The Log of a Cowboy: A Narrative of the Old Trail Days

Adams, Andy

ISBN 10: 0803250002 / ISBN 13: 9780803250000

Edité par Univ of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE, 1964

A propos de cet article

Soft Cover. A Bison Book Reprint of the 1903 Houghton Mifflin & Co. edition. First Trade Edition, 11th printing. Note: this is the original first Bison edition with a different cover from the later (1985) cover stock photo. 387 pages. CONDITION: VERY GOOD, pictorial cover with minor shelf wear; binding tight and square, pages crisp and unmarked, except for previous owner's two-line record of place and date of purchase on ffep. CONTENT: A classic of cow country literature endorsed by J. Frank Dobie in his Guide to Life and Literature of the Old Southwest: "If all other books on trail-driving were destroyed, a reader could still get a just and authentic conception of trail men, trail work, range cattle, cow horses, and the cow country in general from The Log of a Cowboy.".

N° de réf. du vendeur 000275

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: The Log of a Cowboy: A Narrative of the Old Trail Days
• Éditeur: Univ of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE
• Date de parution: 1964
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0803250002
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780803250000
• Reliure: Trade Paperback
• Édition: First Trade
• Impression: 5th or later Printin
• État de l'article: Very Good
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Western USA
  • Biography & Memoir
  • History

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

J. Frank Dobie, in his Guide to Life and Literature of the Old Southwest, has declared that "if all other books on trail-driving were destroyed, a reader could still get a just and authentic conception of trail men, trail work, range cattle, cow horses, and the cow country in general from The Log of a Cowboy." First published in 1903, Andy Adams' classic narrative, based on his own experiences during the days of the "long drive," continues to be used and cited by historians of the Old West as the best and most reliable account of its kind. The Bison Book edition is reproduced from the first edition, with illustrations by E. Boyd Smith.

Présentation de l'éditeur

Just why my father moved, at the close of the civil war, from Georgia to Texas, is to this good hour a mystery to me. While we did not exactly belong to the poor whites, we classed with them in poverty, being renters; but I am inclined to think my parents were intellectually superior to that common type of the South. Both were foreign born, my mother being Scotch and my father a north of Ireland man,—as I remember him, now, impulsive, hasty in action, and slow to confess a fault. It was his impulsiveness that led him to volunteer and serve four years in the Confederate army,—trying years to my mother, with a brood of seven children to feed, garb, and house. The war brought me my initiation as a cowboy, of which I have now, after the long lapse of years, the greater portion of which were spent with cattle, a distinct recollection. Sherman's army, in its march to the sea, passed through our county, devastating that section for miles in its passing. Foraging parties scoured the country on either side of its path. My mother had warning in time and set her house in order. Our work stock consisted of two yoke of oxen, while our cattle numbered three cows, and for saving them from the foragers credit must be given to my mother's generalship. There was a wild canebrake, in which the cattle fed, several hundred acres in extent, about a mile from our little farm, and it was necessary to bell them in order to locate them when wanted. But the cows were in the habit of coming up to be milked, and a soldier can hear a bell as well as any one. I was a lad of eight at the time, and while my two older brothers worked our few fields, I was sent into the canebrake to herd the cattle. We had removed the bells from the oxen and cows, but one ox was belled after darkness each evening, to be unbelled again at daybreak. I always carried the bell with me, stuffed with grass, in order to have it at hand when wanted. During the first few days of the raid, a number of mounted foraging parties passed our house, but its poverty was all too apparent, and nothing was molested. Several of these parties were driving herds of cattle and work stock of every description, while by day and by night gins and plantation houses were being given to the flames. Our one-roomed log cabin was spared, due to the ingenious tale told by my mother as to the whereabouts of my father; and yet she taught her children to fear God and tell the truth. My vigil was trying to one of my years, for the days seemed like weeks, but the importance of hiding our cattle was thoroughly impressed upon my mind. Food was secretly brought to me, and under cover of darkness, my mother and eldest brother would come and milk the cows, when we would all return home together. Then, before daybreak, we would be in the cane listening for the first tinkle, to find the cattle and remove the bell. And my day's work commenced anew.