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Show Page 31 But Annie Oakley wore cloth skirts and blouses. It was up to Ann Bassett to introduce the soft,fringed buckskins as an outfit for cowgirls. It is Ann Bassett who deserves to be called "The Original Cowgirl." After several years at St. Mary's, Ann went to a select finishing school in Boston, Miss Potter's School for Girls. She expected a joyful experience, similar to the one she had had in Salt Lake City, She was disappointed. Ann found Miss Potter's School "unbearably disagreeable" and spent most of her time keeping things in an uproar. As an expert horsewoman, she particularly detested the compulsory riding lessons given by a French ridingmaster and taught on decrepid old nags wearing sidesaddles. One morning Ann felt rebellion in her soul. I was perched like a monkey on a stick ["she wrotej atop of a locoed old sabine gelding with one glass eye. I threw my right leg up over the side-saddle and raked his flanks. Then uttering a wild yell that must have scared him half to death, I put him through several range stunts while the girls screamed with glee. The ridingmaster ran up, demanding that Ann dismount. But by that time Ann was too riled up. She swung the horse |