Boy Life On The Prairie (1899) (e-book) (used book) | bookbook.eu

Description

An engaging and exciting account of life in the Iowa countryside shortly after the end of the Civil War. Young Lincoln's days are filled with hard work on the farm and sometimes dangerous encounters with the local wildlife, including rattlesnakes and wolves. But life is also filled with joys, such as trips to the county fair and Fourth of July celebrations. Drawn from Garland's own life experiences, this book is the perfect guide to anyone wondering what life on the prairie was like when it was first settled.

Excerpt:
I ploughed and sowed, bound grain on a station, herded cattle, speared fish, hunted prairie chickens, and killed rattlesnakes quite in the manner here set down, but I have been limited neither by the actualities of my own life, nor those of any other personality. All of the inci dents happened neither to me nor to Rance, but they were the experiences of other boys, and might have been mine. They are all typical of the time and place.
In short, I have aimed to depict boy life, not boys; the characterization is incidental. Lincoln and Rance and Milton and Owen are to be taken as types rather than as individuals. The book is as faithful and as accurate as my memory and literary skill can make it. I hope it may prove sufficiently appealing to the men of my generation to enable them to relive with me the Splendid days of the unbroken prairie-lands of northern Iowa.