: Stories of Christmas and the Bowie knife by Dobie J Frank James Frank Hunter Warren Illustrator - Christmas; Texas History; Bowie knife

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Illustrator: Warren Hunter

Stories of Christmas and the Bowie Knife

Stories of Christmas and the Bowie Knife

The Steck Company Austin, Texas

Copyright 1953 by THE STECK COMPANY, PUBLISHERS Austin, Texas

All Rights Reserved

PRINTED AND BOUND IN THE U.S.A.

PREFACE In wanting to bring you a distinctively different Christmas greeting for 1953--as well as one that is typically Texan--The Steck Company turned quite naturally to Texas' most distinguished folklorist, J. Frank Dobie. His writings of the past quarter century have turned the attention of people in many lands to the rich folklore of the Southwest. Dobie's recollections of three boyhood Christmases begin this volume. As an added fillip, his colorful story of the Bowie knife is included.

Thus, with a glance backward, The Steck Company brings you warm greetings for the 1953 season. In the words of Dobie, "Generous feelings and cheering words are never trite. Merry Christmas!"

It is a benediction of nature that generally we remember more vividly and oftener what has given us happiness rather than what has given us pain. Christmas in particular is the time for recollecting, and now I am recollecting Christmases even more remote in character from modern Christmases than they are in time.

We lived on a ranch twenty-seven horse miles from our "shopping center." That was Beeville, Texas, which later became the family home. Three or four times a year a wagon went to town and hauled out supplies, but the biggest haul was just before Christmas.

As I look back, those days seem to have been days of great plenitude--not because of anything like family prosperity, for we lived meagerly, but because of the necessity of local stockpiling. Sugar came in barrels, molasses in kegs or big jugs, flour in barrels or in tiers of 48-pound sacks, beans and coffee in bushel sacks , lard in 50-pound cans, tomatoes, salmon, and other canned goods in cases. Then at Christmas time there was a large wooden bucket of mixed candy--enough for us six children, for our visiting cousins, and for the children of several Mexican families living on the ranch, most of them farmers. Each of these families received also a new blanket and a sack of fruit.

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