Cowboy Songs | Page 3

comparing
the literature of America with that of all Europe together. Neither he
nor any of us would pretend these verses to be of supreme power and
beauty. None the less, they seem to me, and to many who have had a
glimpse of them, sufficiently powerful, and near enough beauty, to give
us some such wholesome and enduring pleasure as comes from work of
this kind proved and acknowledged to be masterly.
What I mean may best be implied, perhaps, by a brief statement of fact.
Four or five years ago, Professor Lomax, at my request, read some of
these ballads to one of my classes at Harvard, then engaged in studying
the literary history of America. From that hour to the present, the men
who heard these verses, during the cheerless progress of a course of
study, have constantly spoken of them and written of them, as of
something sure to linger happily in memory. As such I commend them
to all who care for the native poetry of America.
BARRETT WENDELL. Nahant, Massachusetts, July 11, 1910.

COLLECTOR'S NOTE
Out in the wild, far-away places of the big and still unpeopled west,--in
the cañons along the Rocky Mountains, among the mining camps of
Nevada and Montana, and on the remote cattle ranches of Texas, New
Mexico, and Arizona,--yet survives the Anglo-Saxon ballad spirit that
was active in secluded districts in England and Scotland even after the
coming of Tennyson and Browning. This spirit is manifested both in
the preservation of the English ballad and in the creation of local songs.
Illiterate people, and people cut off from newspapers and books,
isolated and lonely,--thrown back on primal resources for entertainment
and for the expression of emotion,--utter themselves through somewhat
the same character of songs as did their forefathers of perhaps a
thousand years ago. In some such way have been made and preserved

the cowboy songs and other frontier ballads contained in this volume.
The songs represent the operation of instinct and tradition. They are
chiefly interesting to the present generation, however, because of the
light they throw on the conditions of pioneer life, and more particularly
because of the information they contain concerning that unique and
romantic figure in modern civilization, the American cowboy.
The profession of cow-punching, not yet a lost art in a group of big
western states, reached its greatest prominence during the first two
decades succeeding the Civil War. In Texas, for example, immense
tracts of open range, covered with luxuriant grass, encouraged the
raising of cattle. One person in many instances owned thousands. To
care for the cattle during the winter season, to round them up in the
spring and mark and brand the yearlings, and later to drive from Texas
to Fort Dodge, Kansas, those ready for market, required large forces of
men. The drive from Texas to Kansas came to be known as "going up
the trail," for the cattle really made permanent, deep-cut trails across
the otherwise trackless hills and plains of the long way. It also became
the custom to take large herds of young steers from Texas as far north
as Montana, where grass at certain seasons grew more luxuriant than in
the south. Texas was the best breeding ground, while the climate and
grass of Montana developed young cattle for the market.
A trip up the trail made a distinct break in the monotonous life of the
big ranches, often situated hundreds of miles from where the
conventions of society were observed. The ranch community consisted
usually of the boss, the straw-boss, the cowboys proper, the horse
wrangler, and the cook--often a negro. These men lived on terms of
practical equality. Except in the case of the boss, there was little
difference in the amounts paid each for his services. Society, then, was
here reduced to its lowest terms. The work of the men, their daily
experiences, their thoughts, their interests, were all in common. Such a
community had necessarily to turn to itself for entertainment. Songs
sprang up naturally, some of them tender and familiar lays of childhood,
others original compositions, all genuine, however crude and
unpolished. Whatever the most gifted man could produce must bear the
criticism of the entire camp, and agree with the ideas of a group of men.

In this sense, therefore, any song that came from such a group would be
the joint product of a number of them, telling perhaps the story of some
stampede they had all fought to turn, some crime in which they had all
shared equally, some comrade's tragic death which they had all
witnessed. The song-making did not cease as the men went up the trail.
Indeed the songs were here utilized for very practical ends. Not only
were sharp, rhythmic yells--sometimes beaten into verse--employed to