From Hell to Breakfast Page: 67
viii, 214 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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LEAVES OF MESQUITE GRASS
tiements. I ain't got nothin' but gums an' it makes no dif-
ference, for one good swaller is worth two sets of teeth,
anyhow."
But mostly droughts did not come and this new land pro-
duced lushly, and with right good will the farmers bragged
on their crops. One of them, living on the Trinity River,
said,
"I have two fine boys who worked hard for this crop. I
was in hopes when it was laid by, ther'd be some rest for
them..." He looked away wistfully. "I reckon I was mis-
taken. When we send them for corn and I see them stag-
gering under the weight of an ear, one at each end of it, I
can't keep but feel sorry for them."
In other places the ears grew so large they extended over
the fence and stray stock ate off the ends. The farmer in
Fayette county had a champion crop. His land was so dis-
tressingly rich that:
... his whole crop of corn withered in the early part of the season,
because the ears, unluckily, commenced growing on so large a scale,
that every stalk snapt off at the roots before the corn half matured.
The farmer gathered his crop, but although the grains had shriveled
up to half their original size, they were still so big and so hard that
his horses and cows could neither bite them nor swallow them whole,
so he turned in and built a stone fence out of them. The fence is
still standing, and bids fair to become petrified in the course of time.
Other crops were in proportion. Captain James Lambright
raised a gourd that was "sixty and one-fourth inches in cir-
cumference" and J. S. Ham counted 249 gourds on a single
vine. When a South Carolina paper bragged about a stalk
of cotton raised near Camden which has 220 bolls on it, the
report was sneered at. Bexar County came back with the claim
of 920 bolls on a mammoth stalk over six and a half inches
in circumference.
But when it came to cabbages the claimant was treading
on dangerous grounds. When the editor of the Nacogdoches
Chronicle claimed a unique cabbage stalk (the description of
which sounds like brussels sprouts, the editor of the Texas
Monument freely admitted his rival was "the enviable pos-
sessor of the largest cabbage head in the State."67
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From Hell to Breakfast (Book)
Volume of popular folklore of Texas and Mexico, including religious anecdotes, stories about Native American dances, stories about petroleum and oil fields, folk songs, legends, customs and other miscellaneous folklore. The index begins on page 205.
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Dobie, J. Frank (James Frank), 1888-1964. From Hell to Breakfast, book, 1944; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc67649/m1/75/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.