The Old Chisholm Trail - Tapa dura

In her humorous interpretation of the American folk song "The Old Chisholm Trail," Rosalyn Schanzer gives kids a snapshot of life on a cattle drive--including flies, dust, bad food, hail, stampedes, and outlaws. Spread by spread, kids can follow the adventures of a few cow hands and a lot of cattle as they make their way up the Old Chisholm Trail from Texas to Kansas. Our hero starts out "with a ten-dollar horse and a forty-dollar saddle", and braves all kinds of dangers, including bad food: "Our chow is beans and bacon, and our coffee's black as ink. The water's full of mud...It's barely fit to drink." And there's worse: "The rain is pouring down and the river's in a flood, And the cattle are a-sinkin' in the quicksand and the mud." There are some positive moments: "Red cows, brown cows, spotted steers and blacks, We cross the muddy river by running on their backs." But then they encounter outlaws: "There's Evil Eye Pete with a sack full of cash And Mad Mike McGraw with his long moustache!" They do get safely to Abilene, where our exhausted hero