When D Burns arrived at the mighty Pitchfork Ranch as the new manager in 1942, he walked straight into the hostility of a lot of long-time hands who did not much cotton to the idea of taking orders from an outsider. Gradually, though, D and his wife, Mamie, won allies and made a place for themselves on the historic spread. For the next twenty-three years Mamie jotted down stories about the cowhands, the cooks and gardeners at the Big House, the many guests, and her own lively family. Her stories reveal life as it was lived on an isolated ranch during the war years and the years of change that followed. The Pitchfork is one of Texas' largest and oldest ranches. Its Hereford cattle graze the short grasses of the big pasture part of the state, eighty miles east of Lubbock and a hundred miles north of Abilene.