I’ll Tell You a Tale
An Anthology
I'll Tell You a Tale is a garland of some of Frank Dobie's best writing, put together by Isabel Gaddis, one of his former students at the University of Texas. The tales included are those the author himself liked best, and he even rewrote some of them especially for this anthology. Ben Carlton Mead has contributed 32 original line drawings to illustrate the stories.
These tales spring from the soil and folklore of our land; but more than this, they make the readers contemporary with the times, filling us with the wonder of something past and yet still with us. They are arranged topically into sections whose titles speak for them: "The Longhorn Breed," "Mustangs and Mustangers," "The Saga of the Saddle," "Characters and Happenings of Long Ago," "Animals of the Wild," "In Realms of Gold," and "Ironies."
J. Frank Dobie (1888–1964) was a folklorist and author of many books about Texas life and culture.
- The Author's Intrusion
- The Longhorn Breed
- Sancho's Return
- Bill Blocker's Lead Steer
- Tablecloth—Outlaw
- Stampede on the Cimarron
- The Man Who Hung Hisse'f
- The Maverick Branded Murder
- The Bull Who Was Not
- Bulls at a Waterhole on the Ramireña
- Cow Music
- Mustangs and Mustangers
- The Pacing White Steed of the Prairies
- Black Devil
- Blue Streak
- Alacrán
- Mustang Gray
- The Mustanger Who Turned Mustang
- The Headless Horseman of the Mustangs
- Running with the Wild Mares
- The Saga of the Saddle
- Little Aubry's Ride
- Chester Evans and Prince
- The Marqués de Aguayo's Vengeance
- I Remember Buck
- Characters and Happenings of Long Ago
- Tom Gilroy's Fiddler
- The Dream That Saved Wilbarger
- Bigfoot Wallace and the Hickory Nuts
- The Robinhooding of Sam Bass
- Yaller Bread and Pa'tridge Pie
- Taller and Too Much Pepper
- Esau the Hunter
- Animals of the Wild
- The Voice of the Coyote
- Old Crip
- Playing Possum
- Magician with Chickens
- Brother Coyote and Brother Cricket
- The Panther's Scream
- Baby-Hungry
- Befriended by a Panther
- Pablo Romero Roped a Bear
- The Bear Who Fattened His Own Pork
- In a Hollow Tree with a She Bear
- Bear Nights in Mexico
- Diamond Bill, Confederate Ally
- In Realms of Gold
- The Broken Metate
- Where the Gleam Led Captain Cooney
- Pedro Loco
- In a Drouth Crack
- The Mezcla Man
- The Rider of Loma Escondida
- General Mexhuira's Ghost
- Midas on a Goatskin
- Ironies
- A Machete with a History
- Godmother Death and the Herb of Life
- No Blue Bowl for Panchito
- Whence These Tales Have Come
- Glossary of Spanish-Mexican Words