Jennie "Little Britches" Stevens

            On Sunday morning my hip muscles were back to feeling crappy. I think sitting bothers them as much as riding, so maybe I should be walking. But if I walk too much my ankle bothers me.

            I finished writing my alternative English version of my English version of Serge Gainsbourg’s Frankenstein. I still have to see how it fits will I’m singing and playing it and so there might still be some lyrical tweaks here and there.

            I had a toasted English muffin with cheese, cucumber and lettuce for lunch.

            I spent a lot of time getting caught up on my journal.

            I took a short bike ride around the neighbourhood in the late afternoon and wore shorts for the first time this year. When I got home I did some exercises for my piriformis.

            I had an egg and toast with a beer and watched two episodes of Stories of the Century.

            The first story was about Janet McCall, who came to be known as Little Britches. In this story it says that everyone called her that because she always wore men’s clothing. She lives with her homesteader father who is away when an outlaw named Dave Ridley shows up after he and his gang robbed a train. They fall for each other and she runs away with him. In Diablo he hooks up with his gang leader Kerwin who tells him he has to send Janet home. Dave quits to be with Janet but Kerwin refuses to pay, punches Dave and rides off. Dave decides to hold up the bank but Janet takes charge and does it herself. They get away as the law arrives and split up. Dave is shot and killed and Janet is captured. Kerwin busts her out and they go into business together as Kerwin has saved enough to buy the Wood River Freight Company. They become lovers. The law catches up with them for previous crimes while they are driving their freight wagons. Kerwin is sentenced to hang and Janet is sent for three years to the federal reformatory in Massachusetts. She ended up doing settlement work at a gospel mission in the New York slums.

            Janet McCall was played by Gloria Winters, who at 18 played Babs Riley the teenage daughter of William Bendix’s character on the sitcom The Life of Riley. After that she played Penny, the niece of Sky King on that series. She was on the last season of Sky King when she played Little Britches and she retired after that show ended having already married the sound engineer. In 1964 she wrote “Penny’s Guide to Charm and Popularity”, an etiquette book for young girls.

            The real Little Britches was named Jennie Stevens and she along with her friend Cattle Annie first became fascinated with the Doolin Gang from dime store novels. She seemed to be a kind of outlaw groupie. They finally met The Wild Bunch at a community dance. In addition to helping out the Wild Bunch they sold whiskey and stole horses. They were caught in 1895. Jennie briefly escaped but was captured again. She did spend two years in the Massachusetts Correctional Institution but she did not become a charity worker in New York. She went back to her parents in Oklahoma. Nothing is known about her life after that.

            The second story was about Black Jack Ketchum. He and his gang were train robbers and extortionists. The story begins with the gang being attacked by lawmen. Blackjack tells the gang to get out anyway they can and meet him at the Cullen ranch in New Mexico. Black Jack arrives there first and is greeted by 18-year-old Eddie Cullen whose father rode with Black Jack until he was killed. Eddie wants to join the gang like his father did and since Black Jack has just lost a few men in the gunfight, he lets Eddie join. Black Jack learns that a former gang member named Andrew Stone, after being released from prison went into the oil business and became rich. Black Jack decides to extort money from him. He threatens to destroy his oil tanker cars while they are travelling by train unless Stone pays $10,000 by a certain date. The authorities are notified. Two days before the deadline Black Jack decides to blow up a tank car anyway to show Stone he means business. He successfully blows it up but Eddie is captured. Eddie refuses to give out any information to the sheriff. Eddie is released because of lack of evidence but he overhears them talk about Stone’s oil being shifted from a train to a stagecoach route. Eddie tells Black Jack, not realizing that it’s a trap set by the authorities. Eddie goes home and his mother reveals that his father was not simply killed in a shootout with the law while working for Black Jack. Black Jack sent him out to draw fire in order to save himself. Eddie doesn’t believe her. Ketchum’s gang sets fire to the route ahead of the freight coaches but it’s a trap. The gang is cornered and Black Jack sends one of his men out to draw fire and he is cut down. He then tells Eddie to go out but he refuses. They fight and they are both captured. In the end they are sentenced to hang but Black Jack tells them Eddie had nothing to do with it and the boy is released into his mother’s custody until he turned 21.

            The real Tom Ketchum was born in Texas and began his adult life as a cowboy in New Mexico. He and a gang might have robbed their first train in 1892. They would often hide out at the ranch of Herb Bassett, the father of Josie and Ann Bassett. Bassett would often sell outlaws beef and fresh horses. Ann’s boyfriend Ben Kirkpatrick started riding with Black Jack around that time. There were several robberies and shootouts with the law. In 1896 Ketchum joined the Hole in the Wall Gang. Several outlaw gangs would converge at Hole in the Wall, New Mexico and would sometimes work together. The gang was involved in two major shootouts with the law in close procession, the second, which Black Jack was not part of, resulting in the death of Black Jack's brother Sam. In 1899 Black Jack tried to rob a train all by himself. The conductor shot him in the arm with a shotgun and it had to be amputated. In 1901 he was hanged in Clayton, New Mexico. His last words were, “Goodbye. Please dig my grave very deep. All right, hurry up!” Because the authorities there were inexperienced at hanging they used a rope that was too long and so when he dropped he fell fast enough for the noose to pull his head off. It was sewed back on for public viewing.