I love the music of Christmas. I could play it all year long if I weren’t married to Scrooge. Those songs are so uplifting and beautiful that they make me feel good just to hear them, and you can’t help but sing along with them.

My dad always loved Christmas, and was a great practical jokester. He delighted in making phone calls to his grandchildren, pretending to be Santa. He’d call back later on for a rundown about what happened on our end—the looks, the comments, and the joy of getting a real live phone call from Santa! One of the traditions in our house was the box of chocolate covered cherries that was always under the tree for him from my mom, a reminder of hard Christmases in years past when that might have been the only gift she could afford. Another was that our house was always filled with Christmas music.

I was a classically trained pianist from the time I turned seven years old. My father’s favorite Christmas carol was What Child Is This? Once I mastered it, I delighted in playing it for him because he took such pleasure in it, and since it was also the tune to another song, Greensleeves, I played it all year round for him.

The tune known as Greensleeves was a British drinking song for many years, a popular folk song that was not religious. In ancient Britain, there have been more than twenty different known lyrics associated with the tune throughout history. It was first published in 1652.

Shakespeare mentions it by name in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” in which it is played while traitors are hanged. It has been attributed to King Henry VIII, and said that he wrote it for Anne Boleyn. How did this song become one of the best-loved Christmas carols of all time?

In 1865, Englishman William Chatterton Dix wrote “The Manger Throne,” three verses of which became “What Child Is This?” During that particular era, Christmas was not as openly celebrated as it is today. Many conservative Puritan churches forbade gift-giving, decorating or even acknowledging the day as a special day for fear that Christmas would become a day of pagan rituals more than a serious time of worship. Although Dix wrote other hymns, in the context of the times, it was unusual for him to write about Christ’s birth, since many hymn writers and religious factions ignored Christmas completely.

The words represent a unique view of Christ’s birth. While the baby was the focal point of the song, the point of view of the writer seemed to be that of a confused observer. Dix imagined the visitors to the manger bed wondering about the child who had just been born.  In each verse, he described the child’s birth, life, death and resurrection, answering the question with a triumphant declaration of the infant’s divinity.

“The Manger Throne” was published in England just as the U.S. Civil War was ending.  The song quickly made its way from Britain to the United States. Dix died in 1898, living long enough to see “The Manger Throne” become the Christmas carol “What Child Is This?”

 I’m posting some of my Christmas covers for anyone who might be needing some historical Christmas story reading over the holidays! The link appears below.

   http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002JV8GUE 

Hope everyone has a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!

JEFFREY KOTERBA’S ARTWORK USED WITH PERMISSION

VISIT HIS WEBSITE: http://www.jeffreykoterba.com

‘Twas the night before Christmas in this Junction of ours;

The sky over the prairie was ablaze with bright stars;

Our boots were lined up by the fire with care,

In hopes that Old Santa Claus soon would be there;

Felicia’s ornery mule napped snug there in the barn,

Whilst our visiting guest was spinning a yarn;

O’course Winnie in her wool socks and Tanya in her cap,

Had just settled down for a long winter’s nap,

When out in the corral there arose such a ruckus,

Charlene sprang her from bed to see what the heck was…

…outside the window, there on the barn roof,

Victoria banged open the shutters and near busted a tooth!

The moon was so bright it near blinded my eye

And the snow landed like whippin’ cream coverin’ a pie,

When, what to my hornswaggled eyes should appear,

But a covered wagon and eight dusty reindeer!

When she saw the little old driver with red cheeks and nose,

Karen W flew right to work sweeping dust from his clothes.

He was cheery and bright, a right jolly cowpoke,

Elizabeth laughed when she saw him; he was her kind of  folk.

Those reindeers, they ain’t docile. What a hissy they threw!

Nearly toppled the wagon, and Old Santa Claus too.

Quicker’n a youngin’ off to play hookie,

That old geezer came in and asked Linda for a cookie;

Tracy found one and he ate it, so Stacey got milk

Then Karen K, she presented him with a scarf made of silk.

