About Abernethy's Hoein' the Short Rows

Hoein’ the Short Rows is now available as a free e-book at the UNT Digital Library and The Portal to Texas History.

If there was any pleasure at all in hoeing, it was in the short row soon hoed rather than the one that in the day’s high heat seemed to stretch to shimmering eternity. And that’s what this collection of Texas folklore is, a series of short rows, easily and pleasantly hoed, promising a great crop as a reward for the reader’s labors.

Here are high toned women and hayburners, loud pipes and calaveras, brown derbies and battles royal. And, oh yes, Welsh mains. And if these seem like unfamiliar rows, they are nonetheless pleasantly hoed, and in the process much will be learned about railway lingo; the machismo of cockfighting and of the customized pickup; the aesthetic, didactic, and mystical aspects of baptistry paintings in Texas churches; the ways some folk honor the Dead on their Day.

There are humorous recollections of religious mores; the summer ritual of the revival meeting; the rowdier ritual of a hog drive; and sagas of families and the Santa Rita rig, poetry by cowboys and common folk alike in this rich acreage.