Description
Austin's charming and evocative stories dramatize the legacy of conquest upon a land and its native peoples. Cocky young glaciers, contemplative pine trees, resourceful ancient Paiutes, and rabbits too clever for their own good all become companions and teachers to Alan, the young son of homsteaders in early Nevada, through the kindly but mysterious Basket Woman. She is a keeper of her people's traditions and doesn't simply tell stories: she transports her young friend into these powerful mythic tales, where Alan learns the secrets of the trees and animals and the wisdom of the people who flourished in this "land of little rain" before the arrival of foreigners from the east. While the stories make delightful and instructive reading for children, on another level they are an intense examination of the dramatic implications of a legacy of conquest upon the land and its native peoples. At eighteen Mary Austin herself had homesteaded in California during a catastrophic drought. These stories, out of print for almost a century, were written during her sometimes desperate life as young mother and wife of a failed water developer in the region east of the Sierra Nevada. The proceeds of their publication in eastern magazines and later a school text kept Austin's bankrupt family going. Austin boldly confronts the brutal environmental realities and cultural conflicts of American expansionism in the West. A preface by the author and a new foreword by Austin scholar and environmental writer Mark Schlenz provide ample context for a multilevel appreciation of one of this remarkable writer's most important works. Foreword by Mark A. Schlenz. Western Literature Series.

Reviews
"Full of symbolism, irony, and thematic subtlety, these stories contrast, in uneasy terms, the stereotypes of native life to the realities, as Austin found them. . . . Instructors in literature of the West will surely be grateful for . . . this attractive reissue of a classic work." —Elizabeth Davis, Journal of the West, Spring 2001

Contents
Foreword by Mark Schlenz
Preface
The Basket Woman—First Story
The Basket Woman—Second Story
The Stream That Ran Away
The Coyote-Spirit and the Weaving Woman
The Cheerful Glacier
The Merry-Go-Round
The Christmas Tree
The Fire Bringer
The Crooked Fir
The Sugar Pine
The Golden Fortune
The White-Barked Pine
Na'Yang-Wite, The First Rabbit Drive
Mahala Joe