But Mary, she hung back, I think she was a’feared

‘Cause all night she trembled and her eyes how they teared

No worry, Margaret told her, the fat guy’s a friend.

To us in the Junction and those ’round the bend,

Sure ’nuff Santa left a package in each Fillies’ boot,

Didn’t matter none to him, they was dusted with soot.

Then somethin’ happened, caught us all by surprise,

Donna and Cheryl S showed up with an armload of pies.

We sat down to eat ‘em, and they tasted fine,

Though they couldn’t have baked ‘em; They hadn’t had time;

Old Santa asked for seconds; Bet that’s why he’s merry.

He tried pumpkin and apple, even pe-can and cherry.

Phyliss heaped on whipped cream, and still he ate more.

His belly how it swelled! Would he fit out the door?

“It’s my big night,” he declared.  “Only comes once a year.”

Good thing for that, too, or he’d burst I do fear.

He stifled a burp, and a pipe out it came;

“Smoking’s not good for you,” Cheryl P did loudly exclaim.

“All that sugar and now this, think of your health.

“Think of all the children that count on your jolly old self!”

He listened real close and even nodded his head,

Took right to his heart everything Pam had said.

He tossed that old pipe in the fire with a pop,

“The Missus, she’s been tryin’ to get me to stop,”

With a hearty laugh and a promise to come back

The Fillies watched that old fella leap up the smokestack.

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a yee-haw,

And away they all flew, like twister-flung straw.

And we heard him exclaim as that team took flight,

“Merry Christmas, you bloggers, and to all a good-night.”

Who would hang old boots, hats and (gasp) even guns on a Christmas tree?  Ronald Reagan that’s who or at least his Presidential Library, and since I’m lucky enough to live but a few miles from it I decided to share a few of the  twenty-four Christmas trees on display–one for each decade beginning in the 1700s . Each tree celebrates the defining moments of America’s road to greatness and but I’m including only the trees that cover the Old West.

  1830-1839

“Remember the Alamo” was the rallying cry for Texans fighting  for independence from Mexico.   The Indian Removal Act passed with strong support from President Jackson and the Cherokees were forced from Georgia to Oklahoma along the “Trail of Tears.”

 That’s not all that made this decade memorable; Cyrus McCormick invented the mechanical reaper and Samuel Colt patented his revolver.  But the thing that touched perhaps the most lives was the kindergarten movement that swept the country.

  1840-1849

The last rendevous in Green River ends the mountain trapping era. The Mexican-American War was fought, bringing undisputed control over Texas and allowing the U.S. to annex portions of Arizona, California and New Mexico. Gold was discovered in California and the mad dash west began (Something for which we western historical writers will be forever grateful!)

1850-1859

Oil was drilled successfully for the first time and cotton was king.  Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War, and Levi Strauss manufactured heavyweight trousers for miners.  Gold is discovered in Colorado and it’s ”Pikes Peak or Bust.”  Perhaps the greatest boon at the time to the American housewife was the invention of the Singer sewing machine.

1860-1869

The pony express made its inaugural run, carrying mail from St. Louis to Sacramento in only eleven days (which is about the time it takes now).

The Homestead Act of 1862, designed to promote westward expansion, changed America’s  political, economical and demographics forever.

 Abraham Lincoln became president, eleven states seceded the union and 650,000 soldiers died in the Civil War, including one-fifth of the south’s white male population.  The country mourned the assassination of a president, but the decade brought the abolishment of slavery, the Reconstruction Act of 1867 and new hope for the future.

 1870-1879

 The end of the Civil War started the Railroad Boom and 56,000 miles of new track was laid.  

It was a decade of change and some handy inventions including the cash register, typewriter and electric light bulb made life a whole lot easier. 

 Charles Goodnight blazed the first cattle trail, driving 2000 longhorns from Texas to New Mexico and it was Custer’s Last Stand. The Red Cross was founded and Jesse James began his outlaw career. Yellowstone became the first national park and football and tennis were all the rage.

