[Friendship Book of a Roving Horse and Cattleman]

4½" x 7". Commercial "Autographs" book, decorated paper over boards. Pp. 96 with 46 handwritten entries, 7 small pieces of art adhered and 1 original drawing. Good plus: spine perished; front board quite loose and worn; one quire and a few pieces of art detached; scattered small stains. This is an entertaining autograph and memory book signed to one Ernest Barnes by a gaggle of friends and relatives in Kansas and Wyoming. The book is about evenly split, with earlier entries from Kansas (mostly Reamsville, Smith County) and later from towns in Wyoming including Manville, Freeland, Lost Springs and Casper. Barnes clearly attended school in Reamsville (early signers were his classmates and a teacher) but had family in nearby towns, seen in several well wishes from cousins. By 1897 he became a horse and cattleman, and a roving one at that; news blurbs through the early 1900s point out the death of his best horse, a cattle sale he held and going west "to buy a herd of horses and bring back here to sell." A few also mention his "tin house" on wheels - "When Ernest wants to move now all he has to-do is to hitch on a team and go ahead." The book contains best wishes and goodbyes, religious poems and platitudes from family, friends and folks he must have met along the way. In 1899 an E.A. Whitaker wrote, "Friend Ernest, Remember me / Think of Buffalo Creek Ranch when you are in Kansas for good feed" and an entry in German came from a Casper resident two years later. There are hopes that he "may be a noble and useful man," "prosper in all good undertakings" and "ever be on your guard against sin," the last from "Your affectionate Sister Esstella Barnes." One entry read, "Dear Friend, / May your good deeds ever spread like Butter on hot ginger bread / Roy C. Baughn" and next to it, in Mildred Baughn's childish print: "Remember when you tried to rope me from the up stairs window." A horseman's heartfelt book of well wishes from the turn of the century.…