THE COURAGE OF A BOY CHILD in Texas is equated with his balls. It’s a crude metaphor, but it declines to go away. Male Texans are supposed to be rough, tough, and ready for whatever comes down the pike. In the 1830’s the makers of this myth gave up the relative safety of life in the United States and, allied with a few independent-minded Mexican settlers, risked all they had on reports of well-watered timberlands and prairies that billowed in the wind like ocean waves. When the Mexican claimants to that wilderness turned out to be bullies and despots, why, Texans licked their army and kicked them out without help from anybody. And then we beat back the ferocious Indians who had denied the Spaniards…The post Kid Gloves appeared first on Texas Monthly.