  1880-1889

The cattle industry was still going strong but the last cattle drive ended at Dodge City.  Railroads and local packing houses made cattle drives a thing of the past.

With railroads came the need for standard time and more than a hundred times zones were compiled into four.

Jesse James was assassinated (as was President Garfield), Billy the Kid was brought to justice, Chief Sitting Bull surrendered and a showdown at the O.K. Corral was about to become a western legend.  

1890-1899

 With the invention of Barbed wire raising cattle has never been the same.

A resurgence of leisure time sweeps the nation and the Gay Nineties was in full swing.   Bicycles were the pre-ferred mode of travel and the Chicago World’s Fair introduced the public to the ferris wheel and Crackerjack.    And of course no birthday celebration was complete without a rousing rendition of  Mildred Mills new song,”Happy Birthday.”

 www.margaretbrownley.com

 What family or American history can be found on your tree?

 Several Fillies are up for Best Western Romance of 2011 and a vote could earn you a $25 gift certificate. 

It’s fun, it’s easy and will take you less than ten seconds.

To vote click here:

 It’s not too late to order the New York Times and CBA Bestseller

 Coming March 2011 Margaret’s Exciting New Series Brides of Last Chance Ranch

First, I want to thank all of you for welcoming me to Petticoats and Pistols.  I’ve been sitting here at my desk trying to think of what I would say if I was placing an ad for a spouse.  It’s a daunting task, believe me.  But hundreds of men and women did just that in the Old West.
Numerous newspapers ran ads for mail-order brides, but the one who took it most seriously was a San Francisco matchmaking newspaper called the Matrimonial News.  In its own words it was dedicated to ‘promoting honorable matrimonial engagements and true conjugal facilities’ for men and women through its personal ads.

Each edition began with the same words: ‘Women need a man’s strong arm to support her in life’s struggle, and men need women’s love.”

I’m not sure women today would respond to that call, but in its day the Matrimonial News claimed to successfully bring together
three thousand couples.

For twenty-five cents, a man you could place a forty word ad if he agreed to accurately and truthfully describe his appearance (height, weight) and his financial and social position.  Ads were free for women. Because no one wanted to reveal their name, the newspaper assigned a number to each ad.

The following are two examples of the profiles listed in the Matrimonial News:

245 – I am fat, fair, and 48, 5 feet high.  Am a No. 1 lady, well fixed with no encumbrance: am in business in the city, but want a partner who lives in the West. Want an energetic man that has some means, not under 40 years of age and weight not less than 180. Of good habits. A Christian gentleman preferred.

292- A girl who will love, honest, true and not sour; a nice little cooing dove, and willing to work in flour.

I’ve always been intrigued with mail-order brides and was delighted when the opportunity presented itself to do connected
mail-order bride novellas with my good friend, Jillian Hart. We were both interested in railroads so we have our two brides befriending each other as they come West on the train.  Each one gets off at a different train station in the Montana Territory and both of them are surprised at what they find.  I won’t say any more as you will discover their respective challenges for yourself if you read our Mail-Order Christmas Brides. I will tell you that my heroine, Eleanor McBride, gets off close to where the small town of Dry Creek is developing (I have a long-running contemporary series set there) and Felicity Sawyer gets off the train in Angel Falls (where Jillian Hart has her series).

I’m curious what you think about mail-order brides.  Would you marry someone based on a few letters? Just the thought makes me nervous.

Fortunately, I have a less risky proposition for you.  If you post a comment, you will be entered for a chance to win a copy of Mail-Order Christmas Brides. The good thing is that you don’t need to take any vows at all.

To buy Mail Order Christmas Brides Click Here

http://janettronstad.com/

What is it about very good girls falling for very bad men? Does the man have some redeeming quality she can see right off?

