Christmas in a Cowboy’s Arm by Leigh Greenwood

LINDA BRODAY, AUTHOR OF THE CHRISTMAS STRANGER

Included in Christmas in a Cowboy’s Arms Anthology

About The Christmas Stranger:

Alone, in a blizzard, no shelter in sight, Hank Destry pushes in all his chips and comes up losing. Half-frozen and unable to go any farther, he falls from the saddle into a snowbank. Pretty Sidalee King is returning from visiting a sick friend and sees a barking dog. The pet leads her to Hank. She digs him from the snow and manages to get him into her wagon and take him to her home on the Lone Star Ranch.

With no family of her own, she feels for the drifter’s plight. Everyone needs someone to spend Christmas with. Questions arise. Could he be Miss Mamie’s lost son that she speaks of? And what are the rocks Miss Mamie gives as payment for kindnesses? Mystery and love abound this Christmas season as two lonely people receive an unexpected gift.

“FRONTIER TOYS”

GUEST POST BY LINDA BRODAY

When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, my favorite things to play with (when I wasn’t reading a book) were dolls. I liked the limp kind that seemed like a real baby, where the arms and legs flopped around. The more realistic the better, especially the ones that had eyes that closed when you laid her down. And I was in sheer heaven when I got one that actually wet and you had to change her diapers.

Then, when I got around ten or twelve years old, my youngest sister and I became obsessed with paper dolls. We’d patiently cut out their clothes with tabs and dress them up. We’d make up stories and have the cardboard dolls act them out. We spent umpteen hours on end playing with them.

Back in frontier days there was little time for playing. Children of a young age on up had chores to do. Older children had to help get crops in and care for the animals. There were no shirkers when it came to living on a farm. Every hand counted. Even school was abandoned when children were needed on the farm.

But kids still found time for play, if only occasionally.

Frontier children were limited when it came to toys, but they were very resourceful. And sometimes it was the parents who showed great creativity.

Mothers would make their little girls rag dolls out of whatever material they had available. Usually they had yarn for hair and nothing but stitching for eyes, mouths, and noses.

For toddlers, mothers strung thread spools on heavy string or they handed their children a pan and a spoon and let them go. I did that too when my kids were little.

Fathers carved toys for their sons and made tops, horses, spinning tops, drums, wagons, and whirligigs out of string and a piece of metal. Whirligigs made some type of whirring noise when they were whirled really fast. Fathers also made cup and ball toys that had the ball attached to a string. The object was to flip the ball into the cup.

If they had money to spare, parents would buy their son a bag of marbles. That kept the boys entertained for long periods of time and became treasured possessions.

There were also little tin soldiers for a price unless the father figured out how to make them on a forge out of left over metal.

Boys also whiled away many an hour playing with a barrel hoop and a stick. It was versatile. It was a game that could be played by one boy or a dozen. If it involved a group of boys, they usually spit up into teams and tried to get the hoop away from the others. I’m sure they had some kind of goal to reach to score points. Or boys could race the hoops if they had several.

Boys also played mumblety-peg and had yoyos. All children loved playing the many variations of chase games.

Baseball didn’t come along until around the turn of the century.

Native American children had similar toys and games. The girls had dolls and the boys had stick games to play.

Can you imagine the children today having nothing to play with except these primitive toys? I swear, they wouldn’t know what to do without their high-tech games!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: I’m a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of historical western romance. I’m a Texas girl through and through and reside in the Texas Panhandle on land the American Indian and Comancheros once roamed. At times I can feel their ghosts lurking around every corner. Texas’ rich history is one reason I set all my stories here. I love research and looking for little known tidbits to add realism to my stories. When I’m not writing, I collect old coins and I confess to being a rock hound. I’ve been accused (and quite unfairly I might add) of making a nuisance of myself at museums, libraries, and historical places. I’m also a movie buff and love sitting in a dark theater, watching the magic on the screen. As long as I’m confessing…chocolate is my best friend. It just soothes my soul.