CHUCK WAGON WINDIES by Lona Shawver and THE RANGE POEMS of Walt Cousins. Compiled by Lona Shawver

San Antonio, Texas: The Naylor Company, 1934. [8], 192 pages, plus frontispiece and three full-page photographic plates. Original green cloth lettered in black. [20.1 cm.] Cloth faded to tan on spine and rather unevenly on covers; light foxing and soiling to covers. Endpapers foxed. Leaves are tanned throughout, as expected, due to the inexpensive wood-pulp paper used. Interior is otherwise clean and unmarked. Good only, but scarce in any condition. Bookplate on the front pastedown designed by Ainslee Hewett, a noted artist of Louisville, Kentucky, in the Arts and Crafts style for which he was noted. [The bookplate, dated 1913, was made for Edwin Vivian and Ida Belle Halbreath Thompson, of Louisville, and bears their names and a quote by Ruskin within an ornately decorated border.] FIRST EDITION, limited. #191 of an unknown number of copies. SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR, LONA SHAWVER, on the title page. Stories of cowboys and life on the West Texas range, including a trial of Indian for murder, a ranch dance, horse doctors, Buffalo hunting, Old Tascosa, a revival meeting, horse trading, etc. The first chapter is a brief review of the cattle industry. Most of the rest of the book consists of firsthand recollections by cattlemen as told to Shawver, although it is often unclear who the narrator was. Some of the folks quoted or mentioned in the book are Clyde Burnett, Frank Canton, Frank Thomas, Tom Carson, Henry Taylor, Jack Havers, Tad Moses, W.H. Patrick, Dan Barkus, Slim Johnson, Parson Brown, Marvin Hunter, and William "Lod" Calohan. Each of the prose pieces is followed by a poem by Walter Henry Cousins (1879-1942). Cousins worked as bronco buster in Texas and as a camp cook on trails drives in Oklahoma, before becoming a pharmacist and author. He previously wrote "Cuz; I ams, Poems and Papers" (1922). Lona (née Thomason) Shawver (1878-1960) was a native of Irving, Dallas County, Texas. This appears to have been her first and only book.