Where the Grass is Green

Where the Gras is Green

Grass, not gold, is the basis of empire. Civilizations have perished because of the lack of it and neglect of it. Nations have become great because of an abundance of it. It is one of God's greatest gifts to man, least appreciated, most abused. It is the supreme triumph of the chemistry of soil, rain, sun.

Seeking it, man settled the West. The story of grass is the story of conflict, whole chapters of its history written in blood. First there were the buffalo following the grass, then the Indians following the buffalo. The great herds pushed deeper and deeper into the grasslands, and the buffalo vanished forever, except for a few curiosities on refuges. The red man fought and died to no avail to defend his grass. The trail herds pushed on and on and on, adamant and devouring. Where the herds went, there was rich land. Settlers came, looking for land, and more blood was shed to write the story of grass. When barbed wire fenced the grass, the West grew up, learned good manners.

Grass is earth's natural cover. When this panoply disappears, the good earth is exposed to the ravages of wind and rain. The soil becomes lifeless and all life supported by the soil perishes. Grass for our people has meant sorrow, despair, exultation. Grass is triumph and tragedy.

A sea of grass is beauty and utility. A million delicate roots clutching the soil, holding it in place, nurturing it! A million blades of grass bespeaking a bountiful land, the well-being of the people who are of the land... R.C.

The Cowman

All outdoor men possess a talent for idiom and aphorism, but the cowboy tops them all. I have studied and collected the cowman's speech for the past thirty years yet each new acquaint ance offers a fresh experience, an untouched pocket of "pay dirt" to be mined. The lingo of the cow country has never ceased to fascinate me with its delightful pithiness.

For many years I wondered why all cowmen, no matter from which section of the West, possessed such laconic descriptive terminology. Each seems a genius at coining an original phrase to paint a word picture, the whole being so suddenly unex-pected as to almost shock the listener, yet so apt and refreshingly vigorous as to leave one breathless.A combination of conditions has perhaps produced this talent for word pictures. The loneliness of isolation, lack of education, and a certain restrained lawlessness all have had their influence. His general impatience of rule and restraint, his democratic enmity to all authority, his extravagant and often grotesque humor, his extraordinary capacity for metaphorthese are indicative of the spirit of the West, and from such qualities its language is nourished.

The hazards of his life have developed a roughness in his character, putting force into his language. Even his play has that rowdiness which makes him, as one old-timer said, "a reckless don't-give-a-damn fool that's forgot there's such a thing as consequences."

During my early manhood I was associated with cowhands a bit and it was good old Jim Houston, a typical Texas cowhand, to whom I give credit for my first interest in the speech of the cow country.

One day many years ago he was telling a group, of which I was a member, of a time when he had a narrow escape from a cow "on the peck" while afoot in a branding pen. His following words were the first to be jotted down in my note book.

"There wasn't no love-light in that cow's eyes as she makes for me," said Jim. "I fogs it across the corral like I'm goin'