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




Too Much Water

Three days passed before we again rejoiced in the light of the sun. During that time so much discomfort and actual danger had been met that I was sick at heart at the very sound of the name of Texas.

Before the end of the second day we had succeeded in making the cook shanty nearly waterproof, by stripping all the wagons of their covers, and pinning the canvas down over the pecan branches. This left our goods exposed to the rain, and many of our belongings were necessarily ruined, although we took little heed of that fact, if only it was possible to give mother some degree of comfort.

[Illustration] from Philip of Texas by James Otis

On the morning of the third day the valley was dotted here and there with pools of water, showing that the soil had drunk its fill and refused to take in more. In order to move about in the valley, it was necessary at times to wade ankle-deep. The result was that father and I, as well as the negroes, were forced to wear garments saturated with water, since it would have been useless to put on dry clothes, for after an hour of tramping to and fro they would have been in the same wet condition. Yet we had no thought of real danger. There was in our minds simply the painful idea that we must endure what could not be avoided; we never dreamed that worse was to come.