Shorty's Yarns: Western Stories and Poems of Bruce Kiskaddon
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Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU All USU Press Publications USU Press 2004 Shorty's Yarns: Western Stories and Poems of Bruce Kiskaddon Bruce Kiskaddon Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs Part of the Folklore Commons Recommended Citation Kiskaddon, B., Field, K., & Siems, B. (2004). Shorty's yarns: Western stories and poems of Bruce Kiskaddon. Logan: Utah State University Press. This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the USU Press at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All USU Press Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SHORTY’S YARNS Western Stories and Poems of Bruce Kiskaddon Illustrations by Katherine Field Edited and with an introduction by Bill Siems Shorty’s Yarns THE LONG HORN SPEAKS The old long horn looked at the prize winning steer And grumbled, “What sort of a thing is this here? He ain’t got no laigs and his body is big, I sort of suspicion he’s crossed with a pig. Now, me! I can run, I can gore, I can kick, But that feller’s too clumsy for all them tricks. They’re breedin’ sech critters and callin’ ‘em Steers! Why the horns that he’s got ain’t as long as my ears. I cain’t figger what he’d have done in my day. They wouldn’t have stuffed me with grain and with hay; Nor have polished my horns and have fixed up my hoofs, And slept me on beddin’ in under the roofs Who’d have curried his hide and have fuzzed up his tail? Not none of them riders that drove the long trail. They’d have found mighty quick jest how fur he could jump When they jerked a few doubles of rope off his rump. And to me it occurs he would not look so slick With his tail full of burrs and his hide full of ticks. I wonder jest what that fat feller would think If he lived on short grass and went miles fer a drink, And wintered outdoors in the sleet and the snow. He wouldn’t look much like he does at the show. I wouldn’t be like him; no, not if I could. I cain’t figger out why they think he’s so good. His little short laigs and his white baby face – I would finish him off in a fight or a race. They’ve his whole fam’ly hist’ry in writin’, and still He ain’t fit fer nothin’ exceptin’ to kill. And all of them judges that thinks they’re so wise, They look at that critter and give him first prize.” SHORTY’S YARNS Western Stories and Poems of BRUCE KISKADDON Illustrations by KATHERINE FIELD Edited and with an introduction by BILL SIEMS Utah State University Press Logan, Utah Copyright © 2004 Utah State University Press All rights reserved Utah State University Press Logan Utah 84322–7800 Book design by Dawn Holladay. Manufactured in the United States of America. Printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kiskaddon, Bruce, 1878-1950. Shorty's yarns : western stories and poems of Bruce Kiskaddon / illustrations by Katherine Field; edited and with an introduction by Bill Siems. p. cm. ISBN 0-87421-579-X (acid-free paper) -- ISBN 0-87421-580-3 (pbk. : acid-free paper) 1. West (U.S.)--Literary collections. 2. Ranch life--Literary collections. 3. Cowboys--Literary collections. I. Field, Katherine, 1908- II. Siems, Bill, 1945- III. Title. PS3521.I764A6 2004 818'.52--dc22 eISBN: 0-87421-5229-3 2004001967 Contents List of Illustrations and Poems . .vii Introduction ~ An Uncommon Waddy . .ix Acknowledgments . .xxi A Note on the Text . .xxii CHAPTER 1 ~ AUTOBIOGRAPHY . .3 CHAPTER 2 ~ STARTIN’ OUT . .9 Rough Hands . .9 Hair Cuttin’ . .10 Wild Dogs . .11 Wolves . .11 Reptiles . .12 Old Time Country School Days . .13 The Traveling School Master . .14 It Was a Draw! . .15 CHAPTER 3 ~ INTRODUCING BILL . .19 Concernin’ Bill . .19 Bill’s Injun Trouble . .20 Bill Meets a Funeral . .21 Bill Doctors the Chimleys . .23 City Folks Go Bear Huntin’ . .25 Bill Plays Ghost . .26 CHAPTER 4 ~ BILL AND RILDY BRIGGS . .31 Bill’s Joke Goes Wrong . .31 Bill Has Luck . .32 Bill Goes to Turkey Creek Dance . .34 Bill Takes the Mules to Preachin’ . .36 The Preacher Loses His Team . .37 Bill Leaves for the High Country . .39 Shorty Is Bill’s Secretary . .40 CHAPTER 5 ~ BILL SAYS GOODBYE . .45 Bill Turns Pugilist . .45 Bill Does a Fan Dance . .47 Bill Buys Some Medicine . .49 Bill Visits a Married Friend . .51 The Rock Creek Dance . .54 Bill and the Medicine Man Get Quarantined . .56 Bill Adjusts Matrimonial Affairs . .57 Bill Has Trouble . .59 Bill Says Goodbye . .61 CHAPTER 6 ~ SHORTY AND THE PROFESSORS . .67 Introducing the Professor . .67 Rildy Brings