Speckles (Freckles)

DESCRIPTION: "He was little 'en peaked 'en thin 'an Narr't a no 'account horse" (sic). The singer describes meeting (Freckles) many years ago, and being surprised by the gameness of this "no account" horse (which managed to rescue him from a party of Indians)
AUTHOR: N. Howard Thorp
EARLIEST DATE: 1908 (Thorp/Logsdon-SongsOfTheCowboys)
KEYWORDS: horse cowboy Indians(Am.)
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Thorp/Fife-SongsOfTheCowboys XXIII, pp. 254-257 (48-50), "Speckles" (2 texts, the second being an extension of the first); Thorp/Logsdon-SongsOfTheCowboys, pp. 142-145, "Speckles" (1 text)
Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest, p. 400, "Speckles" (1 text)
Roud #8044
NOTES [65 words]: Another Thorp composition that had little play in tradition. Even so, it has a variant reading; the author couldn't decide whether the horse was named "Speckles" or "Freckles"! Based on the notes in Thorp/Logsdon-SongsOfTheCowboys, I would guess the horse was originally "Freckles,' but Thorp changed it to "Speckles" to honor P. A. Speckman, who printed the first version of Thorp's book. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: TF23

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