Get Along, Little Dogies: The Chisholm Trail Diary of Hallie Lou Wells

by Lisa Waller Rogers

Book Overview

NoonGabby, Dovey, Gussie, and I were frosting lemon cookies when we felt the rumble. It was like an earthquake. We rushed outside. Without my bonnet to shield the sun's glare, I couldn't see at first. I had to squint. To the southwest, I saw a thick cloud of dust rolling our way. The low rumble we had heard in the kitchen had, by then, become deafening thunder. Thousands of hooves pounded the earth. It was the herd running toward us. It looked like a great brown river.. . . The roundup was done. The men were home with the cattle.It's spring of 1878 on the Rockin' W in South Texas, and Hallie Lou Wells is as cross as any fourteen-year-old redhead has a right to be. Her teacher says she has to memorize page 112 of Webster's School Dictionary; her most exciting decision is whether to wear her peach organdy or blue silk to the dance; and only boys can go on trail drives.But in country where anything can happen, something does. When Hallie's mother discovers she's having another baby, Hallie's father decides not to join the trail drive to Dodge City, and Hallie convinces him to let her represent the family's interests at the point of sale. So begins an adventure well worth chronicling.The first of the Lone Star Journals by Lisa Waller Rogers, Hallie's Chisholm Trail diary is filled with adventures that will engage any middle reader, girl or boy, and is so rich in its depiction of ranch and trail life in the late 1870s that it should make any reading list, Texas or national.Following Hallie's diary is a historic summary of life along the Chisholm Trail in 1878, complete with photographs and map, useful to young readers and teachers alike.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0896724468
• ISBN13: 9780896724464
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: Texas Tech University Press
• Length: 174 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 7.3"
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7

Customer Reviews

Exciting cowboy tale for girls

This book is wonderfully written and well researched (many of the locales are familiar to me as an Austin resident). It has all the elements of a great story -- adventure, danger, intrigue, romance -- while remaining realistic and wholesome. My 9-year-old daughter has already read it twice!

A girl's diary of her adventures on the Chisholm Trail.

Fourteen-year-old Hallie Lou Wells is the daughter of a wealthy rancher in South Texas in 1878. At their mother's insistence, Hallie and her little sister are learning to be proper young ladies. But they are also learning how to run the ranch someday. When her father decides not to go on the annual cattle drive so that he can stay home with his pregnant wife, Hallie persuades him to let her go in his place, along with her servant and best friend, Dovey Mae. Along the trail, the two girls face the dangers of rattlesnakes, storms, river crossing, hostile Indians, outlaws, and illness. But Hallie becomes a braver, stronger person, and even experiences the joy of love. Told through the form of a diary kept by Hallie, this book was very similar to the Dear America series, and I would reccomend it to all fans of that series.