Free Ghosts along the Texas Coast by Docia Schultz Williams Page A

discover the perpetrator, and arrest him. He called together all his servants, and while thus gathered the firing began again, which would seem to disarm any suspicion that might be directed against them. On Monday night but two were fired. On Tuesday the boy Anastasio was again hit on the head, and a hot brick fell in the yard, and several have been thrown today. The cook has become thoroughly alarmed at these strange manifestations and has quitted the house. No one has yet been able to discover the bricks in the air, or until they reach the house, and the trees and foliage surrounding the house are untouched by the missiles. Truly, it is a strange proceeding.
    The quoted articles appear in
Studies in Brownsville History
, edited by Milo Kearney. No other articles about the strange occurrences at Clerk Glaevecke’s home were available. My personal opinion is that a very bad poltergeist set off the brick bombardment, and we have to hope he finally tired of his mischievous activity and let the family get back to the business of peaceful living once more.

A Dead Dog’s Devotion
    An acquaintance of mine who lives in the Valley shared a personal experience with me recently. She requested that I use all the facts, except for her name, and I shall respect her wishes. I will call her Mary.
    Now Mary is an elderly widow who lives in a tiny white frame cottage in a small community south of McAllen. Her husband had been a citrus farmer before his death. They had no children, but Mary was very devoted to a little gray toy poodle whom she called Buttons because of his shiny little shoe-button eyes. The dog slept in a little basket beside Mary’s bed. Sometimes if Mary overslept, Buttons would wake her up by rearing up on the bed and scratching at the covers to uncover Mary’s arm. He would often make a little whimpering noise as if to say, “Wake up! I need to go outside!”
    In time, little Buttons became very old and arthritic, and then he developed a heart problem. Mary was heartbroken, but she knew she had to have her beloved pet put to sleep. She vowed never to get another dog to whom she would become so attached.
    Several months after the dog died, on a rainy November night, Mary was awakened in the middle of the night by feeling the covers being tugged from her arms. And she heard the unmistakable sound of Buttons’ “let me out” whimpers. As she awoke, she looked at the side of the bed, and there in the glow of her night-light she could plainly see two shiny shoe-button eyes staring at her.
    Astounded, she turned on the lamp beside her bed. But there was no dog there . . . nothing at all. Mary had been so sure she had seen and heard her little poodle. Unnerved, she decided to get up and go out in the kitchen and make a cup of hot chocolate to calm herself. As she walked through the hallway into the kitchen she was almost overcome by the smell of gas coming from her gas range. Evidently the pilot light had gone out and the odor of gas filled the room. She raised the window and opened the outside door, but it took some time for the noxious fumes to disappear.
    Mary always wondered if, had she slept all night in that tiny little cottage with all the doors and windows tightly closed, she would have been “put to sleep” by the gas fumes coming from her kitchen if not for the protective spirit of her little poodle, Buttons, coming back to alert her.

Is There an Explanation for This?
    The story I am about to tell you is so unusual that I frankly didn’t know what else to call it. Since it isn’t exactly (or is it?) a ghost story, I didn’t know just what to do with it, but I want to share it with you. It is a true story of an ongoing situation, and therefore I am changing the names of the principals and not mentioning the name of the town, which is in far South Texas.
    It was just a few weeks ago that I heard of the experience a young woman I will call Betty Chambers.