dryer summer months the Lavaca River seemed almost still. The cool, shallow water shimmered with glimmers of sunlight filtered through leafy canopies of towering pecan, cypress, laurel, ash, oak, elm, willow, black walnut, mulberry, and cottonwood trees.

[De la Peña wrote (paraphrased): The trees that grow along the rivers and creeks take great pride in reaching immense heights to form domes, and passing beneath them is a delightful experience for the traveler and where the heart is moved. But what makes these woods even more delightful is the variety of birds inhabiting them, which with their trills and warblings give greater animation to a nature already overflowing with life. Among others, there are abundances of goldfinches, mockingbirds, cardinals, hummingbirds, and woodpeckers.]

One could see the bottom of the river with its vegetation waving in the gentle current and the fish swimming all about. Louisa enjoyed feeding minnows at the surface with crumbs of cornbread. During winter and spring rainy seasons the river often flooded making the fast flowing water quite muddy and that sometimes overflowed its banks. In the worst of floods the river came near to the cabin.

[Boethel wrote of an 1857 flood when after a tremendous rainstorm the Lavaca River flowed out of its banks and over the surrounding lowlands washing away fences and crops. Near Hallettsville, eight miles south of Woods’ Crossing, a pioneer family barely escaped the fast rising river. Ten calves trapped in a pen and a horse that had bogged down, drowned. Three men drowned trying to cross the river in a wagon that washed downstream.]

During flood times traffic along the Béjar to San Felipe Road that forded the river within view of the cabin came to a stop until the dangerous waters subsided, sometimes taking days. That particular crossing was known all around as the Crossing at Woods’ Place, or Woods’ Crossing.

The pioneer town of Gonzales about twenty miles west of the Crossing was at the time the westernmost Anglo settlement on the Texas frontier, established in August, 1825. In 1827, a surveyor named Byrd Lockhart opened a road from the Hispanic town of Béjar through Anglo Gonzales to San Felipe de Austin; the then center of pioneer government in Austin’s first colony. From there, other roads continued northeast to the, then, U.S. Territory of Louisiana across the Sabine River.

During dry weather most road traffic easily forded the shallow knee deep crossing but wagoners sometimes had difficulties getting heavier wagons up the steeper western bank in rainy weather when wheels bogged down at every turn. If needed, John helped with his team of oxen. When the weather was good, daily traffic along the road was that of freight wagons, buckboards, oxcarts, buggies, people on horses, and others afoot.

[The wagons and carts could be heard crying and creaking a considerable distance away as they lumbered along under the slow tread of the oxen, and that solid wheels made of tree trunk rounds were greased with tar, tallow, and soap (Boethel).]

Even up at the cabin Louisa sometimes heard creaky wheels to know that heavy wagons and oxcarts were arriving at the crossing from one direction or the other, but became silent for awhile after wheels got wet. On occasion, travelers stopped at the cabin for water from the well, and/or just to visit for a spell with gossip and current news. Almost every visitor, like a walking newspaper, had something newsy to say about what was going on in the world beyond the homestead.

There were growing concerns among settlers about the new Centralist government replacing the Federalist government abolishing State’s rights. There were rumors of Mexican spies gathering information on settler sentiment for a revolution, and of Mexican agents secretly soliciting alliances with hostile Indians to side with Mexico should a revolution occur. Dark political storm clouds were forming over the province of Coahuila y Téjas on the northern side of the Rio Bravo [Rio Grande] and Mexico to the south. Most assuredly, John would become involved in a Texas militia if hostilities broke out, and John and Elizabeth were all ears to worrisome news.

Moreover, despite a Mexican law that required immigrant settlers to have good Christian moral character to move into the Province, there were rumors of lawbreaking citizens moving in, anyway. Texas was fast becoming a lawless refuge for those wanting to escape arrest and prosecution of crimes in their home States (Sánchez). Accordingly, one never knew for certain if a neighbor might be a criminal of some sort. In fact, it was rumored that such well known Texians, as Jim Bowie from Tennessee and William Travis from South Carolina, had moved into Texas to escape legal scrapes. Moreover, Sam Houston from Tennessee had settled in Texas with a questionable past. Some people fled to Texas just to escape insurmountable debts but there were no extradition laws between the United States and Mexico for any offense, even for the worst of crimes including rape and murder.

Sometimes, mail and freight supplies came to Woods’ Place. Letters from family back east took weeks and some never arrived; lost along the way somehow. Louisa’s wagon master friend, Julio Del Mar, delivered notes between Louisa and her close friend, Amy McClure, at Peach Creek, ten miles to the west of Woods’ Crossing on the way to Gonzales.

One of Louisa’s hobbies was a collection of handstamped postmarks from letters received at the house, and those given to her by friends knowing of her collection. Julio sometimes passed them along to her. The postmarks varied in shape from the usual circles to those that were ovals and squares. Most were inked in black but some were red, blue, or green. One of Louisa’s prizes was a half-circle postmark from Sherman, and one hoped for was star shaped from San Augustine.

Some of Louisa’s postmarks came to Coahuila y Téjas by packet boats from New Orleans in the U.S. to Galveston. Some were handstamped ship, steam, steamboat, or steamship and sometimes with ship’s names such as Steamship Fanny or Steam Packet Columbia. Three of her postmarks came from Vera Cruz and Tampico, and the 1834 letter from Matamoros written to her by her French friend Monsieur Jean Louis Berlandier.

Other postmarks in Louisa’s collection from across Coahuila y Téjas ranged from San Felipe de Austin to Washington-on-the-Brazos. But it happened in time that a lost letter with a wanted San Augustine postmark involved Louisa and the citizens of Gonzales in a cause of intrigue among settlers in Texas.

Louisa’s mother began singing in the cabin, and the sound of her voice awakened Louisa from her fairy tale daydreams. She sang one of Louisa’s favorite songs, Come to the Bower. Louisa hummed along.

Will you come to the bower I have shaded for you?

I have decked it with roses all spangled with dew.

There under the bower on roses you’ll lie

With a blush on your cheek but a smile in your eye!

Will you, will you, will you, will you, come to my bower?

Will you, will you, will you, will you, come to my bower?

Elizabeth loved to sing, and John and Louisa loved to listen. Elizabeth sang songs learned when she was a child, and sang them for Louisa to learn.

Elizabeth of medium height stood slim and pretty, and Louisa was a joyous remake of her; a mirror image of a young Elizabeth. Both shared hair and eye color and were it not for their age differences they would surely be thought of as sisters. But everyone recognized the two as mother and daughter. Now at fourteen, Louisa already stood tall at five foot six, as tall as her mother, slender, shapely, and very pretty. But Louisa was angelically innocent in the worldly ways of life outside those of her home and family. Elizabeth was near perfect as a mother and housewife and ever content in knowing that she was available and helpful in both roles whenever needed.

Elizabeth and