In my “Lawmen and Outlaws” Christmas Anthology novella, Christmas for Ransom, available both in print and e-book, schoolmarm Eliza Willows  falls in love with an outlaw when the handsome stranger hires her to teach him to read. Of course she’s unaware he’s the bad guy who thieved her granny’s prized Morgan horses smack dab during Thanksgiving dinner. Even when Eliza finds out his true identity, her heart has already been stolen…and Canyon Jack Ransom’s grown a conscience. He vows to become respectable and does all the right things to stay in her heart.

Today I’ll be giving away a signed copy (U.S.A.) or an e-copy (international) after drawing a name from today’s commenters.

Well, today let’s look at a real life good girl who fell for a bad guy. Schoolteacher Anna Ralston, daughter of a wealthy Independence MO businessman, held a Bachelor of Arts degree in Science and Literature from Missouri State College. Truth is, she was one of its first female graduates.

“Annie” is the woman who snared Alexander Franklin James, aka Frank James, and eloped with him in July 1875.  When she pretended to visit her brother-in-law in Kansas City, Frank waited for her on the train, the elopement already arranged.

No one ever knew how or when the couple met. But it is known Frank wasn’t only a rough and tumble baddie. As a youth, he’d devoured the books in his father’s library and even as an outlaw, quoted Shakespeare at will. His father, a farmer and Baptist minister, co-founded the William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. So maybe it’s not all that surprising that Frank chose an educator who loved literature. And with him described by the Kansas City Times as a “notable knight of the road” and “dashing and daring,” perhaps it’s not surprising Annie fell for him.

Two days after her departure for Kansas City, her parents received a brief note from her that said, “Dear Mother: I am married and going West. Annie Reynolds”

Not recognizing the name Reynolds, they figured she’d run off with a gambler they’d heard about. Putting their sons on her trail, her parents eventually learned of Annie’s marriage to the outlaw. Her father advised the family to treat the matter philosophically. Nothing could be done now, he said, and the less said about it the better.

Annie and Frank had one son, Robert Franklin James, born February 6, 1878. Four years later, after brother Jesse’s murder, Frank gave himself up, wanting peace after being hunted for twenty-one years.

Found not guilty for two robberies/murders (the juries cited lack of evidence), Frank became respectable for the last thirty years of his life. He gave lecture tours with his old crony Cole Younger and worked for the telegraph before returning to the James Farm in Kearney, Missouri to give tours. He died an honorable man on February 18, 1915. Fearing his grave would be desecrated for souvenirs, he decreed his ashes would be kept hidden until he and Annie could be buried together.

Annie remained with her mother in law at the James farm for many years, After her death at age 91, she and Frank were buried next to each other at Hill Park Cemetery in Independence.

(Excerpt from Chapter Two,  Christmas for Ransom:

Pinching herself, Eliza lost interest in everything except seeing what the stranger looked like in the lantern light. Brawny stalwart men were nothing new in a railroad town or on the ranch, but she never minded a good view.

Her breath caught so hard her sore rib tweaked. He was magnificent. The big-brimmed hat and flowing duster reckoned him a wrangler of some sort coming in from the range. Although he needed a bath and truly looked the worse for wear, she didn’t mind one single bit. The scruffy cheeks, the long rag-taggle coat, even the scent of masculine sweat were far more her style than the slick-haired dandies and overdressed fops she’d met at Boston cotillions.

“This here’s Ransom,” the blacksmith said helpfully.

As the stranger moved closer, he removed his hat and tucked it under his arm with a polite half-nod. For a long luscious moment, eyes the color of manly liquor covered her with a mouth-watering gaze. Golden-brown hair touched the mountains of his shoulders like sunlight at dawn across the Guadalupe Mountains.

Air left her lungs. A slow burn started at the top of her spine, her flesh desperate for the days’ worth of roughness adorning cheekbones carved like crags and valleys. She had to hold her hand still to keep her fingers from caressing the deep etches of his face.

Eliza couldn’t move as she stared up at him, aching and eager.

Now, for a Christmas story about a real GOOD man, my latest release, Right to Bragg, is a short, sweet holiday read.

