A cowboy struggles to adapt to the modern world in 1910s Texas. Hewey Calloway finds it difficult to accept fences, cars and, worst of all--sheep. Also, he is advancing in years, though here there is a consolation, he is teaching the trade to his nephew.

The Good Old Boys and The Smiling Country pairs two wonderful novels by one of the most honored of all western writers, Elmer Kelton The Good Old Boys Hewey Calloway has a problem. He wants to be a footloose cowboy, endlessly wandering the land on horseback, but the open range of his childhood is slowly disappearing. Land is being parceled out, barbed-wire fences are springing up all over, and cars are replacing the horse as a mode of transportation. Swimming against the tide of “progress,” Hewey begins to understand that the time of the cowboy is over, that the life he dreams of has become part of the past. He must find a new path to happiness—one that may require a great sacrifice. The Smiling Country It is now 1910 and Hewey Calloway’s freewheeling life is coming to an end—the fences, trucks, and automobiles he hates are even creeping in to remote Alpine in the “smiling country” of West Texas. When he is badly injured trying to break a renegade horse, Hewey’s regrets over his lost love, schoolteacher Spring Renfro haunt him as he sees the loneliness that awaits him. The Smiling Country is filled with humor, love, and the lore of the cowboy life at a time when the great, free, open ranges of the West were adjusting to a new, technological era. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

"The Smiling Country is about a footloose puncher who finds out the hard way that cowboys don't remain young forever and that the inevitable wear and tear of a rugged life forces changes and compromises on the willing and unwilling alike."— Elmer Kelton Hewey Calloway did not know how old he was without stopping to figure, and that distracted his attention from matters of real importance. Elmer Kelton introduced Texas cowboy Hewey Calloway, one of the most beloved characters in Western fiction, almost thirty years ago in The Good Old Boys. The novel was transformed into a memorable 1995 TV film starring Tommy Lee Jones and Sissy Spacek. Hewey returns in The Smiling Country. It is 1910 and his freewheeling life is coming to an end—the fences, trucks, and automobiles he hates are creeping in even to remote Alpine, in the "smiling country" of West Texas. When he is badly injured trying to break a renegade horse, Hewey sees the loneliness that awaits him, and regrets his decision to run away from the only woman he has ever loved, the schoolteacher Spring Renfro. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Confronted by the changes of the modern era, Hewey, an open range cowboy, had made decisions he felt would best suit the new world of the early twentieth century, yet four years later, he remains haunted by his choices and struggles to make things right o