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




Our New Home

First, and next to the raising of sheep, the most important matter to me was the building of the house. This we did, working at odd times when not engaged in planting, and seeing it that never an hour was wasted, either by ourselves or by the negroes. When the work was finished, truly we had a building of which to be proud, for this new home seemed quite as fine as the one we had left in Bolivar County.

[Illustration] from Philip of Texas by James Otis

It was built throughout of sawed lumber; the roof was made of a double thickness of boards, and the crevices on the sides of the house covered with the first strips taken from the trunks of the trees, with the bark still remaining; but this did not, in my eyes, detract from the general appearance of the whole.

Perhaps it was because I had labored so hard and so long on this home of ours, that it appeared so beautiful in my sight. At all events, it was most convenient, as even mother admitted. We had one room on the front, overlooking the river, and back of that a store-room and a kitchen, which, if not exactly fit for a king, served our purposes very well.

In the loft, which of course was directly under the roof, we had our beds, mother, father, and I. Just behind the building, or, I should say, on the other side of the pecan motte, was a small hut built of round logs for the two negroes. We had sent back on foot those men whom father hired to drive the teams; therefore when our house was finished and the season at an end, only John and Zeba remained to aid in the labor of the ranch.