The Texas quote of the day: I have lived in Texas since 1870, when my father moved his family here from Atlanta, Georgia, where I was born on July 11, 1865. We settled in Dallas, Texas. My father labored at any kind of work he could get to do when we first lit in Dallas. The Civil War sort of tore things up for father back in Atlanta, so he came to Texas calculating on getting a new start. Soon as I was able to go on my own, I lit out to find a job and dragged up to Denton County, which contained a tolerable lot of small cattle ranches back in those days. In 1880 I landed a job with the Red Robinson outfit located eight miles north of Denton on Denton Creek. There I got my learning of the cow business. I was a greener of the first water when I landed on Robinson’s outfit. The only thing that I could do was to sit in a saddle; but to ride a hoss was out of the question, unless the hoss was an easy saddle. The range life didn’t stack up to home life, with a good bed to bunk in and a mother to fuss over fixing the chuck to suit, and such we hankered for, but the work got into my blood and I couldn’t leave it. I stayed with the cattle and hoss business so long as I was able to work. The Denton County range was a brush country, and that kind of a range is no picnic to work. It takes better roping, riding, and more gizzard gravel to stay with the brush range. It is harder to herd critters and easier for the rustlers, and because of that it took more watching. . . . The RR was not a large outfit; it run around two thousand head, more or less, according to Robinson’s selling and buying activities. Robinson worked from five to ten hands, depending on the season. Negro Joe was the cook, and there was my brother, myself, John Munson, and Joe Jones which made up the steady crew. We slept in a ranch house and ate in a cook shack most of the time. During the roundup, and occasionally other short spells, we slept in the open and ate our chuck squatted on our haunches around the chuck wagon. Our chuck run strong to beef and beans. The beef was not considered as costing anything, because the country was full of cattle, and when some beef was wanted, a waddy would rope a fat yearling and never look at the brand. That was a fact; generally the best yearling carried the brand of some other ranch. Besides beef, we would have wild game whenever the cooky took the notion or one of the waddies would decide to vary the meat deal by going out and shooting some game. Our bread was biscuits, sourdough, or corn pone. We had some vegetables which came in the can, dried fruit, and all the black coffee we called for. The cooky would regularly fix up something for our sweet tooth, such as fruit pies made from dried fruit, pudding of some sort, and once in a while a cake. Negro Joe was a good belly-cheater and knew it, but the boys used to hoss-play him a lot, all in fun, and he would hoss-play us back. We generally got the worst end of the play, because he would load some dish we hankered for with red pepper or some sweet dish with salt. Once he made a cake with cotton stewed through it. To try and eat that cake sure put sadness in your heart, but we had a tolerable lot of fun about it when we discovered the cause of our eating trouble. . . . One time the boys sent me out to get a “wouser” that was supposed to be in the creek bottom, because they feared that it would get some of the critters. My instructions were to stay after the animal until I located it and got a shot at it. The boys said, “If the animal is shot at it will leave the section pronto, but kill it if you can.” The animals was described as having a body like a calf and a head similar to a wolf. I left to locate the wouser early in the morning and stayed with the job until dark, but nary a glimpse did I get of the critter. I came into the camp sort of ashamed of myself because I had fell down on the job. I reported how I had watched and sneaked quietly here and there. While I was telling the tale, I noticed that all of the bunch ws mighty interested and noticed some smiles. It then came into my conk what had been pulled on me. I then sure enough was riled for a bit.... ----- Old cowboy George T. Martin in an interview with Sheldon Gauthier for the Works Progress Administration, 1936
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 14:01:00 +0000
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