• U.S.

Books: Texas Crop

5 minute read
TIME

Hard-bitten Texans describe their State as the place where you can look farther and see less, where there are more cows and less milk, than anywhere else on earth. Readers looking over the current bumper crop of books about Texas, put out to synchronize with the Texas Centennial, might have added that it is the State about which you can read more and learn less than any other in the Union.*

Mrs. Sallie Reynolds Matthews’ Interwoven bears the authentic stamp of pioneer documents, is the quaint and kindly chronicle of a lady who was born near the present site of Breckenridge in 1861, carries her story, with the stories of her family, to 1900. Sallie Reynolds grew up when Indians were a constant menace, when families huddled together in the uncertain protection of forts in face of raids. She saw enough of the ruthlessness of early settlers to believe in “the inherent nobility of the Red Man.” She casually tells a story of a young gunman who killed an unoffending Indian while his whole party was in the hands of the savages. The Indians demanded only his life in return, flayed him alive, while in a similar situation whites would have exterminated all the Indians in the area. Sallie Reynolds traveled to Colorado and back to Texas, married Bud Matthews, bore him eight children. Her book is filled with good plain Texas names such as Flake Barber and Si Hough, with accounts of droughts, troubles with banks, hard winters, written without heroics

Lane of the Llano is the story of Jim (Lane) Cook as he told it to Professor T. M. Pearce. A white-bearded, sturdy old man, now 77, Jim Cook was born in what is now Kimble County, the son of an Indian trader who became a partner of John Chisum. He pronounced Guadalupe “Warloopy,” mixed history, folklore, social theory with his memoirs, all of which was taken down by his audience. Jim was captured by Indians when he was n, grew up with them, married an Indian girl, escaped. He worked as a cowhand, knew Billy the Kid, outsmarted Old Man Chisum, was a storekeeper, justice of the peace, postmaster, road supervisor, once arranged to have Colorado City, Tex. shot up in his honor when his fortunes stood high. Now he travels from one auto tourist camp to another, looks like Walt Whitman, cherishes a grandiose plan to have grand canals built on both sides of the Continental Divide to save the Old West and solve the unemployment problem.

Riding for Texas is Colonel Edward M. House’s reminiscences of his old friend William Jesse McDonald, captain of Company B of the Texas Rangers. As put down by Tyler Mason, Riding for Texas reads like a parody of all Wild West tales. It begins with a scene in which the Governor tells Bill Jesse: “By gatlings, we’re going to make a new State out of Texas. You’re built for the job. A born manhunter, that’s what you are. . . . You have a scent like a bloodhound, and courage to match it. I bet you don’t know what fear is, do you?”

Broncho Apache touches Texas only in passing. Last year Paul Wellman told the story of Geronimo and the last stand of the Apaches in his excellent Death in the Desert. One incident in that book dealt with Massai, Apache brave who, when the tribe was being moved to Florida, escaped from the train in Illinois, made his way back to Arizona. Broncho Apache is a fictionalized version of Massai’s return. As in Death in the Desert, Author Wellman gives ample evidence of understanding the Apaches. But most readers are likely to feel he has stretched the known facts about Massai too thinly to make Broncho Apache a plausible tale.

South to Padre, is a quiet, unpretentious, nicely-decorated travel book about a motor trip taken by Dorothy Hogner and her husband, an artist who contributed to the trip by painting signs for Texas fishermen. Padre Island lies off the coast of Texas not far from Corpus Christi. The Hogners made a leisurely trip from New York, loafed on “one of the largest pleasure beaches in the world” at Galveston, listened to the stories about Lafitte the pirate, heard about submarine volcanic eruptions that sent up sulphur dioxide, destroyed the livelihood of the fishermen.’ They fished for tarpon, went shrimping, studied Port Aransas, proceeded slowly down to Mexico. They traveled 6,500 miles at a cost of $255 and were not uncomfortable.

* INTERWOVEN—Sallie Reynolds Matthews— The Anson Jones Press ($2.50).

LANE OF THE LLANO—T. M. Pearce—Little Brown ($2.75).

RIDING FOR TEXAS—As Told by Colonel Edward M. House to Tyler Mason—Reynal & Hitchcock ($2).

BRONCHO APACHE—Paul I. Wellman—Macmillan ($2).

SOUTH TO PADRE—Dorothy Childs Hogner— Lothrop Lee & Shepard ($2.50).

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