On one trip they had the excitement of a cougar hunt; that is, the cougar seemed to be hunting them, but they “made tracks” and accomplished their escape; the cougar was afterward killed.
Several other of her adventures are recounted elsewhere. It would require hundreds of pages to set forth a moving picture of the stirring frontier life in which she participated.
Louisa Boren Denny is a pioneer woman of the best type.
Her charities have been many; kind and encouraging words, sympathy and gifts to the needy and suffering; her nature is generous and unselfish, and, though working quietly, her influence is and has ever been none the less potent for good.
“Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war.”
Of the victories over environment and circumstances much might be written. The lack of comforts and conveniences compelled arduous manual toil and the busy “brown hands” found many homely duties to engage their activities. In and out of the cabins the high-browed pioneer mothers wrought, where now the delicate dames, perhaps, indolently occupy luxuriant homes.
It is impossible for these latter to realize the loneliness, wildness and rudeness of the surroundings of the pioneer women. Instead of standing awed before the dauntless souls that preceded them, with a toss of the head they say, “You might endure such things but we couldn’t, we are so much finer clay.”
The friends they left behind were sorely regretted; one pioneer woman said the most cruel deprivation was the rarity of letters from home friends, the anxious waiting month after month for some word that might tell of their well-being. Neither telegraph nor fleet mail service had then been established.
The pioneer woman learned to face every sort of danger from riding rough water in an Indian canoe to hunting blackberries where bears, panthers and Indians roamed the deep forest. One said that she would not go through it again for the whole State of Washington.
Each was obliged to depend almost wholly on herself and was compelled to invent and apply many expedients to feed and clothe herself and little ones. There was no piano playing or fancy work for her, but she made, mended and re-made, cooked, washed and swept, helped put in the garden or clear the land, all the time instructing her children as best she could, and by both precept and example, inculcating those high principles that mark true manhood and womanhood.