by Duane Spurlock
Chip, of the Flying U by B.M. Bower (Thorndike, Maine: Center Point Publishing, 2003 [originally published: New York: G.W. Dillingham Co., 1906]).
I'd seen mentions of B.M. Bower and her Flying U novels for a few years without trying one. A number of her westerns have turned up in new large print editions in recent years, so I tried Chip, of the Flying U. This was not her first novel, but it was the first to gain wide popular success, and it launched the rest of Bower's writing career. Chip is one of that group of early westerns that founded the literary genre that's come to us today. Owen Wister's The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains was published in 1902. Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage was published in 1912. Chip was published solidly between these two literary benchmarks in 1906.
Although first appearing between these two trend-setting works of romanticized myth-making, Chip — while it leans on the romanticized image of the cowboy — does not carry the brand of the romanticized mythic western that marks The Virginian and Purple Sage. In Bower's novel there are no rustlers, no land-grabbing barons, no crooked sheriff, no gunfights. Chip is a romantic tale — perhaps more in line with some of the romantic westerns published today by Harlequin — with a cattle ranch setting that might fit right in with Andy Adams' Log of a Cowboy (Boston : Houghton Mufflin, 1903).
Bower was born Bertha Muzzy in Minnesota in 1871. She moved to Montana with her family when she was 17. She was a school teacher in the Great Falls area. She married her first husband, Clayton J. Bower, when she was 19. ( A Montana cowpuncher named "Fiddle Back" Sinclair was her second, and Robert Ellsworth Cowan was her third husband.) Although she began writing short stories in 1900, Chip was her first true success. She continued writing and publishing until her death in 1940.
The character of Chip is thought to be based on western artist Charles Russell, who illustrated Chip and three other Bower novels (The Lure of the Dim Trails, The Range Dwellers, The Uphill Climb). Russell denied the connection, but apparently no one believed him.
The story involves the hands of the Flying U ranch. Della, sister of the ranch owner, has completed her medical degree at a school in the East and is coming to the ranch to hang her shingle. Chip, a cowboy for the ranch, has sworn off women, but he and Della enter into a love-hate relationship worthy of a Tracy & Hepburn film. When a riding accident leaves Chip in bed to mend for many weeks, Della prompts him to take up her paints and easel, and his future seems made. By the time the two finally have their First Big Smooch at the end of the book, the reader knows everything will end Happily Ever After.
Chip is a pleasant read. Its scenes of ranch life and the boisterous ways of cow punchers ring true. The humor is good-natured and enjoyable a century later. One might sum up the book by saying it's wholesome and entertaining. I enjoyed it enough that I'm going to try out some other Bower novels.
Links:
There are a variety of editions of Chip available at Amazon. Click here to check out a version that may suit your tastes.
You can learn more about B.M. Bower at The Literature Network by clicking here; this page at the University of Oklahoma Libraries, which houses the B.M. Bower Collection; and you can find some online texts of her books at the Project Gutenberg site by clicking here.
Posted by ds at February 8, 2007 09:00 PM
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