A Horse S Tale

A wooden toy horse, passed from child to child, introduces us to ten children who lived in ten different decades and different parts of Washington state. Starting with an 11-year-old on an 1890s wheat farm, this book describes the everyday life of a Native American girl sent away to boarding school, a logger's son who conquers his fear of heights, a polio victim who meets President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a Laotion immigrant settling into an American school. Includes a glossary of ethic and historical terms. A useful supplement to standard Washington state history texts.

"A Horse's Tale" is a unique and humorous work by Mark Twain, narrated from the perspective of Buffalo Bill's horse. The story is set in the American West during the late 19th century and provides a satirical look at the events and characters of that time. The novel's central character is Soldier Boy, Buffalo Bill's prized horse, who offers a witty and often sardonic commentary on the adventures and misadventures he experiences while serving as the steed of the famous frontiersman. Through Soldier Boy's eyes, readers are exposed to the quirks and foibles of the human characters he encounters, including Buffalo Bill himself, as well as Native American tribes, military figures, and various other individuals. As Soldier Boy recounts his various escapades, the novel touches on themes such as the clash of cultures in the American West, the treatment of Native Americans, and the absurdities of human behavior. Twain's signature humor and wit are on full display as he uses the horse's perspective to lampoon societal norms and human folly. "A Horse's Tale" is not as well-known as some of Twain's other works, but it offers an entertaining and unconventional narrative that provides insight into the author's satirical style and his fascination with the American frontier. It's a delightful read for those interested in Twain's unique storytelling and his ability to view the world through an unexpected lens.

In Williamsburg, Virginia, in colonial days, Lancer the horse runs loose and behaves oddly while his owner and owner's friends try everything they can think of to help him feel better, until Margaret the Milliner realizes that Lancer needs a friend, too.

This collection of horse stories draws on a wide range of locations, times and cultures, featuring tales from ancient Greece, 14th-century Mongolia, medieval France and the present day.

At the turn of the twentieth century Minnie Maddern Fiske, a New York actress, socialite, and animal rights activist, wrote to Mark Twain with an unusual request: for Twain to write about the evils of bullfighting equal to that of his anti-vivisectionist story A Dog’s Tale. Twain responded with A Horse’s Tale, a comic animal tale that doubled as a frontier adventure and political diatribe. A Horse’s Tale concerns Soldier Boy, Buffalo Bill Cody’s favorite horse, as the protagonist and sometime narrator at a fictional frontier outpost with the U.S. Seventh Cavalry. When the general’s orphaned niece arrives, Buffalo Bill takes her under his wing and ultimately lends her Soldier Boy so that they may seek adventure together. Twain uses the friendship between the girl and the horse as the basis for his eventual indictment of the barbarism of Spanish bullfighting. Twain’s novella is unusual for its complex tone—combining a comic children’s story and a dark portrait of animal cruelty. Including the themes of transatlantic relations and frontier culture, Twain offers a fresh look into the world of Buffalo Bill Cody from the perspective of one of America’s most beloved authors. First published in 1906 in Harper’s Monthly and as a single volume the following year, A Horse’s Tale never again appeared in print except in anthologies of Twain’s work. This edition includes the full text of Twain’s original story, an introduction that situates the work in historical and biographical context, thorough annotations, and the addition of significant archival material related to Twain, Cody, and Fiske.

In the world-famous travel book, "Tschiffely's Ride," the Swiss author recounted how he and his two Criollo horses, Mancha and Gato, set off from Argentina in 1924, bound for faraway Washington DC. Their legendary 10,000 mile ride took them through the mountains and jungles of South and Central America, where they encountered a host of adventures, including rope bridges, vampire bats, sand storms, treacherous mountains, quicksand and hostile natives! Now here is the same story but delivered with a new twist. For the first time in history, the story is narrated by the two equine heroes, Mancha and Gato. Their unique point of view is guaranteed to delight children and adults alike. With a preface by famed horseman R.B. Cunningham Graham, "The Tale of Two Horses" is amply illustrated with drawings by the author. No equestrian travel collection could be considered complete without this wonderful book!

The fifteen stories contained in The Power of Horses portray, each in a different way, the sensitive and enduring culture of the Dakota of the Upper Plains and convey many of the basic truths that have sustained Elizabeth Cook-LynnÕs people for countless generations. Though the stories are often filled with violence and grief, they are also brimming with beauty, gentleness, charm, and humor. In these striking and memorable tales of Dakota country, Joseph grieves that the body of his middle son will never be returned to his native shores from the distant World War I battlefields where he was killed; family members gather to bury their father and barely survive their own weaknesses and bickering; a grandmother takes her grandchild for a walk and imparts to the child some of the old wisdom of times past; a whining hound dogÑprimordial to the DakotaÑcompetes unwittingly with Reverend TilestonÕs efforts to bring the word of the Christian God to a tight-knit family, and wins; Magpie is a poet but is also on parole, and just as his friends have begun to rethink the finality of justice, he is ÒaccidentallyÓ shot and killed in the white manÕs jail. Cook-Lynn writes unsparingly yet compassionately of reservation life in the last century. In each of these gemlike stories she reveals something of the mystery and essential toughness of the Dakota people.

I am Buffalo Bill's horse. I have spent my life under his saddle—with him in it, too, and he is good for two hundred pounds, without his clothes; and there is no telling how much he does weigh when he is out on the war-path and has his batteries belted on. He is over six feet, is young, hasn't an ounce of waste flesh, is straight, graceful, springy in his motions, quick as a cat, and has a handsome face, and black hair dangling down on his shoulders, and is beautiful to look at; and nobody is braver than he is, and nobody is stronger, except myself. Yes, a person that doubts that he is fine to see should see him in his beaded buck-skins, on my back and his rifle peeping above his shoulder, chasing a hostile trail, with me going like the wind and his hair streaming out behind from the shelter of his broad slouch. Yes, he is a sight to look at then—and I'm part of it myself.I am his favorite horse, out of dozens. Big as he is, I have carried him eighty-one miles between nightfall and sunrise on the scout; and I am good for fifty, day in and day out, and all the time. I am not large, but I am built on a business basis. I have carried him thousands and thousands of miles on scout duty for the army, and there's not a gorge, nor a pass, nor a valley, nor a fort, nor a trading post, nor a buffalo-range in the whole sweep of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains that we don't know as well as we know the bugle-calls. He is Chief of Scouts to the Army of the Frontier, and it makes us very important.