the Portfolio . .69 The Second Perfessor Arrives . .71 Zeb Loses a Trick . .73 Rildy and Zeb Have a Date . .75 Shorty Rescues the Second Perfessor . .77 The Perfessor Buys a Horse . and a Dog . .79 Eph and the Perfessor Says Good Bye . .81 Shorty Turns Diplomat . .83 Shorty’s Boss Buys a Mule Team . .85 CHAPTER 7 ~ SHORTY GOES HOME . .91 Shorty Goes Home for Armistice Day . .91 Shorty Finishes His Visit . .94 CHAPTER 8 ~ INTRODUCING IKE . .99 Shorty Meets Some Missourians . .99 Shorty Meets a Fool for Luck . .100 Shorty Hears Ike Analyse Words . .102 The Boss Buys a Mare . .104 He Was After a Road Runner . .106 Shorty and Ike Meet the Boss’s Nephews . .108 CHAPTER 9 ~ RUSTLERS AND ROMANCE . .113 Shorty Corrects a Mistake . .113 The Fortune Teller Sends Ike Fishing . .115 Ike Has Trouble With His Hat . .118 Ike Meets a Romance . .120 Cap’n Beasley Goes in for Cattle . .122 Stockings and Watches . .125 CHAPTER 10 ~ HELL AMONG THE YEARLIN’S . .131 Ricky Comes and Goes . .131 Cap Takes to Mules . .134 Squint Comes and Goes . .136 Cap and Morton Each Tell One . .140 Stickin’ to One Idee . .142 Hell Among the Yearlin’s . .144 Ike Gets a New Job . .148 CHAPTER 11 ~ LAST STORIES . .153 Shorty’s Boss Buys Purebred Bulls . .153 Bruce Kiskaddon Visits Old Friends in Arizona . .155 Afterword for the City Dweller ~ The Old Night Hawk . .158 Notes . .163 List of Illustrations & Poems The Long Horn Speaks (Western Livestock Journal cover November 24, 1932) . .ii Kiskaddon portrait . .viii After the Fall Roundup . .1 Startin’ Out . .7 The Cow Boy’s Shirt Tail . .17 That Letter . .29 Going to Summer Camp . .43 Ridin’ School . .65 Thinkin’ . .89 All Dressed Up . .97 The Other Feller’s Beef . .111 The Wrangler . .129 The Old Timers . .151 The Old Night Hawk . .159 Kiskaddon’s portrait and signature, from the title page of the editor’s copy of Rhymes of the Ranges and Other Poems (1947). Introduction ~ An Uncommon Waddy Writing of his life on the range, Bruce Kiskaddon always presented himself as a common waddy, a hired man on horseback. But to the readers of his poems and sto- ries in the Western Livestock Journal during the 1930s and ’40s he was a star—“the best cowboy poet that ever wrote a cowboy poem.”1 On a monthly schedule he cast nuggets of experience into meter and rhyme and spun loosely autobiographical yarns with the dry, understated humor so valued in cowboy culture. His settings were the arid Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona locales he knew and loved. The time was his young manhood, the two decades on either side of 1900 when barbed wire took the last of the open range, often told from a 1930s present to frame an old man’s reminiscences or to speak of the survival or demise of old ways. His Depression-wracked readers were ranching at a time when scientific breeding, feedlots, and corporate organization were on the rise. Modern agribusiness was crowding out both the tough range cattle that had fed on whatever they could find and the tough but inefficient extended families of own- ers, cow bosses, and waddies that had been the social and economic fabric of the West. Nostalgia ran high as ranchers struggled to adapt old knowledge and values to the accel- erating pace of change. Through the 1930s the Western Livestock Journal served the needs of its audience well, with a solid diet of practical market, feeding, and breeding information, leavened with reminiscences and gossip appealing to the old-timers. Kiskaddon was their most compelling reminiscent writer, for his voice spoke directly to the hearts of his readers through the medium of shared experience. That’s why I’m giving you warning—there’s something I could not tell: The joys as clear as the morning—the tortures akin to hell. They never will reach outsiders, who were raised in the town’s confines; But they’re here for the hard old riders, who can read them between the lines. (From “Between the Lines”)2 He spoke with an amused detachment from ambition, with a wry, uncomplaining tolerance for the foibles of humans and animals, and with a worker’s willingness to do whatever needed to be done. He looked upon life as a sort of a joke. He didn’t want money, but he never was broke. But when things got in earnest he shore could talk sense, And he could shoe hosses, mend wagons and fence. (From “The Drifter”)3 Most importantly for his rural readers struggling through the Depression, Kiskaddon spoke up for the lowly, and had a survivor’s resolve to face the future squarely, even though gripped by sorrow for a loved, unrecoverable past.