The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 61, July 1957 - April, 1958 Page: 318

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Southwestern Historical Quarterly

more interested in his day-to-day work than in the Indian skirm-
ishes that had happened nearby or the famous outlaws and mar-
shals he had met," Miles sought out the manuscript and edited it.
The result is a valuable contribution to the mass of autobio-
graphical material which, recent books about the cowboy notwith-
standing, gives the most reliable information about what the
cowboy of the open range was like.
Lucky 7, however, is remarkably like the other reminiscences
of the twenties; Carpenter, like his contemporaries, gives more
statistics about numbers of cattle and horses on the trail drives
than information about cowboy life. Two outstanding sections,
however, lend significance to the book. The author gives an im-
passioned account of the way he and hundreds of other cattlemen
went broke in 1884, and he describes in minute detail one trail
drive which he made in the fall of 1892. Also, Carpenter's diction
and humor, while not unusual, add strength and color to the book.
Unlike J. Marvin Hunter in The Trail Drivers of Texas, Miles
has wisely changed Carpenter's material very little. He has re-
produced accurately the manuscript, with the original spelling,
diction, and sentence structure intact. While Miles has been too
eulogistic in referring to Carpenter as "the Western Huckleberry
Finn" and "this cattleman's Ulysses," he has discovered an inter-
esting addition to cowboy literature. Perhaps the story of the
cattle kingdom has not been completed; it may be that stored
away in an old trunk somewhere is another manuscript which
describes in even greater detail the day-to-day work of the cowboy
of the open range. ORLAN L. SAWEY
Harding College
Mesquite and Willow. Edited by Mody C. Boatright, Wilson M.
Hudson, and Allen Maxwell. Dallas (Southern Methodist
University Press), Texas Folklore Society Publication, No.
XXVII, 1957. Pp. viii+o23. Preface, statistical tables, map,
informational notices on contributors. $4.00.
Rich in valuable contributions to the study of folklore are many
of the articles in Mesquite and Willow, the newly current annual
publication of the Texas Folklore Society. Among its well-known
writers are Stith Thompson, J. Frank Dobie, Mody C. Boat-

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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 61, July 1957 - April, 1958, periodical, 1958; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101164/m1/376/ocr/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.

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