In “Away in the Manager” for our anthology “A Texas Christmas”, my grumpy, blacksmith hero Randall Humphrey who wants to be left alone and celebrate Christmas in the only way he knows how – in solitude, is faced being snowed in with a beautiful woman and two little tykes. And, Christmas is only a couple of days away.

But, how could they have Christmas without a tree? Caught in a raging blizzard a real tree was out of the question; but it didn’t take long for the little twins, Damon and Addie Claire, patterned after my own granddaughter, Addison Claire, to remind him that he’d said, as a blacksmith, he could make anything. So, Rand was pressed into action to create something to please the children.

With the twins, and of course the feisty, mother hen Sarah melting his heart, Rand set about crafting a tree.  That became a challenge for me as a writer, but I knew if he could make nails, hinges, cooking utensils, and pot hooks, surely he’d be ingenious enough to create a Christmas tree.

I did some research and low-and-behold I figured out how he could make one in a cone shape. Crude, but he thought it’d make the children happy.  He was so wrong.  While they liked it, there was no way to add the ornaments which consisted of round cookies tied with red ribbon fixed up by Sarah.  The little darlings wanted more … gingerbread men, angels, and bears, because they thought that was what the gruffly clad blacksmith looked like to them.  Rand could manage the star, but he had no idea how to make the other ornaments they requested.  It didn’t take him long to decide if he fashioned some cookie cutters then Sarah could design the rest of the ornaments out of cookie dough.  That worked, but he still hadn’t figured out how to attach them to the tree he had designed.

While playing in the hayloft with a homeless kitten who had taken up residence at the blacksmith’s shop, the twins come down with some barbed wire that had been stored there.  That gave me … I mean Rand… an idea.  Why not fashion a tree out of the cone shape he’d already done and add barbed wire?  But would it work?

That’s when real life came into the picture.  Fellow Filly, Linda Broday, also one of my co-authors, found a story in her local newspaper about a Christmas tree constructed from barbed wire taken from the famous XIT Ranch here in the Panhandle.  There was my answer, oops, I meant Rand’s answer!

Sallie Sinclair of Shallowater, Texas, had fashioned a Western Christmas Tree out of Brinkerhoff barbed wire from the 1800’s and decorated it with miniature boots and saddle bags, along with regulation-size sheriffs’ badges made from five-peso coins, she’d worked on over a period of time.  Because the Brinkerhoff wire could not be cut from the post, a single strand was removed from one post, rolled loosely, and unfastened from the next post down the fence line.  It was some of the original wire that the XIT had used in fencing the gigantic ranch property that had been granted to its owners when they offered to build Texas’ Capitol building in Austin as a trade for land.

Of interest, as Ms. Sinclair and her friends built the tree, the wire could only be cut to length by scoring the metal, then flexing it until it broke. I’m sure there was plenty of pricked fingers and blood, during the process.

In my story, Rand would have likely used the King of Barbed Wire, Joseph Glidden’s simple wire locked into place by twisted barbs onto a double-strand wire. His invention made the fencing more effective not only because he perfected a method for locking the barbs in place, but also because he developed the machinery to mass-produce the wire.

Back to my story, while the twins where thrilled with the tree, there was still one thing missing … a star!  That ended up being one of the easier challenges for the blacksmith, as he used his failed attempts at making cookie cutters to sculpt a cone shape where he added wings; thus, providing an angel.

At last the tree was perfect, and they shared a very Merry Christmas … and something else special.  But, you’ll have to read the book to see what else happened around the best Christmas tree in the world.

After forty-three years of Christmases with my husband, we’ve had our share of absolutely beautifully, perfect trees and some not so perfect.  One I particularly remember was special but about as ugly as they come.

We have friends who have a ranch that extends down into the bowels of the Palo Duro Canyon, so years ago we decided to cut our own tree.  It was fun, but trust me a tree from the Palo Duro compared to those grown and cut specifically for tree lots are very different.  I laugh when I think back to the pictures, and wish I could find one to add to this post, because we actually had to use duck tape to hold on some of the branches.  But, you know, kinda like Rand, Sarah, and the children, it didn’t matter because it was the most perfect tree in the world because we shared it as a family.

