Six Bits A Day [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Elmer Kelton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 16, 2005

A Seven-time Spur Award-winning Author

Hewey Calloway, the best-loved cowboy in all of Western fiction, returns in this novel of his younger years. In 1889, Hewey and his beloved brother Walter leave the family farm to find work in the West Texas cow country. When Walter falls in love with a boarding-house girl and begins dreaming of a farmer's life, the fiddle-footed Hewey, content to work for six bits a day, jumps at the chance to rescue him from this fate worse than death.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hewey Calloway is a fun-loving cowboy who can't shoot straight; his younger brother, Walter, is a serious cowboy who, much to Hewey's horror, wants to marry a pretty girl and become a farmer. Both are looking for a job and a meal in 1889 West Texas. After being mistaken for rustlers and rescued from hanging by a friendly Texas Ranger (a terrific character from another Kelton series), the boys hire on with Mr. C.C. Tarpley's cattle ranch, working for six bits—75 cents—a day. Hewey volunteers them both to drive cattle from San Antonio back to Tarpley's ranch on the Pecos, hoping Walter will forget his fanciful notions. The trip has its share of excitement, but when their Texas Ranger friend asks for help in capturing a hard-boiled case, Hewey gets real nervous. Add some clever cattle stealing back on the Pecos, a range feud between two stubborn cattle barons, rival gangs of cowboys who would rather get drunk together and let their bosses fist-fight, and some of Hewey's pranks, and Kelton, who has more than 40 westerns to his credit, is riding high again. Not much six-gun action, but Hewey's smart mouth more than makes up for the lack of gunsmoke. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

In this treat for western fans, Kelton shows us a new side to his popular character Hewey Calloway. It's 1889, and Hewey and his brother, Walter, have left home to find work as cowboys. They hook up with cattleman C. C. Tarpley. Walter, experiencing his first taste of adult life, dreams of settling down and marrying a girl he has just met; Hewey, on the other hand thinks his brother is off his rocker. To rescue Walter from certain doom, Hewey contrives to get the two of them hired on to a cattle drive. Naturally, plenty of danger, excitement, and good-natured fun ensue. Kelton, who seems to have been writing westerns forever, never misses a step in this dusty, noisy, completely absorbing adventure. Larry McMurtry might get lots of publicity and awards for his westerns, but Kelton is just as fine a writer in the genre. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 365 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press; 1 edition (December 16, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786281448
• ISBN-13: 978-0786281442
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,148,396 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elmer Kelton of San Angelo, Texas is a native Texan and author of over 50 Western novels. He has won many awards for his work and has been recognized as the Greatest Western Writer of all time by the Western Writers of America, Inc. He is the author of Forge's Texas Ranger series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Warm hearted Western, September 7, 2009

By 

F. J. Harvey "Cricket ,country music and a go... (Birmingham England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Six Bits a Day (Hewey Calloway) (Mass Market Paperback)

This was the last of the Hewey Calloway novels to be written but ,chronologically ,it comes first in the trilogy. and should be read before the other two books in the series , " The Good Old Boys " and " The Smiling Country".

A youthful Hewey and his younger ,more staid brother Walter venture into West Texas in the late 1880's in search of work ,having been orphnaed following the death of their father.the find nought but slim pickings ,work being hard to come by .Hewey enjoys the cowboy way of life but rairoads have signalled the death of the long traail drives and they are looking for ranch based work .Walter, a more pragmatic type , aspires to marry and settle into domesticity and has an altogeher tighter grip on a dollar than the gregarious and free spending -when he has any money-Hewey .
They make friends with a Ranger ,Len Tanner and this stands them in good stead when they are engaged by two men to run cattle ,which turn out to have been stolen .It is only Tanner's intervention that saves thenm from summary execution as cattle thieves and helps them secure work with C C Tarpley ,the legitimate owner of the cattle in question .The only bugbears for Hewey are now the enmity of the esacped rustler Smith who has sworn vengeance on him , his brothers' increasing affection for Eve , a waitress in a boarding house where they briefly resided and an escalating feud between his employer and Jessup a neighbouring rancher.He gets a taste of the trail drive life when sent on a trip to San Antonio to bring back some cows ,in the charge of the cantankerous but good hearted Padgett and on the drive they befriend a discharged black cavalryma,Gabe and become embroiled in erace tension and an a potential range war.

It is an episodic novel ,warm and open hearted in tone but unafraid of touching on some serious issues such as racism and the changing economic situation in the West in which cow punchers are more often than not pawns in the hands of unreasonable and parsimonious ranchers .Hewey is the dominanat figure in the book and an untypical Western hero-guns are not his forte and he is a fun loving ,hard working uncomplicated man who loves his life while knowing petrfectly well that his world is changing and will not long endure.The humour in the book is a key feature and helps make this a Western likely to appeal to people who have little or nothing in the genre previously

5.0 out of 5 stars Elmer Kelton = Good+, December 3, 2010

By 

J. Maker "Jim" (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Six Bits a Day (Hewey Calloway) (Mass Market Paperback)

Elmer Kelton wrote about people, a story teller. He is unique and original. If you have not read one of his stories you should, "Six Bit's a Day" is good a place to start as any. He left Louis Lamour in the dust long ago! His characters are real and you come to care for them. No plastic super heroes here!

5.0 out of 5 stars Huey's view of the west, April 30, 2010

By 

Robin Moore (Northern California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Six Bits a Day (Hewey Calloway) (Mass Market Paperback)

Reading Round-Up
For this month's book, I'm recommending Six Bits a Day, by Elmer Kelton. This is the prequel to the story I told you about last month, The Good Old Boys. The same two main characters Huey and Walter Calloway are portrayed in this story as hardworking, cattle driving cowboys set on the ranches and ranges of west Texas. As always, Huey is easy going, fun loving, and doesn't care about saving a dime. His brother Walter, however, has matrimonial aims to settle down with a good woman and claim his own piece of land. Huey does his best to distract Walter from his goals by signing the two of them on to drive six hundred head of cattle back to C.C. Tarpley's Pecos River ranch. Huey's aim is to pull Walter away from the distraction of the branding fire stoked by the sweet girl who lives in the boarding house. Range wars, murderers and conniving saboteurs are out to snatch the cattle away before Huey and Walter can deliver them to C.C.'s spread.--Robin Moore