Bolly Weddle - Book By Lewis B. Miller

Synopsis:

Penniless and fatherless, Bolly Weddle arrives with his sick mother and six younger siblings. The city is St. Louis, the time is late nineteenth century, the weather is bitter cold, and their means of transportation is an old rickety covered-wagon drawn by two lean, gaunt, and starving cows. They must find shelter from the raging blizzard, and must find help for their fast-worsening mother. But where will they find a doctor that will work without pay? Bolly offers a goat as pay to a young doctor and hears the scornful reply, “Who do you think I am - a country Jake of a farmer?”. Luckily Bolly happens upon a doctor who also has his roots in the country and is willing to help. This story chronicles what happens when the country boy goes to the city. The author describes in minute detail the advantages of dealing honestly with your fellow man versus the grab and growl attitude that is too often found in everyday city life. Perhaps the reader can decide if the city was better for having the country boy, or if the country boy was better for having the city.

About the Author:

Among the least known but better authors of tales of adventure in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century era was Texan Lewis B. Miller, whose stories appeared in serial form in a weekly farm paper, The National Stockman and Farmer, and a regional edition of the publication, The Pennsylvania Stockman and Farmer. Lewis B. Miller was born at Blocker Creek, Cooke County, Texas, on May 27, 1861. His father’s name was Henry Miller and his mother Lurilla Osburn Miller. He received his early education in frontier schools in Texas. In 1881 he obtained an A.B. degree at Texas Christian University. He moved to Marlin, Texas, in 1931, apparently to live with relatives, and died there on July 26, 1933. He was buried at Hico, Texas, which is about 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth. Lewis B. Miller was an excellent writer with a good education, and his stories were very accurate from a geographical and historical standpoint. He wrote adult, young adult tales of adventure, dealings with frontier life, cattle driving. His base writing is about the southwest frontier pushing civilization into the wild west, French and Spanish territories or into the Indian’s hunting grounds. Besides frontier life, his novels cover a wide field of subjects, such as: homesteading, trapping, hunting, fur trading, logging, rafting, gold-seeking, Indian life and about all that confronted frontier life which most Americans have forgotten and many have never known. Many early American statesmen and patriotic pioneers appear in his stories, who are authentic. The frontier stories involved confrontation with the Indians and the hard life of the pioneers. Due to the fact that Miller’s stories appeared originally only in a farm weekly, they did not receive a wide circulation and thus remained unknown to much of the reading public. This neglect has been partially corrected by a small church foundation press in Pennsylvania. They have published a number of soft cover reprints of his work and more are pending. For those who collect adventure books for the pleasure of reading, there can be no better investment than in Lewis B. Miller tales.

By Robert E. Walters