I’d love to hear your favorite Christmas tree story.  So, come on and share.

To one commenter, I am giving away your choice of either an autographed softback or  hardback copy of

“A Texas Christmas”.

I have a book that released this week called

A Home for Christmas

I didn’t even know it would come out for sure until the day it did. It’s an ebook and this is a brave new world for sure. People were emailing me that they’d bought it and they were reading it about ten minutes after I found out it was there.

AND it costs (brace yourselves) 99 cents.

We’re experimenting with ebooks and decided to start with a very REASONABLE price to lure people in. (that sounds diabolical, I apologize for that!)

I contains two novellas. One by me called The Sweetest Gift and one by Robin Lee Hatcher called The Christmas Angel.

Here is a little bit about the books.

When Christmas draws near Adelaide must decide if she can give up her hopes of owning a beautiful piano so her husband can have the stallion he needs for his ranch. And Graham may need to risk his perfect brood mare to show his love for his wife by buying her the Christmas gift of her dreams.

A Christmas Angel by Robin Lee Hatcher

Idaho 1892
Ten-year-old Annie Gerrard, stuck in a wheelchair since falling from the barn loft, hopes for a beautiful angel to go atop the Christmas tree, but God’s answer to her prayer is completely unexpected.

Annie’s widower father, Mick, hated to ask his in-laws for help, but he had no other choice. He never imagined they would send his wife’s stepsister, Jennifer Whitmore, to care for his daughter. Nor did he foresee the love she would bring into their home. Did he and Annie dare hope that Jennifer might choose to stay?

I just love writing novellas for the western Christmas anthologies and am always tickled when my editor invites me to participate. I’d wanted to do a train story for a long time, so when I got the call, I immediately started thinking about a train. Some stories are meant for novellas and others have enough plot for a full length book. A wise writer knows which is which. I often come up with a story idea and then tuck it away for the future, because the premise won’t sustain a full-length novel.

This time I didn’t go to those stored ideas, I sat down and brainstormed new characters. Characters always come first. Once they’re established, I know what they’ll do and how the plot will come together.

Jonah had a few other names in the process—names are a number one priority for my creative process. Without the perfect names I can’t move forward. I considered and dismissed Cole McAdam, Grady Neville, Ivan Kingsley and Jeremiah Thorpe among others. But Jonah Cavanaugh won out. He sounds like a duty-bound U.S. Marshal, doesn’t he? He’s inflexible, honorable, protective and always on the lookout for danger. With Jonah it’s all about duty.

Meredith was always Meredith. Her name came to me with the story premise, and she was the easiest to flesh out. Born into a well-to-do family with a railroad tycoon father, Meredith is living up to expectations. She doesn’t like to feel ordinary. Nothing is grand enough for her; she loves drama, and she has an adventurous spirit. She’s competent, bossy, headstrong and used to getting her own way. But while Meredith is fearless, she hides her lack of confidence regarding her true worth.

Now to get these two together.

Christmas = snow.

A few days before Christmas Jonah is protecting a gold shipment on a train pulling the Abbott’s luxury Pullman. When he spots a notorious bandit aboard, he knows there’s trouble coming, so he alerts the engineer and uncouples the last three cars, stranding the mail car, the luggage car—and the Pullman in a blizzard.

Little does he suspect the railroad heiress is traveling alone on her way to a Christmas Eve party in Denver, where her suitor will propose. Now, not only does he have a strongbox filled with gold to protect, but a pampered female—and before the day’s out—two stowaway orphans.

I had so much fun writing this story about the true meaning of Christmas and the promise of love that I believe it’s one of my favorites. If you’ve already read it, I hope you’ll leave me the gift of a comment or brief review on amazon.

