Contents ▼▲
Front Matter Dreams of a Sheep Ranch Sheep Raising Herding Sheep Something About Texas Land Grants The "Texas Fever" Why I wanted to Go Hunting in Texas Father Spys the Land Our Plantation Father Comes Home The Bigness of Texas Where We were Going What I Hoped to Do Cattle Driving How We Set Out A Laborious Journey Comanche Indians Father to the Rescue Arrival at Fort Towson Preparing for a Storm A Dry "Norther" Two Kinds of Northers How Turkeys Kill Snakes Deer and Rattlesnakes A Corral of Wagons On the Trail Again Mesquite A Texas Sheep Ranch Profits from Sheep Father's Land Claim Spanish Measurements The Chaparral Cock Night on the Trinity Standing Guard A Turkey Buzzard Plans for Building a House The Cook Shanty A Storm of Rain A Day of Discomfort Thinking of the Old Home Waiting for the Sun Too Much Water The Stream Rising Trying to Save the Stock The Animals Stampeded Saving Our Own Lives A Raging Torrent A Time of Disaster The Flood Subsiding A Jack Rabbit Reparing Damages Rounding up the Stock FAfter the Flood Waiting for Father Recovering Our Goods Setting to Work Sawing Out Lumber In the Saw Pit Wild Cattle A Disagreeable Intruder Odd Hunting A Supply of Fresh Meat "Jerking" Beef Searching for the Cattle Our New Home Planting and Building Bar-O Ranch An Odd Cart The Visitors Zeba's Curiosity Possible Treachery Suspicious Behavior Gyp's Fight With a Cougar In a Dangerous Position Hunting Wild Hogs Treed by Peccaries Gyp's Obedience My Carelessness Vicious Little Animals Father Comes to the Rescue Increase in my Flock Unrest of the Indians Texas Joins the Union War with Mexico Selling Wool Peace on the Trinity My Dream Fulfilled

Philip of Texas - James Otis




Thinking of the Old Home

The chaparral cock was silent. Even the turkey buzzard had forsaken the pecan motte. The mules, which I could see in the distance, were hanging their long ears dejectedly, and the cattle in a most forlorn manner stood humped up with their heads away from the wind. Only the sheep grazed with seeming contentment.

[Illustration] from Philip of Texas by James Otis

When I went into the cook camp, in order to get my breakfast, I was thinking of the old plantation in Bolivar County, where, when it rained, we had good shelter instead of being homeless in the wilderness, as one might say.

And surely we were in a wilderness, there on the banks of the Trinity, exposed to all the downpour, save when we crawled into one of the wagons to shelter ourselves while mother continued her work. There is no need that I should say the breakfast was inviting, for my mother could cook the meanest of food in such a manner that it would appeal to one's appetite, yet we ate as if it were a duty rather than a pleasure to break our fast after so much watching.

When the meal was ended, father set the negroes to gathering up the remainder of our goods that might be injured by dampness, and I, rather than remain idle when there was so much work to be done, took part in the task, until we had nearly everything sheltered.

The only places of refuge against the storm were the miserable shanty we had put up so hastily and the small two-mule wagon in which father and mother had ridden.

We were a mournful-looking company of emigrants, when, the last of the goods having been stowed away, we sat under one of the wagon bodies, while mother continued to work in the shanty regardless of the rain which came in through a hundred crevices.