If you leave an amazon review today CLICK HERE, send me a quick email: SaintJohn@aol.com and I’ll add your name to a drawing for this beautiful 50” single strand bead necklace! (The round disk beads are pale pink, which you can’t see well in my photo.)

If you haven’t read Snowflakes and Stetsons yet, here’s the link to order:

If you order today, let me know and I’ll add your name to the drawing.

Among my favorites by other authors are Mary Balough’s Christmas anthologies. Many readers tell me that the novellas are their favorite Christmas reads and they buy them all. Are you one of those readers?

“All Randall Humphrey wanted for Christmas was to be left alone and to celebrate in the only way he knew how – in solitude.  He wasn’t sure who thought up all the new fandangled Christmas festivities in Kasota Spring, Texas, but for him it only served as a reminder of the worst day of his life.”

This is the opening to my newest novella “Away in the Manager” in the anthology “A Texas Christmas” with fellow Filly, Linda Broday, along with Jodi Thomas and DeWanna Pace.  This is the fifth anthology I’ve written with these writing partners; and, found even more difficult to write about Christmas in September as it was to write the story when it was over one hundred degrees outside!

As a group, we made the decision to revisit Kasota Springs, Texas, where “Give Me a Cowboy” was set. And, yes, some of our characters from that book reappear in the new novellas. All of our Christmas stories take place during one of the big blizzards of 1887.

I immediately knew that my hero Rand would be the town’s blacksmith, since he was a second generation iron worker who had built the famous Waco Suspension Bridge that opened in 1869 in Waco, Texas. My first paragraph pretty much said it all … he wanted nothing but to be left alone to wallow in his gut-wrenching memories. But that wasn’t the way it turned out when a pretty woman and a set of four year old twins turn up at his door in the midst of the blizzard.

But, before I could write Rand, I needed to know more about the craft of blacksmithery, so a little history was at the top of my list.

Blacksmithing as a craft began with the Iron Age, when primitive man first began making tools from iron. The Iron Age began when some primitive person noticed that a certain type of rock yielded iron when heated by the coals of a very hot campfire. In short, we can say that blacksmithing, the art of crafting that crude metal into a useable implement has been around for longer than anyone can pinpoint.

The blacksmith who made suits of armor was an Armorer. The blacksmith who made knives and swords was a Bladesmith. The blacksmith who made locks was a Locksmith. The blacksmith who made gun barrels and triggers was a Gunsmith. Generally, the blacksmith we all relate to was a man who possessed all of these skills. Call him the “village smithy”. The differentiation lies mainly in that his shop was not geared for making one particular type of product. The blacksmith shop was generally the heart of the community.

The next thing I had to become familiar with was exactly how he went about his daily duties and the tools he used.  Tools were easy. They mainly consisted of an anvil, hammer, tongs, vise, files and a forge.

The forge was a raised brick hearth outfitted with bellows to feed its soft-coal fire and a hood to carry away the smoke.  The forge heated bars of iron yellow-hot. The color of the heated bars dictated at what stage it could be transformed on an anvil under the incessant beat of the blacksmith’s hammer, sometimes with the assistance of an apprentice or journeyman.  Randall used a sledge weighing around twelve pounds to hammer the heated bars into various shapes, reheat them, then pound and bend them into the desired shapes.

I thought blacksmiths basically made horseshoes, repaired carriages and made a few household items.  What a surprise I got when I found out about all the various items they produced such as agricultural implements for farmers, fireplace racks, pothooks, locks, gates, grilles, railings, light fixtures, furniture, sculpture, decorative and religious items, cooking utensils, and weapons.  They made hammerheads, axheads, shovelheads and other hand tools.

As you can imagine, in colonial America the village blacksmith was called upon to do many things. I read that some blacksmiths pulled teeth, no doubt meaning that a village without a dentist had to rely on the one man with a set of pliers!  Let’s just leave it at this. My hero wasn’t a dentist!

Despite common definitions, the person who shoes horses is a farrier rather than a blacksmith. The blacksmith makes the horseshoes. Many farriers have carried out both trades, but most modern day smithies do not.

What utensil or goods do you have around your house that would have been made by a blacksmith if we were living in the Texas Panhandle in 1889?

For one lucky commenter, I will give away a copy of “A Texas Christmas” which is scheduled to be released in October; but in the meantime, I’ll send the winner a $10.00 Gift Card to Bath and Body Works to tide them over until the book can be shipped.

I had never thought of myself as a short story writer.  But if it hadn’t been for short stories, I never would have “broken in” to this business.  I’d always wanted to write longer projects, and in fact, had written a huge saga-type western novel that I still have hopes of someday revamping (and it will take a LOT of revamping) and getting out there. That was the true book of my heart that set me on this path.  But I had a lot to learn about writing.

After sending the query and first three chapters out to several agents, I did land one. But after a year of nothing happening, I couldn’t see anything changing. I was getting very depressed, to say the least.

A friend of mine found a call for submissions from Adams Media for their Rocking Chair Reader series. This series was somewhat akin to the Chicken Soup For the Soul books, and my friend and I had already missed the deadline for the first of the series! But there was another anthology coming out as a follow up to the first one.  The second one was called, ROCKING CHAIR READER—MEMORIES FROM THE ATTIC.  These stories were true stories about something the writer had found years later that brought back memories of something that happened in childhood.  I had the perfect tale! I wrote it and submitted it, and thankfully, the editor liked it, as well. That led to several more publications with Adams Media through these anthologies, and then a few stories with Chicken Soup.

 But these stories were all based in truth, and I wanted to write fiction.  Western romance fiction.  It was shortly after that when I sold my first book, FIRE EYES, to The Wild Rose Press, and then branched out into contemporary romantic suspense with SWEET DANGER.  While writing these novels, I had been approached by a couple of publishing companies asking for fictional short stories.  But did I really want to go back to short stories?  The answer was YES. 

Writing those short stories in the beginning helped me realize that while I was adding to my portfolio of credits, I was also proving to myself that I could write compactly, in short story form.  Writing a short story is a totally different breed of cat than writing a novel. Making each word or scene count and not seeming to rush the story while doing it is something I will forever be working on, just to improve the telling of the story even more.

Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to tell a story in six words. This is what he wrote:  “Baby shoes for sale.  Never worn.”  If that doesn’t tell a story, I don’t know what does.

 Just this past month, I had three of my short stories that had been previously published in anthologies with Victory Tales Press re-released as stand-alone stories.  Two of them, SCARLET RIBBONS and HOMECOMING are western short stories, available for only .99 through their WESTERN TRAIL BLAZER imprint.  WHITE CHRISTMAS is available through Victory Tales Press for .99 as well. The best thing is…they all have JIMMY THOMAS covers. <G>

All of these stories are available at my Amazon page here:

    http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002JV8GUE 

Here’s a bit about these stories.

HOMECOMING:

 A holiday skirmish sends Union officer, Jack Durham, on an unlikely mission for a dying Confederate soldier—his enemy. As he nears his destination, the memories of the soldier’s final moments mingle with his own thoughts of the losses he’s suffered because of the War, including his fiance, Sarah. Will the miracle of Christmas be able to heal his heart in the face of what awaits him?

SCARLET RIBBONS:

Miguel Rivera is known as El Diablo, The Devil. Men avoid meeting his eyes for fear of his gun. Upon returning to a town where he once knew a brief happiness, Miguel is persuaded by a street vendor to make a foolish holiday purchase; two scarlet ribbons.

When Catalina, his former lover, allows him to take a room at her boarding house, Miguel soon discovers a secret. Realizing that he needs the scarlet ribbons after all, he is stunned to find them missing.

Can a meeting with a mysterious priest and the miracle of the Scarlet Ribbons set Miguel on a new path?

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR THE DRAWING OF YOUR COPY OF YOUR CHOICE OF ONE OF THESE THREE STORIES! I WILL PICK TWO WINNERS AFTER 8:00 P.M. THIS EVENING.